Career profiles of athlete–coach relationships: Descriptions and interpretations

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore athlete–coach relationships from an athletic career perspective with the objectives: (a) to create individual career profiles of athlete–coach relationships, (b) to illustrate the career profiles describing athletes’ subjective experiences of working with all the coaches involved in their careers, and (c) to summarize athletes’ views on the dynamics of athlete–coach relationships in the course of their careers. Two case studies using narrative interviews with one team and one individual sport athlete (both Swedish) were made. The Narrative Oriented Inquiry model was used to guide the data collection, treatment, and interpretation. The results representing over 20 relationships in total are presented as individual career profiles of athlete–coach relationships followed by interpretive narratives exploring more in detail the different athlete–coach relationships throughout their careers. Poems summarizing the athletes’ perceived dynamics of their relationships with coaches are then presented using only the athletes own words.

Keywords

Coach-athlete relationships communication sports coaches team sport

Introduction

I had been there since 15 and the manager had total control over all the young lads, but the fact was I’d grown and he didn’t see me as a man instead of a boy. It wasn’t a matter of respect. I just think he felt he didn’t have control of me any more. (David Beckham)^a

In the quote above, David Beckham commented on a change in the relationship with his former coach Sir Alex Ferguson associated with David’s maturation as a player and as a person. This comment illustrates a career perspective in athlete–coach relationships¹ which is still a neglected area, both in the coach–athlete relationship research and athletes’ career development research. One intention of this study is to merge these two research areas to enrich our understanding of how career development and athletes’ maturation affect athlete–coach relationships and how athletes’ expectations of, and interactions with, their coaches change across career stages. First, we overview briefly major issues raised in the coach–athlete relationship literature; second, we consider how coach–athlete relationships are addressed in the career literature; and finally, we narrow our focus to the study objectives.

Coach–athlete relationship frameworks and relevant research

Coach–athlete relationship research is one of the central areas in social sport psychology^2,3 and provides definitions of key concepts, a number of theoretical frameworks, and a solid body of quantitative and qualitative research conducted in different cultural contexts. For the purposes of this study, we briefly summarize major postulates of the coach–athlete relationship research. First of all, the coach–athlete relationship is considered a social phenomenon and is described as a situation (or a process) in which a coach’s and an athlete’s cognitions, feelings, and behaviors are mutually and causally interrelated.^2,4 This definition also implies that the coach–athlete relationship is dynamic, unfolds within a particular cultural/sport context, and is influenced by many intrapersonal (e.g., the athlete’s and coach’s age, gender, and personality profiles) and environmental (e.g., organizational support, career demands, and specifics of the sport) factors.^5–9

Interactions of factors involved make every athlete–coach relationship unique, but it is also possible to identify shared dimensions of these relationships.¹⁰ The dimensions are summarized in the 3 + 1Cs conceptual model and further in the integrated research model of coach–athlete relationships. In the 3 + 1Cs conceptualization of the coach–athlete relationship,^7,9,11 the three Cs stands for the relationship’s closeness (affective dimension; e.g., mutual trust), commitment (cognitive dimension; e.g., shared determination to reach common goals), and complementarity (behavioral dimension; e.g., reciprocal and corresponding behaviors) and +1C refers to co-orientation (cognitive dimension; e.g., interdependency demonstrated via direct and meta-perspectives). The dimension of co-orientation is also considered as an indicator of the relationship’s quality. In terms of the relationship quality, the 3 + 1Cs framework is also complemented by the 2 × 2 taxonomy including successful-unsuccessful (i.e., result-oriented) and effective-ineffective (i.e., care-oriented) relationships.¹² The integrated research model of coach–athlete relationships² outlines three layers in the relationship process: (a) antecedents (e.g., characteristics of the athlete, the coach, and socio-cultural-sport context), (b) process characteristics and quality (e.g., closeness, commitment, co-orientation, meaning, complementarity), and (c) intrapersonal/interpersonal/group outcomes (e.g., satisfaction and motivation). The three layers are connected through interpersonal communication and interactions showing that antecedents and process/quality characteristics directly or indirectly influence the outcomes.

Substantial research provides support for various aspects of the coach–athlete relationship models demonstrating a pivotal role of coach–athlete relationships in athletes’ athletic development and also personal development as well as in coaches’ professional and personal development.^13–16 Research relevant to this study has demonstrated the effects of contextual factors on athlete–coach relationships. One factor that has shown to affect the relationship is the type of sport in which the relationship is set. The nature of individual sports provides more opportunities to develop deeper and more interdependent relationships, whereas in team sports, athlete–coach relationships are often more formal, hierarchical, and more distant than in individual sports.⁷ Another factor is competitive level. Athletes on the higher levels might be more motivated to have closer relationship with coaches to work together toward their goals.^8,9 Jowett and Nezlek¹⁷ also found that longer relationships were significantly higher in satisfaction and interdependence. Another factor that affects the coach–athlete relationship is the socio-cultural context with, for example, its norms, values, and traditions,⁷ and how it influences mutual expectations and satisfaction on both sides of the relationship. Therefore, in this study, we will specifically address Swedish sport and coaching culture (forthcoming) in the interpretation of the results obtained.

Most often in the coach–athlete relationship research, coach–athlete dyads have been investigated in terms of the relationships’ antecedents, process, quality, and outcomes, but a developmental perspective or career context has been frequently overlooked. Storm et al.’s¹⁸ study of Danish elite athletes’ different key persons in their career is positioned at the border between coach–athlete relationship and career development topics. Athletes most often listed coaches among their key persons and reported two major kinds of relationships with them termed by the researchers as transitory and existential. Transitory relationships were described as short lived and shallow, but providing a directional support to initiate the athletes’ successful career transitions. Existential relationships were long lived (i.e., often continued through several career stages, like from junior to senior or childhood to youth) and more personal and deep, implying these relationships created a favorable context for athletes’ development as whole persons.

Career development research relevant to coach–athlete relationships

Career literature in sport psychology pays rather modest attention to athlete–coach relationships, although it does acknowledge their important contribution to athletes’ career development. Stambulova¹⁹ described athletes’ careers using nine career metaphors with “career as relationship” among them emphasizing that “in many senses, other people (coaches, managers, parents, peers, opponents, referees, etc.) make athletes’ careers possible and meaningful” (p. 302). In the holistic athletic career model,²⁰ athletic, psychological, psychosocial, academic-vocational, and financial development are shown as interrelated layers in athletes’ development. In the present study, four stages in athletic development (initiation, development, mastery and discontinuation) are used as a framework to arrange the participants’ athlete–coach relationships. According to the holistic athletic career model, during the initiation stage of a career, parents, siblings, and peers are the most influential people in the athletes’ social network. During the development stage, peers, coaches, and parents are the most influential. Later, at the mastery stage, the athletes’ partner and coach become the most important supporters of the athlete during the peak of his/her career, and during the career discontinuation, the athletes’ family have the role of major supporters, and possibly coaches keep this role. Therefore, as the holistic athletic career model predicts, coaches’ significance and possibly their roles change together with changes in the athletes’ career development.

