Jocelyn Enriquez

ENC 1101- 0026

Professor Sam

25 October 2023

Managing a Football Team to Volunteering

There are always discourse communities all around us. Discourse communities are as

Melzer states, “…the concept of “discourse community” to describe a community of people who

share the same goals, the same methods of communicating, the same genres, and the same lexis”

(Melzer 102). Many people do not realize that they are in a discourse community without even

thinking about it. By being in your group of friends or family, you are part of a discourse

community. The discourse communities I will be using today will be on the same aspect but at

quite various levels. I have been part of my high school football team as a team manager for

three years and when I got into the University of Central Florida, I started to volunteer for a

specific area in their football program. I started in high school at the top level running the team

to just being a regular volunteer trying to climb the ladder. Becoming a part of these discourse

communities, as in the managers at my high school football team and the athletic trainers at my

college, has had such an amazing effect on my life because it has made me the person I am today

and has taught me so many new things.

When I started managing my high school football team it was easy even though when I

first started, I truly did not know anything about football. I came into this community very lost at

first but soon I started to understand. If I truly explain to someone what I did on a normal basis

for six days a week they would believe I was insane for voluntarily doing that. But I did
extremely enjoy everything I did for the team and do not regret a single moment at all. The more

experience I gained, the more I knew. It was to the point where I had a greater knowledge of

football than the average person. I started to learn many distinct aspects and the behind the

scenes of the game football. Although I had many goals, other people would not have done it as

efficiently as I did. Some people tried to join and be a part of the managers of the football team,

but they could not understand or truly see how us as a community worked. It was an amazing

experience that I still love to this day because it showed me what I wanted to do in life.

Message between the head coach and me.

As this example of me having a conversation with the coach seems manageable to do. For

me since I was always around everyone, already knew the sizes, and could just walk up to them,

it was not extremely difficult. People outside of this community would have to try and find a way

to contact all these people to get what they needed. This is why this was a discourse community.

As Melzer says in “Understanding Discourse Communities” it tells, “One reason that Swales

uses the term “discourse” instead of “writing” is that the term “discourse” can mean any type of
communication, from talking to writing…” (Melzer 103). The best part about this community is

that it is not just through text but mostly in person. This is why I believe it is a little harder to be

able to achieve the objectives of this part. Since many people need to put a lot of their time and

attention into this football team. As I said before, many of the things I used to do were not a

difficult objective, the coach knew that I was the person for the job because of how long I have

been in this community. If I were to give this to someone that was a part of a completely

different club, they would have a challenging time trying to find everything that they needed. In

this discourse community it truly was not hard to join or manage but it can be shown that there

can only be a certain type of people to be part of it.

As I started this semester as a volunteer for the athletic trainers and sports medicine

students for the University of Central Florida’s football team, I started to notice that it was vastly

different from how it was back in high school. In a college level there are areas for every

objective I had to do for high school but in a higher level. As of now I am just a volunteer so I

am not able to help the players with their injuries, but I can help the athletic trainers set up and

keep the players hydrated. I also am now able to observe athletic trainers do several types of

treatment for different injuries. In this discourse community it was more exclusive than the one

in high school. People part of this group need to have some kind of knowledge of football, the

diverse types of injuries the players can have, and how to treat those injuries. This type of

community is one that many people do not really know how to get in or even have the

knowledge for it.

In the text message, one of the athletic trainers is telling all the sports medicine students

on how to correctly use the treatment equipment that they use for the athletes. As Melzer uses an

example in the article “Understanding Discourse communities” he states, “To anyone who wasn’t

a musician, our guitar meet-ups might have sounded like we were communicating in a foreign

language.” (Melzer 105). If I were to show this to someone that was in a business major, they

would have no understanding what this person is talking about. Even some of the athletes do not

even know how it works or how it makes them feel better. This can go for any discourse

community and especially the one I am in is inclusive to people. My discourse community has

only a group of people that know what this is about and can be part of it. Not everyone can be

part of this community and it is one that I am happy to be a part of. As Melzer said in his

example of him being a part of his guitar community, he stated that the language they choose to

speak does not discourage others from joining. It is for the people in the community to fully

understand each other as a group (Melzer 105). Being a part of the volunteers with the athletic

trainers for the University of Central Florida football team, it is a lot of knowledge to gain and
need to already have. This is just one of the many conversations that I have had while

volunteering and I know now that not everyone can truly see what we do as a community.

The effects of the artifacts were different for each one. As the one from when I was a

manager of the football team, I was able to finish it in the hour and the coach was able to get

what needed to be done. The article “What Can I Add to Discourse Communities?” it says,

“Perhaps, you are a leader in one discourse community and more of a listener in another. Maybe

you’re louder and more opinionated…” (Tremain 88). As the social actor I played a crucial role

in the discourse community, and it really did affect the team and myself. I was able to give the

team everything they needed and wanted and to this day they still thank me for everything.

However, for my community at the University of Central Florida I am at a lower level on the

social actors. There are many people that are at a higher level than me in this community and that

is helpful for me so I can continue to learn more. Melzer puts the word perfectly as he says, “The

most experienced players also helped educate everyone on the conventions of the group” (Melzer

105). The more experienced people were able to see this message and fix what needed to be done

so they created an impact for the team. However, this changed me by them showing me how to

do things as well. This helps me understand more what to do with the players and the different

instruments we use. Both made impacts on the people around us but my part in each community

was quite different.

Overall, discourse communities can happen anywhere at any time. These are the two big

discourse communities that I have been part of my life so far. Managing the football team at my

high school affected me to be able to even be a volunteer for the University of Central Florida

football team. I have been able to have the knowledge I already know and use it on something on

a higher level and still learn many new things. The community that is being most impacted has
changed but only to a higher level of football. These have both taught me so well and have

helped the other communities around us.

Melzer, Dan. "Understanding discourse communities." Writing Spaces: Readings on

Writing 3 (2020): 100-15.

Tremain, Lisa. "6 What Can I Add to Discourse Communities? How Writers Use Code-

Meshing and Translanguaging to Negotiate Discourse." Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing

Volume 5: 87.