‘I’m proud of what I achieved; I’m also ashamed of what I done’: a soccer coach’s tale of sport, status, and criminal behaviour

The purpose of this study was to explore the life of John (a pseudonym), a soccer coach working with disadvantaged young people. Six open-ended life history interviews over a ten week period ranging between 45 and 75 min were conducted. John described how soccer was fully entwined with aspects of his former delinquent and criminal lifestyle, including missing school lessons to play soccer, the fusion of soccer and youth violence, and competing in teams with local criminals. On the other hand, a soccer programme for people with limited opportunities helped him leave behind a life of delinquency, gang fighting, and selling drugs. Moreover, he came to understand that soccer could help him satisfy his desire for social recognition and fit with a relational narrative in a more socially legitimate way. This study provides an insight into how soccer was used to thwart a soccer coach’s formal criminal lifestyle, and also warns against uncritical assumptions that sport can serve as a panacea for deviant behaviour

The importance of disaggregating within-person changes and individual differences among internalized motives, self-esteem and self-efficacy

Grounded in self-determination theory, this study examined the implications of differentiating between within-person weekly changes and between-person differences in average levels of autonomy support and internalized motivation for one’s self-esteem and self-efficacy. Thirty-nine adults who were socially disadvantaged and unemployed completed weekly questionnaire assessments over 11-weeks of a sports-based educational program. Multilevel modeling revealed that within-person changes in perceptions of autonomy support positively predicted identified regulation and introjected regulation; however, between-person differences in perceived autonomy support predicted identified regulation only. Within-person changes in introjected regulation positively predicted global self-esteem and self-efficacy towards future employment in coaching; however, between-person differences in introjected regulation negatively predicted self-esteem and self-efficacy. In contrast, within-person changes in identified regulation, as well as between-person differences, were positively associated with self-efficacy. Between-person differences in identified regulation also positively predicted self-esteem. It was also demonstrated that many of these contrasting relationships are hidden if the different processes are not disaggregated. As a result, we propose that different internalization processes exist which depend on whether within-person changes or sustained levels of motivation are explored