Relevant to this study is also the developmental model of sport participation²¹ that outlines sampling years (ages 6–12), specializing years (ages 13–15), and investment years (ages 16 and up) as stages in talent development. A new aspect in this model compared to the holistic athletic career model is a focus on how content of sport practice and style of coaching are expected to change as athletes progressing through the talent development stages. When working with children, coaches are recommended to implement a deliberate play approach (i.e., inclusive, fun-oriented and low structured practice) and caring style of coaching followed by eventual transition to deliberate (i.e., goal directed and highly structured) practice- and performance-oriented coaching as athletes reach adolescent and adult years.^21,22

Descriptive career/talent development research (e.g., literature^23–25) revealed that athletes usually have more than one coach in the course of their careers. Therefore, the change of a coach can be experienced as a non-normative transition or a career change event (most often several times) in which mutual adjustments are expected to make a relationship a successful and effective working alliance. Such transitions or change events can be voluntary and initiated by athletes themselves, but also involuntary as part of a bigger transition (e.g., from junior to senior sports). When athletes proceed to a higher level of competition in team sports, changing coaches is inevitable, but it often happens in individual sports as well, for example, by means of moving to the elite performance center or joining the national team.

Stambulova²⁶ investigated the dynamics of athlete–coach relationships in the course of athletic careers in Russian athletes. The participants (n = 112) represented different sports and retrospectively evaluated their relationships with coaches on four career stages comparable with initiation, development, mastery, and discontinuation as described above in the holistic athletic career model. A vast majority of athletes worked with several coaches and it was possible to trace the dynamics of athlete–coach relationships across the career stages in terms of dominance/submission, friendliness/animosity, and athletes’ views of coaches’ professional skills, as well as their emotional and behavioral involvement. Coaches’ clear dominance in the beginning stages of the career was replaced by parity relationships from the mastery stage. Friendliness in the relationships increased between the initiation and the development stages and decreased a bit on the later stages accompanied by an increase in emotionally neutral relationships. The athletes’ views of the coaches’ professional competencies, emotional and behavioral involvement were the highest on the development stage and turned to more critical attitude during the later stages. Because the evaluations were retrospective, the participants could compare their coaches and reflect on the dynamics in athlete–coach relationships across career stages.

Objectives

One intention of this study is to apply a career perspective to investigating athlete–coach relationships. That is, to take “a bird’s eye view” or a meta-view tracing athletes’ relationships with all the coaches who worked with them in the course of their careers. We suggest the idea of a career profile of athlete–coach relationships that can be defined as a set of specific coaches’ interactions arranged along the career stages of the athlete. Based on both coach–athlete relationships and career literature, it is easy to predict that such profiles will be individual. It is also possible to predict that by deeper investigation of the athlete’s subjective experiences of the relationships with all their coaches, it would be possible to trace the dynamics of athlete–coach relationships across the career stages. More specifically, the objectives of this study include: (a) creating individual career profiles of athlete–coach relationships; (b) illustrating the career profiles describing athletes’ subjective experiences of working with all the coaches involved in their careers; and (c) summarizing athletes’ views on the dynamics of athlete–coach relationships in the course of their careers.

Method

Project design

Jowett and Poczwardowski² outlined major methodological issues in the coach–athlete relationship research and mentioned that “case studies and the use of interviews for data collection are valuable means for understanding relationships and the meanings that formulate these relationships” (p. 12). They also encouraged descriptive studies that follow the development or dynamics in the coach–athlete relationships. This project is designed as two case studies conducted within the constructivist scientific paradigm, and more specifically, in the narrative research trend. The Narrative Oriented Inquiry (NOI) model²⁷ was used to guide the data collection, treatment, and interpretation. The two cases were first described and interpreted separately (see Results section); then, some parallels between them have been identified and discussed (see Discussion section). The first author (principal researcher) conducted the interviews, treated the data, and then interpreted the data with the help of the second and third authors who also facilitated dialogs in the research group about various ways of data analysis and presentation.

Participants

Participants were one team-sport athlete and one individual-sport athlete. The team-sport athlete (Jessica) was a 25-year-old female handball player. The individual-sport athlete (John) was a 20-year-old male table tennis player. Both had been active in their sports for more than 10 years including experience of junior and senior levels in their sports.

Instrument

A low-structured interview guide was created which included three parts. In the first part, the athlete’s background information (e.g., age, sport, level and years in sport) was gathered. In the second (main) part, the participant was guided to create a career timeline and identify coaches that worked with him/her in the course of their career. Periods of relationships with all the coaches were then arranged along the athletic career stages (initiation, development, mastery, and discontinuation) and, thus, the participant’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships was created by means of cooperative efforts of the participant and the interviewer. Then, the athlete was stimulated to tell stories about the relationship with every coach included in the profile. In the third (conclusive) part, the participant was asked to reflect on the dynamics in their relationships with their coaches based on their career profile of athlete–coach relationships.

Procedure

A pilot interview was conducted with a team-sport athlete (similar in age and experience to the two participants) to exercise a way of guiding development of the career profile of athlete–coach relationships. Main participants were contacted by phone, and after showing interest, received an e-mail containing a brief description of the study objectives, ethical issues (voluntary participation with a right to withdraw at any time and confidentiality), and contact information. The time and place of the interviews were chosen by participants. Before the interviews, participants were asked for (and granted) their permissions to record the interviews. Confidentiality was also applied during the interview in terms of the coaches with their names substituted by capital letters (from A and further). The interviews lasted for Jessica 103 minutes and for John 51 minutes.

Data analyses

The NOI model recommends six different ways of analyzing the data of which two were chosen for this study including sjuzet-fabula and holistic-content analyses.²⁷ Because the NOI model directs the narrative researchers to be reflexive and transparent, we describe the data analysis step-by-step below. Furthermore (in the results), each case will involve the principal researcher’s reflections about her relationships with each participant and also about her possible influence on athletes’ stories. The data analysis included the steps as follows:

Preparation of working transcripts (i.e., interviews were transcribed verbatim, read several times to get a comprehension of the content, and broken down into segments or episodes in the story that were self-contained); the team-sport athlete’s narrative contained 96 segments and the individual-sport athlete’s narrative consisted of 60 segments.

