Exploring the Impact of Coaches’ Emotional Abuse on Intercollegiate Student-Athletes’ Experiences

Despite widespread anecdotal accounts of coaches’ emotional abuse in intercollegiate sports, empirical literature is lacking. To address this gap, the present exploratory study was designed to explore how former intercollegiate student-athletes interpreted experiences of emotionally abusive coaching. Former female NCAA and NJCAA student-athletes (N = 14; Mage = 25.3 years) took part in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Data were interpreted using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The final product of the research was a three-stage grounded theory explaining how former student-athletes interpret their experiences of emotional abuse over time organized into sections on antecedents to abuse, experiences and actions within the abusive program, and after the abuse. Implications for this work include the idea that individual student-athletes may have different experiences and recollections of coaches’ emotionally abusive behavior and that intercollegiate student-athletes are able to discern between “hard, but fair” coaching practices and emotionally abusive coaching practices

Parent Involvement in Young Adults’ Intercollegiate Athletic Careers: Developmental Considerations and Applied Recommendations

Student-athletes have to balance their sport, academic, and social lives during the transition to college and parent involvement is an integral, but potentially problematic, aspect of this transition. The present study investigated how key parent involvement factors may be associated with positive developmental outcomes in NCAA Division I student-athletes. Student-athlete participants (N = 514) were 46% male, ranged in age from 18 to 25 years (M = 19.76, SD = 1.43), and were recruited from athletic departments at two NCAA Division I member-institutions. Participants completed online surveys with items assessing their perceptions of parent involvement (support from parents, contact with parents, academic engagement, athletic engagement) and student-athlete development (academic self-efficacy, athletic satisfaction, well-being, individuation). After controlling for individual and family demographic factors, parent academic and athletic engagement positively predicted student-athlete academic self-efficacy and athletic satisfaction; parent athletic engagement negatively predicted student-athlete depressive symptoms; all aspects of parent involvement were strong negative predictors of emotional independence; support from parents and parent academic engagement were strong negative predictors of functional independence; and support from parents was a negative predictor and athletic engagement a strong positive predictor of student-athletes’ attainment of adult criteria. The present research enhances understanding of the role parent involvement may play in student-athlete development and thus may inform the creation of evidence-based policy and programming at NCAA Division I member-institutions

Parental Involvement Among Collegiate Student-Athletes: An Analysis Across NCAA Divisions

Despite emerging evidence of a link between parental involvement and student-athletes’ (SA) experiences, and the desire for educational programming for parents of these SAs, previous research has been limited to the Division I level. This has prevented the ability to inform, develop, and deliver parent programming across the NCAA’s diverse membership. The present study was designed to descriptively assess SA reports of parental involvement (i.e., support, contact, academic engagement, athletic engagement) across NCAA Division I, II, and III member institutions and examine the potential impact of this involvement on SAs’ experiences (i.e., academic self-efficacy, athletic satisfaction, well-being, individuation). Participants were 455 SAs (53% female; 81% Caucasian; Mage = 19.81, SD = 1.65) from DI (30%), DII (37%), and DIII (33%) institutions, who completed an online survey with items assessing parental involvement and SA experiences. Regarding academic classification, 32% were freshmen, 24% sophomores, 22% juniors, and 22% seniors. Results provide novel evidence for an absence of division-wide differences in average levels of involvement and no variability in links between involvement and SA experiences across divisions. Results complement and extend previous research by offering a clearer understanding of differential associations between involvement and SAs’ experiences regardless of division, notably that involvement bolstered well-being but also strongly detracted from individuation. Findings highlight the importance of developing programs to promote positive and developmentally-appropriate parental involvement across the spectrum of intercollegiate athletics, especially given the absence of evidence-based resources presently offered by the NCAA

Youth sport during the COVID-19 pandemic: The influence of race and affluence on parents’ perspectives of youth participation

