Pay for Play: High Stake and Mental State

by Joe Hall, Terence Newman (Foreword)

In "Pay for High Stake and Mental State," Joe L. Hall Jr. uses his first book to introduce himself to the reader. The publication sheds light on the journey of Hall from childhood to current day as he navigated his way through personal, professional and family struggles. Hall, the counselor, former professional athlete, and current Director of Football Student-Athlete Development at Kansas State University, delivered this preliminary work to give his take on the world of athletic competition and stigma related to mental health issues.

The book's aim is to contribute to the field of sports and athletics and provide insight into reasons for the growing concerns regarding the mental and physical health of our participants. Hall has provided his version of a roadmap that all young student-athletes and their parents should be incorporating as standard procedure.

Hall shares a vision of connectedness and development from his standpoint inside of the machine known as intercollegiate athletics. The book provides some statistics and reference for the information but is mainly supported by experience and perspective from an individual who has spent nearly his entire existence associated with the world of sports.

The reader is provided with access into the author's mind state as he attempted to make sense of his internal discourse. Hall invites you into a battle between cultural beliefs and scientific explanations that created confusion throughout his life. Positioned to offer support for current athletes of all ages, Hall advocates for greater education for those with access to the younger generation of aspiring athletes. In the book, there is a call for a shift in mindset of the institutional leaders who have the tendency to follow outdated and harmful procedures.

Joe L. Hall Jr. is a father of four children. All entrenched in their own phases of academics and athletic competition. The oldest of Hall's children is a freshman in college and a member of Kansas State's Football team. According to Hall, and not that he was looking for one, but his son's commitment to the sport made these issues even more real.

402 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2022

About the author

Joe Hall is the author of five books of poetry, including Someone's Utopia (2018) and Fugue & Strike (forthcoming). His poems, reviews, and scholarship have appeared in Poetry Daily, The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Postcolonial Studies, Peach Mag, terrain.org, PEN America Blog, Poetry Northwest, Ethel Zine, Gulf Coast, Best Buds! Collective, and Eighteenth-Century Fiction. He has taught poetry workshops for teachers, teens, and workers through Just Buffalo and the WNYCOSH Worker Center.

http://www.blackocean.org/hall/