Sjuzet-fabula analysis was conducted based on the working transcripts and the interviewer’s notes and observations during the interview. The fabula (i.e., what was told) was differentiated from sjuzet (i.e., how it was told). The interviewer’s comments were added in the margins of the working transcripts.

The working transcripts were read and re-read again highlighting key words and major ideas in relation to the study objectives to prepare the holistic-content analysis. That is, an interpretive core narrative was written based on each athlete’s stories. More specifically, the participants’ stories were condensed by highlighting the essence of each relationship through quotations and re-organized into stories illustrating the career profiles of athlete-coach relationships. The interplay between sjuzet and fabula in the stories was important to capture the true meaning of what the athletes said. The drafts of the core narratives were discussed in the research group and challenged by the second and the third authors, which led to final versions of the core narratives describing and interpreting the participants’ stories. The interpretations of the stories were facilitated by the 3 + 1Cs model.¹¹

Out of the core narratives, poetic representations were created based on, and inspired by, Sparkes and Douglas.²⁸ Both poems contain only real words of the athletes from the interviews.

Because the interviews were conducted in Swedish, direct quotations used in the paper and the poems were translated into English. The stories and poems (in Swedish and in English) were sent back for the participants’ check.

Results

The results have been structured as two separate case studies including (a) a short introduction to the case with the principal researcher’s reflections, (b) the career profile of athlete–coach relationships, (c) the core narrative illustrating the profile, and (d) a poetic representation summarizing the athlete’s ideas about the dynamics of his/her relationships with coaches in their course of the career.

Case study 1: Jessica

Introduction

When I (the principal researcher) met Jessica, she looked glad to see me and we laughed while sharing memories of the time when we used to play handball together a couple of years ago. When we sat down for the interview, she was eager to share her story. She spoke quickly and seemed to enjoy talking about her career and different coaches. During some parts of the interview, however, her easygoing style changed to a more controlled and safe manner, and I could understand that she was not happy with all her relationships.

Jessica’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships

Jessica’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships is shown in Figure 1. The top layer of the profile shows her career stages, the second layer relates the stages to Jessica’s age, and the third layer arranges Jessica’s coaches along the career stages and age-related line. Jessica started to play handball when she was 8 years old and was at the time of the interview 25 years old and played handball in a second division team in Sweden. Fourteen coaches (A–N) had crossed Jessica’s career path up until the time of the interview. In Figure 1, these coaches are arranged along her career stages and ages with solid lines indicating Jessica’s main coach at a corresponding time and dotted lines indicating assistant/secondary coaches (alongside each coach fare brackets indicating whether the coach is female or male).

Figure 1.

Jessica’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships.

Core narrative illustrating Jessica’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships

Initiation – “Just for fun”. She did not remember much of her relationship to her first coaches (since Jessica could not separate these coaches she refers to them as coach A). Jessica explained the relationship as: “we (the players) played with each other more than hung around the coaches.” She remembered that “it was never an angry tone.” Her perception of her coaches was that they were there for her sake, like mothers, keeping an eye on them, and providing a feeling of security.

Jessica got coach B when she was 10 years old. They had a good relationship and could talk to each other. Coach B made Jessica feel secure. Jessica had her for six years, and she explained how the relationship evolved:

We came to know each other better /…/ it feels like we developed together, she put the bar higher and higher, made sure we developed.

Development – “Becoming something”. Jessica told that in the beginning it was just for fun, but coach B made Jessica see that she “could be something.” In the end of upper secondary school, when Jessica was about 14 years old, the training became more serious. There, in the end of upper secondary school, Jessica also had an assistant coach (C). Jessica called coach C “a funny guy” because he joked about things that did not necessarily involve handball. During the last year of high school, Jessica played in a junior team, but also in the regional team where coach D was completely different, strict, and often raised his voice. Jessica told that they did not have a close relationship, but that they could talk and joke with each other. Jessica explained: “you don’t get that close during such a short period of time of selection and tournaments.” There was an assistant coach (E), at that time also, although she took less space than the head coach (D). This was the first time Jessica experienced selection in her sport. She explained how this selection motivated her to become better: “He (coach D) didn’t really say anything straight out, but the fact that I was in the team made me feel like I was one of the better ones and therefore I wanted to continue.”

During the same period of time, Jessica also played in the women’s team where she had a good relationship with coach F. He had “open arms” when she came and made it clear that he liked her because she had a different playing style than the other players in the team. He was easy going and social. Because he let her play and gave her positive feedback Jessica wanted to continue playing handball.

Mastery – “Growing up into elite”. When Jessica was 16 years old, she made the decision to move 500 km away from home to train at a handball high school and play for a new team. When Jessica was sharing her experience of moving away from home, it was obvious to me that her first coach in the new city (G) had a big influence on her life and her decision to stay all three years of high school. “Coach G made me feel secure in all the uncertain. Being 16–19 years old, away from home, there were no adult family members nearby, but he was always there.”

During the first two years of high school, Jessica had coach G in the club team and, at the time of the interview, she still had a good relationship with him. He was positive, cheerful, and joked with the team. Later in the interview, she came back to her relationship with coach G and said: “this relationship was almost the strongest I’ve had out of all the coaches, because he really was there for me.” Coach G helped out all the time with any problem in and outside of handball. Jessica said: “we didn’t really see him as a coach/…/He was like a dad to the whole team.” Even though Jessica saw him more like a dad than a coach, coach G managed to take the team to winning their junior series.

In parallel with this relationship (i.e., with coach G), Jessica also had coach H at school. He was less social and open compared to other coaches (e.g., C and G). Jessica had a rather superficial but important relationship to him. He set the bar high, and saw things that no one else had seen. This was encouraging for Jessica because he was famous and a good coach, so getting positive feedback from him stimulated Jessica to continue to develop.

During her last year of high school, she had coach I in the club team and coach J at school. Coach I was “a little sissy if compared to the others (e.g., coach D),” – Jessica said. He wanted to be a part of the team, a friend to the players. Jessica explained how this positioning affected his coaching style and the team: “We didn’t get to hear everything that we needed to hear, if we did things wrong he didn’t really want to yell at us, instead he said nothing or sighed to himself.”