COVID-19 restrictions led to a nearly 50% decline in youth sport participation across the United States (Dorsch et al., 2021). Today, communities and sport organizations have resumed sport. However, research has yet to fully elucidate how COVID-19 restrictions impacted youth participation across different sociodemographic groups during the pandemic. The present study explored the association between race and affluence and their relationship with parents' attitudes toward children's youth sport participation before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Online questionnaires were completed by a nationally representative sample of 3706 parents (Mage = 39.57 ± 9.03 years) who had a child regularly participating in youth sport before COVID-19. Multivariate Analyses of Variance using Tukey post-hoc tests were conducted to examine the main effect differences by race and affluence and the interactive effects of race and affluence. Results suggest that race and affluence -- independently and in combination -- were salient categorical variables of children's weekly hours of sport participation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings highlight that White*high affluent groups had the highest rates of sport participation during the COVID-19 pandemic and that these families desire to invest more time and money at greater rates upon returning. Theoretically, designed intersectionality research is recommended to explore further effects of race and affluence in youth sport

Kicking to bigger uprights: Field goal kicking performance influences perceived size.

Perception relates not only to the optical information from the environment but also to the perceiver’s performance on a given task. We present evidence that the perceived height and width of an American-football field goal post relates to the perceiver’s kicking performance. Participants who made more successful kicks perceived the field goal posts to be farther apart and perceived the crossbar to be closer to the ground compared with participants who made fewer kicks. Interestingly, the current results show perceptual effects related to performance only after kicking the football but not before kicking. We also found that the types of performance errors influenced specific aspects of perception. The more kicks that were missed left or right of the target, the narrower the field goal posts looked. The more kicks that were missed short of the target, the taller the field goal crossbar looked. These results demonstrate that performance is a factor in size perception

Parents’ Role in Fostering Positive Youth Development in Sport: Theoretical and Conceptual Considerations

Nearly nine in ten North American youth participate in organized sport during childhood and/or adolescence (Clark, 2010; USDHHS, 2010). This participation has been associated with positive physical, psychological, and emotional benefits during childhood and across the lifespan (Bailey, 2006; Weiss, 2016). To foster these positive outcomes, parents seek out opportunities for growth, development, and socialization for their children. In doing so, they become active participants in their children\u27s youth sport experiences, exhibiting a broad range of involvement behaviors over the course of a child\u27s development. In turn, parents\u27 involvement behaviors reciprocally influence the child\u27s sport participation, performance, and enjoyment (Fraser-Thomas, Strachan, & Jeffery-Tosoni, 2013)

The Parent–Child Relationship and Sport Parents’ Experiences of Burnout and Engagement

Burnout and engagement are important psychological outcomes in sport with potential to impact athletes as well as sport parents. The present study examined associations among markers of the sport-based parent child-relationship (warmth and conflict) and parent burnout and engagement in organized youth sport. Youth sport parents (N = 214) aged 26–66 years (M = 43.2, SD = 6.2) completed valid and reliable self-report assessments of study variables. Study results showcased warmth, but not conflict, in the parent–child relationship as a significant negative contributor to global burnout and a significant positive contributor to global engagement in sport parents. Results offer preliminary insight into the impact of parent–child warmth in sport on parents’ experiences of burnout and engagement. Findings have implications for future research and practice designed to promote positive psychosocial experiences for sport families

Special Issue Foreword Family Issues in Amateur Athletics

Organized sport is not merely activity; it is situated activity. Indeed, most if not all human activity requires resources to permit it to occur properly

Institute for Sport Coaching

The Institute for Sport Coaching is a not-for-profit organization devoted to the creation and delivery of educational experiences and leadership tools to sport coaches. Based in Acton, Massachusetts, USA, the Institute’s mission is to provide excellence in sport coaching education, ideally enabling sport coaches to be more effective in their mentoring of athletes. In the American sport system, the vast majority of coaches are volunteers and receive inadequate training. The Institute was founded in 2003 to be an organization that could provide educational opportunities to coaches across a wide spectrum of amateur sports. According to its website, the Institute aims to become the preeminent provider of sport coaching education, a goal facilitated by the creation of a leadership training center for professional, interscholastic, and youth sport coaches. This review includes a synopsis of the resources provide by the Institute, and evaluates both the content and format of the Institute’s webpage