People in Sports 🏀🏈⚽ English Vocabulary with JenniferESL

Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English  with Jennifer. Do you know as a child,  

I didn't play sports, but I cheered for those  who did. I was a cheerleader. I didn't do the  

impressive gymnastics that today's cheerleaders  do. I did jumps and simple stunts. We learned  

dance routines, and we yelled chants like  d-e-f-e-n-s-e defense. Through cheerleading,  

I gained familiarity with American football  and basketball. When my children entered  

the sports world, I learned about hockey and  soccer. There are words that are used across  

sports. In this short lesson, we're going to  focus on the names of people in the sports world.

An athlete is someone who plays sports. Athlete.  There are team sports and individual sports.

A coach leads a team. There can be one main coach  and others who help. We call them the head coach  

and assistant coaches.

The players use "Coach" as a form of address.

Coach. The players themselves can be grouped  by importance. Those who start the game are  

the starters or the starting lineup. Others  stay on the bench, waiting for their turn.

In professional sports,  athletes work with trainers.  

Those are people who work with athletes to develop  their strengths and skills. Trainer, trainers.

There can be overlap between  a coach and a trainer,  

but I see a coach as someone who trains the  players, but also makes decisions during a game.

Trainers mainly work with athletes outside  of the game, outside of an event. I'd say  

that many athletes in individual sports have a  trainer, like boxers. Most sports are spectator  

sports. When life is normal and there's no  global pandemic, spectators fill up stadiums  

and arenas to watch sports events. A spectator  is someone who watches. A fan is someone who  

cheers because they love a team or a specific  athlete. Spectator, spectators. Fan, fans.

At a live game, there are commentators. A  commentator comments and narrates all the action  

play-by-play. It's not an easy job. A sports  commentator gives details about what's happening  

and recalls information about  each player's background.

In contrast, a sports analyst talks about the game  

after it happens. They evaluate the  players and the teams. Say "commentator."

Sports commentator.

Analyst. Sports analyst.

All sports have rules. Team sports need officials.  We call them referees or ref for short. Referee,  

referees. Ref, refs.

They make sure the players follow the rules.  

In baseball, the main official  is called the umpire. Umpire.

In sports competitions, we have judges.  Judge, judges. They give scores to athletes  

and determine the winners. We see judges at  gymnastic events or snowboarding competitions.

Everyone who does a sport is an athlete.  

More specifically, when you play a game you're  a player: a basketball player, a hockey player,  

a tennis player, a football  player, a baseball player.

For athletes who do other sports, we  take the verb and add -er: swimmer,  

skater, fencer, wrestler, boxer, runner, golfer.

And there are sports where the participant  has a name ending in -ist or -ast,  

like cyclist, martial artist, gymnast.

We'll end here. I hope  you'll more easily recognize  

all the people in the sports world now in English.  

Please like the video if you found it useful. As  always, thanks for watching and happy studies!

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