With coach J, Jessica had a rather good relationship, but they were not close outside handball. Jessica and coach J often talked about sport psychology when Jessica had him as a teacher at school before, so on the handball field she felt like they kept this relationship. He was good theoretically (as a teacher), but Jessica was really disappointed with him practically (as a coach).

Mastery – “An elite career”. After finishing high school at the age of 19, Jessica moved back to her hometown to go for an elite career where Jessica started with coach K. Jessica was quick to explain and wanted it to be clear that she never received any crap from him even though, as she said, he was a horrible person. Still, I could not help but wonder why this was so important for her to say. Was it embarrassing for her to have me think that she was treated badly by this coach or was it that she did not want me to feel sorry for her? Jessica continued to explain the coach’s manner. She said that outside sport he was nice, but as a coach he could be really mean. He often shouted unnecessarily, pushed people down which made many leave the team. Jessica and coach K had a rather superficial relationship. At the same time, Jessica felt that he believed in her and gave her respect, which Jessica felt facilitated the relationship in some way. Jessica explained that he was good at handball but at the same time he ruined many things; she had felt that it worked for a while but (Jessica’s tone of voice changed) she said: “then everything broke down.” Jessica meant that this coach was the one who took them to the highest division (before Jessica started) but after that people started to quit.

Discontinuation – “Never again”. Jessica told that after one season with coach K, being 21 years old, she decided to quit playing handball due to a personal problem. Jessica explained how she felt: “It was way too much training, this elite career, I did not have the energy, I totally lost my spark, probably because of personal reasons, many things happened at the same time, so I gave up …”

Even though she said that it had nothing to do with handball, I could not help but to wonder what would have happened if Jessica had a more understanding and caring coach? Would it have been necessary for Jessica to end her career? Jessica had lost her motivation to develop and improve and did not think she would continue with handball ever again.

Return – “From never again to revived motivation”. After a year, when Jessica had turned 22, she moved back to the same city where she attended high school, but this time to study at a university. A while later, she started to play for the same handball team there again and this was when she started with coach L. Jessica hoped playing would turn into fun again. Coach L was a playing coach and Jessica had a rather good relationship with her. Jessica described coach L as social and good with everyone in the team. But coach L wanted to be seen and heard, to show what she could do, and to do everything herself. Jessica reflected upon being there by saying: “I was just there, not to improve/…/ but I began to think it was fun again.” Jessica did not feel that this relationship was that important to her, she explained: “I have to admit that it was not so important to me, because I had no goals with my game at the time.” I thought it was interesting that Jessica felt that her lack of goals in handball affected her relationship towards the coach. I experienced some difficulty at this point of the interview because of our history being teammates. I felt like she sometimes searched for my approval about her opinion of the coaches. I also caught myself becoming surprised in how she explained some of our previous coaches. I tried, however, to leave these thoughts and instead focus on me and Jessica as different people with different experiences.

When Jessica started to talk about the coaches she had at the time of the interview (coaches M and N), she also started to reflect on all different relationships she has had and came to the conclusion that “depending on what you have been through you see things in different ways.” Jessica said that she had completely different thoughts about coaches today. Jessica shared her thoughts about coaching at the time:

If they don’t see us as individual players beyond the team we don’t develop individually /…/ and if I want to develop individually I have to have this relationship to the coach, who sees me individually and wants to see me individually /…/ I think this builds a relationship, where you both give and take.

Jessica explained further how this was related to coach M: “I have the desire to train and develop, and he sees it, then he gives back, and then I get to play /…/ he focuses on those who give something back to him.”

Coach M was caring, he was there for the team, even though he could be dominant when they were altogether, Jessica felt that she could say anything she wanted to him and he respected it. Coach N was more positive than M and did not get as angry. Jessica said that for coach N, everything was for fun even though it was serious. That was relaxing, but sometimes also annoying to the team. At the same time, Jessica knew that coach N was and will always be there for her. I was interested in how Jessica could know that the coach would always be there for her. Jessica took some time to think, and after a deep breath, almost as if she gathered strength, said:

A few months ago I felt bad psychologically and physically because I had been sick and lost a lot of weight. I felt like there was not much left of me and that was very tough mentally. So, I talked to my coaches and told them how I felt, that it was tough, and that I didn’t know what to do.

Jessica summarized what the coaches had told her. She said that they had talked about so many things that she had not thought of. It was not just about handball, it was about life too. They made her realize, that handball was not her whole life. Handball was not the most important thing. From the conversation, Jessica took the lesson that a player needs to feel good to play good handball. She concluded by saying: “who I am today and how I live my life is thanks to them.”

Throughout Jessica’s career different coaches have influenced her, and from these people, Jessica seemed to have learned what kind of coach she needs to develop as an athlete and as a person. To capture the quintessence of the dynamics in the athlete–coach relationships, throughout Jessica’s career a poetic representation using only Jessica’s words is presented next.

Growing up guided by sport coaches

I’ve had many coaches

different ones

some angry

some pure evil

but also

wimps

in the beginning, like mothers

just for fun

never an angry tone

but they became more strict

III

I’ve come closer to them

I want to develop individually

it requires a coach

who sees me

wants to see me

individually

in the beginning,

they were there for me

made me feel secure

I grew up

today I seek respect

the coach and I respect each other

listen to each other

I think different about coaches today

depending on experience

relationships become different

you see things differently

over the years I’ve learned

it's all about give and take

I have the desire to train and develop

the coach sees it

then he gives back.

Jessica’s feedback on the story and the poem was positive. She thought it was cool to read about herself in this way and that we captured her career perspective on athlete–coach relationships in the right way.

Case study 2: John

Introduction

In contrast with Jessica, I did not know John before the interview. We met downtown in the city where he lived. He was friendly and interested in what I was doing and sport psychology in general. John was easy to talk to, and expressed himself more calmly compared to Jessica. His answers were short and concise and most of the time he quickly came to a conclusion. Therefore, encouragement and follow-up questions from my side were needed much more than with Jessica.

John’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships

As seen in John’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships (Figure 2), he started playing table tennis when he was seven years old. At the time of the interview, John was 20 years old and had played table tennis for 13 years. He was playing in the highest division in Sweden and doing it for a living. During his 13 years in sport, 9 coaches (A–I) had influenced his career. John’s profile is structured the same way as Jessica’s (see explanation above). John’s profile only consists of three stages since John, at the time of the interview, was active in the mastery stage of his career.

Figure 2.

John’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships.

Core narrative illustrating John’s career profile of athlete–coach relationships

Initiation – “Choosing table tennis”. John barely remembered his first coach (A). He helped John get on the team and had taught him basic table tennis strokes. When John was 7–8 years old, he got his second coach (B), whom he had for six years. Coach B meant much to John and was at the time of the interview, still a good friend to him. John said that coach B loved table tennis, made it fun for the athletes, helped out, and was in contact with John’s parents. Coach B motivated John and taught him to go for what he believed in. John explained this coach was the reason that he chose to play table tennis.

As John grew older, the sport became more serious and along the way coach B changed his coaching style slightly, becoming stricter, which John thought had been good. When he coached John, John could sometimes get a bit annoyed, but coach B knew that John was just a stubborn one. I asked John how they solved their problems and he answered:

We’ve never talked about it, like, we’ve never been angry at each other … rather he had seen beyond it and [left me alone] then we were friends again an hour later or so, so it’s never been any problem I think.

I could not help but wonder if every coach would be this understanding to John’s temper. John finalized talking about coach B by saying that he saw John as a table tennis player, but also as a person.

Development – “Taking the next step”. When John was 12, he felt that he needed to take the next step in his career, so he changed team and met coach C. John thought this had been a good step: the training became tougher, more disciplined, but still fun. John had test training with the team before, so John had known coach C beforehand. John came from being number one or two in the group to being less skilled than the others in the new team. John told that coach C gave John the attention that he needed and that coach C had let John practice with those who were better. I could tell that John appreciated the attention and was happy for what coach C had done for him. John explained what coach C helped him to realize:

I wasn’t the one who wanted to train and practice really hard, and he made me realize that I needed to train really hard, become quicker, stronger, and such, and he did that really well, like, made me thinking in a good way and believing in what I was doing.

John told that in training it had always been full focus, but that they did fun stuff too. Coach C had a son that John was a good friend with, so John sometimes met the coach outside of table tennis. Coach C, his son, and John could hang out, play golf, or make food together. John explained the relationship with coach C as friendly and that they still meet when John comes back home.

Development – “Not being selected”. John had coach D in the junior national team from the age of 14. Coach D thought that John was too competitive and could get angry when playing poorly. When John was 15–16 years old, he was no longer selected to the junior national team. Up until this point in the interview John had been quick to answer and his feelings were stable. However, at this point he seemed to be more affected by the topic and shared:

It was tough being 15-16 years old and not being selected even though I thought, and many others like /…/ said so too, ‘of course you should be in, you’re good enough’ /…/ I don’t know /…/ there were five to be selected, I finished top three in the nationals, still I wasn’t selected, so then I was rather disappointed and angry.

John seemed frustrated because he still did not understand why he was not selected. At the time John had been angry, and the relationship to coach D had been harsh. John told that there was no discussion, and John just had to accept the coach’s message that he was expected “to change.” Coach D had thought that John should go to a mental trainer, so he did. After that John acquired a new chance. “When I came back I watched my tongue a little,” – John said, but then it went back to how it had been before. I asked John if he had been successful with this coach. He answer: “Well, yes … when I was playing for him it went well.” When John looked back upon the situation, he said: “It was only positive, I became a better player after the mental help, it worked well for me in the end.” I thought that it was good that he could reframe the experience for the better. I was not truly convinced, however, that he saw the experience as completely positive; John still seemed frustrated regarding the situation.

John’s next junior team coach (E), was coach C’s son, but coach C was also with them sometimes in training. John explained the relationship to coach E as a buddy relationship. At the time, coach E was discontinuing his career because of injury and was instead becoming a coach. John and coach E could discuss what they needed to work on, and John felt free to express his opinion. John explained that he felt he could not say everything to the other coaches. At the beginning of building their new relationship (i.e., athlete–coach), John felt he could not say everything to his friend like before. But, as John said, “it took a week or so then it was back to normal (i.e., feeling he could say anything to his coach/friend again).” When John was going through the tough time of not being selected to the national team and not playing that well due to an injury, coach E had always been there and John could always talk to him. I thought it was interesting to see how the athlete–coach relationship developed between the two friends.

Mastery – “the first step to become a senior”. When John joined the senior national team at the age of 17, he began with coach F. John told about the relationship and that he did not work that much with this coach. His team coaches C and G were the ones that he worked with. As John said about coach F, “… we had almost no contact at all.” All of a sudden, John could get a text message from coach F that said: “you are not in next time” or the next one could say “you are in next time.” John did not understand why he did not get selected. So he asked his regular coach to call the national team coach F, and then John found out that “he didn’t have the right attitude.” John once again became emotional, and I could tell that he was frustrated, when he explained:

You found out that you didn’t have the right attitude. Why couldn’t he tell me that? Just like call me and tell me. Nobody knew why I wasn’t in /…/ and then all of a sudden I was, this is how it was, back and forth.

I began to wonder about John in relation to his national team coaches and how much frustration John felt with these relationships. He really wanted to be a part of the national team and maybe some of his frustration came, not because the relationships were poor, but that it was more about his personality and not his playing ability that kept him out of the team.

In high school, when John was 16–17 years old, he got coach H, a former player that John had looked up to. John told about the relationship: “There were not so many of us so the coach could really focus on us, and details of the game.” The training in high school was a fun time for John and they could joke around with the coach, but when they were training, it was serious. At this point in the interview, I started to understand and see a pattern in the story where John focused on the importance of focus in training, but that it still should be fun, have some kind of balance. In the club team, coach G took care of the first team. John, however, played in the second team, so he did not have coach G much. John thought that they had a good relationship, but that it was more coach C who had taken care of him.

Mastery – “Different but still fun”. At the time of the interview, John was 20 years old, coach I was training him and table tennis was a central part of John’s life. After high school John had moved to a new city to play in a new team and to practice full time, twice a day, almost every day. His practices became even tougher and harder. “It feels great, different but fun, a step in the right direction”, – John said. John did not know coach I well when he moved, but at the time of the interview, he knew the coach and his family well. Coach I and John met almost every day. John shared some examples of what he liked about coach I:

He is on me a great deal, like, come on, let’s go, lets train really hard this week, stuff like that, and that feels good I think. It’s also that he believes in me, like, he says, you can become really good, if you go on like this, and I think that’s really important.

John continued:

He has made me realize that I need to work really hard if this is what I want and I mean, this is what I want. I am going for it, so the training became quite tough right away when I moved down here.

John shared that he did not want to look back and regret having joked away his career. I could understand that John enjoyed the social part of his sport and having fun with his teammates. I also realized that becoming more serious about his training was something that was important for him and something many coaches had pointed out to him. He wanted to be known for something else besides just being the social and funny teammate. In training, it was full focus, but when they were not training they could be relaxed and talk. John explained that his life revolved mainly around table tennis, but coach I wanted him to feel good as a person. I could tell that John liked his new team and that he seemed to be satisfied with coach I.

I noticed within the interview, how John stressed the importance of focus in practice, but at the same time not losing track of having fun. I could see shifts in his story in relation to this balancing act. As such, the following poetic representation of the dynamics in the athlete–coach relationships was made to capture the essence of these shifts using only John’s words.

A balancing act supported by coaches

it’s about finding balance

the joy, having fun

mixed with things being serious

in the beginning

focus on having fun

if different

stricter

would probably not play today

III

then it became tougher

a step in the right direction

still fun

coach taught me the importance

the importance of hard training

today, table tennis is central

tougher again

a step in the right direction

still fun

but in a different way

have realized

in training

focus is a must

do not want to look back

having joked away

my career

coach has taught me

if I want to become something

I have to train really hard

and I want this

John’s feedback on the story and poem was positive in the participant check. He also reflected that his story with more fun in the beginning progressing to a more serious attitude and training is something that many athletes probably can recognize in their own careers.

Discussion

The objectives of this study were (a) to create individual career profiles of athlete–coach relationships, (b) to illustrate the career profiles describing athletes’ subjective experiences of working with all the coaches involved in their careers, and (c) to summarize athletes’ views on the dynamics of athlete–coach relationships in the course of their careers.

As known from sport practice and also previous research, athletes usually have more than one coach in their careers.^23–26 The career profiles presented in this paper take this fact into account and provide an overview of all the athlete–coach relationships in the athletes’ career. The profiles demonstrate individual patterns of athlete–coach relationships including amount of coaches the athlete has had, coaches’ gender, duration of relationships, the different ways relationships were coordinated with each other, and the athlete’s career development stages and transitions. The process of creating career profiles of athlete–coach relationships facilitated the athletes’ reflections about certain athlete–coach relationships by positioning them in the career context and also helped the participants to formulate their thoughts about the dynamics of athlete–coach relationships throughout their careers. For example, using his career profile of athlete–coach relationships, Jessica could use her profile to summarize how her relationships to different coaches led her to formulate what kind of relationship she wanted with her coaches. John could pinpoint lessons he had learned from different coaches and how these lessons influenced his play and attitude to practices. As revealed in previous research,⁷ individual sports athletes (John in our study) most often have closer and less hierarchical relationships to their coaches than team sports athletes (e.g., Jessica). This might explain why John could find specific lessons he learned from different coaches easier than Jessica who more summarized what she had learned over the whole career and not from particular coaches.

Jessica and John’s narratives illustrate how their unique relationships with their coaches contributed to the constitutions of their own unique careers.¹⁹ However, some similarities between the athletes’ narratives are also visible. For example, both athletes had several coaches simultaneously at the end of the development career stage and the beginning of the mastery stage, and parents to athletes in the group were coaches. Jowett et al.⁷ explained that the socio-cultural context that the athlete–coach relationship is set in affects the relationship. Therefore, we have to briefly consider Swedish sport and coaching culture as possible explanation for the similarities between the two focal cases.

The Swedish sport system is organized in 20,000 sport clubs across the country. These clubs are non-profit, voluntary, and democratic organizations overseen by the Swedish Sports Confederation. Traditionally, within the sport clubs, several coaches introduce the athletes to their sport with some parents being actively involved as coaches. Swedish athletes are often coached voluntarily until they reach the mastery career stage, and only when they show their potential they get access to professional coaches. Coming back to Jessica and John’s narratives, it is possible to see that their first coaches were similarly inspiring, caring, and also not much oriented to sporting results. In other words, they used the deliberate play approach as outlined by the developmental model of sport participation.^21,22 This might be typical for volunteer coaches who coach because of their love of the sport and/or because they want to support their own kids and their sport peers. At the end of the development career stage and the beginning of the mastery stage, talented athletes are often enrolled into dual career (i.e., sport and education) programs at national (regional or local) elite sport schools, and therefore they have coaches at school, but also coaches within their relevant club. In addition, junior athletes approaching the junior-to-senior transition often get access to practicing with a senior team while they are still actively involved into the junior team, and therefore both junior and senior team coaches are involved into their development. All these features are well visible in both athletes’ narratives. For example, coaches in the elite sport schools and national team coaches (in Jessica and John’s adolescent years) were more demanding, oriented to deliberate practice approach, and focused more on the athlete as a whole person^21,22 than coaches who worked with our study participants at the beginning of their athletic careers.

Acknowledging the importance of socio-cultural context, we proceed with discussion of the results in relation to coach–athlete relationships frameworks keeping in mind a career perspective. Even though this study had only two participants, it covered over 20 athlete–coach relationships. Among these, all types of relationships from the 2 × 2 taxonomy¹² with effective/ineffective and successful/unsuccessful dimensions can be found. For example, in terms of effective (i.e., care-oriented) relationships, we can see successful-effective relationship in Jessica’s relationship to coach G and John’s relationship to coach I. Unsuccessful-effective relationships are exemplified in Jessica’s relationship to coach L and John’s relationship with coach E. The narratives also revealed some ineffective relationships, for example, a successful-ineffective relationship between John and coach D, and an unsuccessful-ineffective relationship between Jessica and coach K.

Looking at the types of athlete–coach relationships from a career perspective, it is possible to notice that during the initiation and the development career stages, the successful dimension of the 2 × 2 taxonomy was harder for athletes to apply. When asked about whether the relationship was successful or not, Jessica and John talked more about personal development (e.g., Jessica said that coach B “made sure we developed”) rather than normative success such as results or winning. The most effective relationships happened in the beginning of Jessica and John’s careers (e.g., Jessica’s relationships to coach B and F and John’s relationship to coaches B and C). Therefore, from the athletes’ perspective, coaches at the beginning of their careers emphasized the effective dimension of the relationships rather than the successful one. It can also be seen that the ineffective relationships happen more often at the peak or closer to the end of the athletes’ careers (e.g., Jessica’s relationship to coach K and John’s relationship to coach F) when their focus on results and winning become greater. It seems like when athletes get older and focus on results is perceived as more demanding both for athletes and coaches, there is less space left for caring/effective relationships. However, some coaches in the shared stories managed to care for both the individual development and results (e.g., Jessica’s coaches M and N and John’s coach I), and these coaches were most appreciated by the athletes. It is also important to note that some relationships shifted from one type to the other. John reflected that his relationship to coach D was rather harsh when the coach wanted John to meet a mental trainer. However, when John after learning from the mental trainer came back to the junior national team his relationship with coach D turned to the better.

Storm et al.¹⁸ presented another way to classify relationships between athletes and significant others in the course of an athlete’s career into transitory and existential relationships. Transitory relationships are short-lived and shallow but provide a directional support to the athlete.¹⁸ For example, John’s relationship with coach D could be seen as a transitory relationship, as it led to a positive development in John’s career. We think it is a limitation of Storm et al.’s¹⁸ taxonomy that it only considers transitory relationships with a positive impact on athletes’ careers and that it does not pay attention to transitory relationships with a less positive career impact. For example, in our study, Jessica’s relationship with coach K can be seen as an example of a transitory relationship that led to the athlete’s termination in sport.

Existential relationships in Storm et al.’s taxonomy are defined as long-lived and developing through several career stages with the coach seeing the athlete as a whole person. This definition is rather close in meaning to the effective relationships in the 2 × 2 taxonomy.¹² Since, the most effective relationships in the focal narratives lasted longer than two years (e.g., John’s relationships to coach B and C and Jessica’s relationship to coaches B and G), it can be seen as a confirmation that effective relationships takes time to be developed and that possibly the athletes themselves chose to stay in these relationships longer. Jowett and Nezlek¹⁷ found that longer relationships were higher in satisfaction and interdependency. In Jessica and John’s narratives, the 3 + 1C model^7,9,11 could sufficiently explain most of the longer (a season and over) relationships, meaning that all the components of the model were visible in these relationships. However, in the shorter relationships, it was difficult to see them all, and therefore we suggest that it takes time for all the dimensions of the coach–athlete relationship articulated in the 3 + 1C model to be developed.

Analysis of the athletes’ narratives led us to the poems (summarizing the narratives) and also to tracing developmental tendencies in the athlete–coach relationships throughout their careers. Using the 3 + 1Cs conceptualization of the coach–athlete relationship, four major developmental tendencies can be seen. These are increase in complementarity, closeness, mutual commitment, and co-orientation between athletes and their coaches. Below, we consider each of them more in detail relating also to the previous research.

First, as Jessica and John grew older, there was an increase in complementarity in their relationships with coaches. As any athlete involved into a sport for a considerable amount of time, they eventually became better experts in themselves and their sports. Consequently, the gap in experience and expertise between athletes and coaches gradually decreased and at the same time their complementarity increased. Signs of this tendency can be seen in Jessica’s poem (part IV) in terms of sharing the leadership more with time. This is also in line with Stambulova’s²⁶ finding that coaches’ dominance was greater in the beginning of the career, and from the mastery stage and onwards was replaced by parity in the relationships.

Second tendency identified in the careers of Jessica and John was an increase in closeness in terms of relationships becoming friendlier and development of mutual trust. This can be seen in Jessica’s poem (part III) and her feelings to coach M (e.g., she could say anything to him and he respected it). These results are in line with the holistic athletic career model²⁰ that predicts greater importance of coaches on the development career stage and forward. However, our results are somewhat different from Stambulova’s study²⁶ which was conducted in a different cultural context and revealed that friendliness increased to the development career stage and decreased a bit in the later career stages accompanied by an increase in emotionally neutral relationships. However, studies have also showed that competitive level affects the coach–athlete relationship, and athletes on higher levels might be more motivated to have a closer relationship to their coaches.^8,9 In Jessica’s story, we can observe some changes in the nature of closeness with coaches throughout her career. More specifically, there were shifts from the coaches’ side from providing knowledge and opportunities to practice, caring for her, and making her feeling secure, to seeing her as a whole person and discussing and advising her on bigger life issues than just sport. Jessica agreed that with career development her relationships with coaches turned to reciprocal ones with both parties taking and giving.

Third, the commitment aspect of the 3 + 1Cs model is defined as a shared determination to reach common goals,^7,9,11 and an increase in mutual commitment is visible through both athletes’ narratives. More specifically, there are many indicators in the athletes’ stories of their progression from sport participation oriented mainly towards having fun and learning new skills (i.e., deliberate play) to a more structured and result-oriented (i.e., deliberate) practice. This tendency is especially visible in John’s story (e.g., part IV in his poem) with his emphasis on more fun and play at the beginning progressing towards a more serious training and attitude after he reached the mastery career stage.

Finally, the forth tendency in the dynamics of the athlete–coach relationships throughout an athlete’s career was an increase in the co-orientation dimension of the 3 + 1Cs model which is also seen as an indicator of the quality of the relationship.^7,9,11 Co-orientation is expressed as interdependency, and in the narratives, this tendency is visible in the coaches taking a more holistic view of the athletes when they mature. The best example is Jessica’s statement about coaches M and N’s support during a difficult time: As she reflected, it was not just about handball it was about life too, and the coaches made her realize that handball was not her whole life. John emphasized that his life revolved to great extent around table tennis, but coach I also wanted him to feel good as a person.

Practical implications

The individual career profile of athlete–coach relationships can be a helpful tool for athletes, coaches, and sport psychology consultants. For athletes, this tool could be beneficial to gain awareness of how their relationships with coaches have been a big part of their careers. The athletes can also gain awareness of different lessons learned from different coaches through their sport participation.

The developmental tendencies revealed in the athlete–coach relationships in the course of athletic careers might be beneficial for coaches to know, and the results of the study, therefore, can contribute to coaching education. Compared to youngsters, mature athletes expect closer relationships with their coaches, want to be involved in goal setting and decision making, and appreciate the coach’s view of them as whole persons.

For sport psychology consultants, the career profile of athlete–coach relationships can be a helpful tool for understanding the background of the athlete and what he/she has experienced in terms of relationships with different coaches. This can be especially useful when working with an athlete in a career transition relevant to changing a coach.

Methodological reflections

Even though the number of participants in this study was small, over 20 relationships were analyzed. Making the athlete–coach relationship profiles was a good way to get the athletes remembering their former coaches, and helpful for the athletes to structure their stories. The athletes took a retrospective look at their careers and could reflect about different relationships’ processes and outcomes as well as their overall dynamics throughout their careers. A limitation of this approach is the risk that the athletes could forget important information or to perceive the relationships differently at the time of the interview compared to when they happened in real life. Another limitation is only two participants representing different sports, and therefore, some comparisons made between individual and team sports in terms of specifics of athlete–coach relationships should be taken with caution.

Future research

By merging the approaches from career development and coach–athlete relationship research and creating individual career profiles of athlete–coach relationships, several interesting areas for future research can be outlined. First, we suggest exploring the transition process from one relationship to another taking into account different types of such transitions (e.g., voluntary/normative or involuntary/non-normative) and also demands, resources, barriers, and coping strategies from both sides resulting in certain outcomes (e.g., effective-successful or effective-unsuccessful relationships). Second, this study showed that the athlete might experience additional benefits but also difficulties when several coaches simultaneously work with them in different settings (e.g., at school and in the club). Therefore, it might be interesting to follow how in such career situations, influences of different coaches might support or impair each other’s work with the athlete. Third, we suggest further investigation into how athletes expect their relationships with coaches to be transformed through the process of their career development and personal maturation in different socio-cultural and sport contexts.

Conclusion

This study contributes to strengthening a link between athlete–coach relationship and career development literature. An idea of an individual career profile of athlete–coach relationships is introduced and qualitatively explored based on two case studies involving one team and one individual sport Swedish athletes. Furthermore, the cases are compared to each other and discussed in relation to existing theoretical frameworks and previous research which resulted in outlining four developmental tendencies in the athlete–coach relationships throughout the athletes’ careers. Using the 3 + 1Cs coach–athlete relationship conceptualization,¹¹ these tendencies were termed as increase in complementarity, closeness, mutual commitment, and co-orientation.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the participants for their time and willingness to share their stories, Dr. Vanessa Shannon for valuable feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript, and Jeffrey Armstrong for improving readability of the manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Note

References

The Scotsman. Beckham admits that Ferguson intimidated him, 2003, http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/beckham-admits-ferguson-intimidated-him-1-1293270 (accessed 12 December 2013).

Jowett

Poczwardowski

Understanding the coach–athlete relationship. In: Jowett

Lavallee

(eds). Social psychology in sport, Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2007, pp. 3–14.

Serpa

. Relationship coach-athlete: outstanding trends in European research. Port J Human Perform Stud 1999; 12: 7–20.

Jowett S. Unleashing the power of coach-athlete relationships. In: Keynote lecture at the ISSP 13th world congress of sport psychology, Beijing, China, July 2013.

Poczwardowski

Barott

Henschen

. The athlete and coach: their relationship and its meaning results of an interpretive study. Int J Sport Psychol 2002; 33: 116–140.

Seiler

Kevesligeti

Vally

. Coaches and female athletes. the basis of interaction. Port J Human Perform Stud 1999; 12: 67–76.

Jowett

Paull

Pensgaard

Coach–athlete relationship. In: Talor

Wilson

(eds). Applying sport psychology: four perspectives, Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2005, pp. 153–170.

Jowett

Cockerill

. Olympic medallists’ perspective of the athlete-coach relationship. Psychol Sport Exercise 2003; 4: 313–331.

Jowett

Meek

. The coach-athlete relationship in married couples: an exploratory content analysis. Sport Psychol 2000; 14: 157–175.

10.

Rhind

DJA

Jowett

Working with coach-athlete relationships: their quality and maintenance. In: Hanton

Mellalieu

(eds). Professional practice in sport psychology, New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 219–248.

11.

Jowett

Interdependence analysis and the 3 + 1Cs in the coach-athlete relationship. In: Jowett

Lavallee

(eds). Social psychology in sport, Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2007, pp. 15–27.

12.

Jowett

On enhancing and repairing the coach-athlete relationship. In: Jowett

Jones

(eds). The psychology of sport coaching, Leicester: The British Psychology Society, 2005, pp. 14–26.

13.

Liukkonen

. Coach’s influence in young athletes’ personality development. Port J Human Perform Stud 1999; 12: 7–20.

14.

Jowett

. Moderator and mediator effects of the association between the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and the athletes’ physical self-concept. Int J Coaching Sci 2008; 2: 43–62.

15.

Lafrenière

M-AK

Jowett

Vallerand

. Passion in sport: on the quality of the coach–athlete relationship. J Sport Exercise Psychol 2008; 30: 541–560.

16.

Adie

Jowett

. Meta-perceptions of the coach–athlete relationship, achievement goals, and intrinsic motivation among sport participants. J Appl Social Psychol 2010; 40: 2570–2773.

17.

Jowett

Nezlek

. Relationship interdependence and satisfaction with important outcomes in coach-athlete dyads. J Social Pers Relat 2011; 3: 287–301.

18.

Storm

Henriksen

Larsen

. Influential relationships as context of learning and becoming elite: athletes’ retrospective interpretations. Int J Sport Sci Coaching 2015; 9: 1341–1356.

19.

Stambulova

Professional culture of career assistance to athletes: a look through contrasting lenses of career metaphors. In: Ryba

Schinke

Tenenbaum

(eds). The cultural turn in sport psychology, Morgantown: Fitness Information Technology, 2010, pp. 285–314.

20.

Wylleman

Reints

De Knop

Developmental and holistic perspective on athletic career development. In: Sotiaradou

De Bosscher

(eds). Managing high performance sport, New York: Routledge, 2013, pp. 159–182.

21.

Côté

Baker

Abernethy

Practice and play in the development of sport expertise. In: Tenenbaum

Eklund

(eds). Handbook of sport psychology, 3rd ed. New York: Wiley, 2007, pp. 184–202.

22.

Côté

Hancock

Abernethy

Nurturing talent in youth sport. In: Papaioannou

Hackfort

(eds). Routledge companion to sport and exercise psychology, New York: Routledge, 2014, pp. 22–33.

23.

Stambulova

. Developmental sports career investigations in Russia: a post-perestroika analysis. Sport Psychol 1994; 8: 221–237.

24.

Stambulova

Talent development in sport: a career transitions perspective. In: Tsung-Min Hung

Lidor

Hackfort

(eds). Psychology of sport excellence, Morgantown: Fitness Information Technology, 2009, pp. 63–74.

25.

Samuel

Tenenbaum

. How athletes perceive and respond to change-events: an exploratory measurement tool. Psychol Sport Exercise 2011; 12: 392–406.

26.

Stambulova

. Dynamics of the athlete-coach relations in the course of the athlete’s sports career. Port J Human Perform Stud 1999; 12: 21–34.

27.

Hiles

Čermák

Narrative psychology. In: Willing

Stainton-Rogers

(eds). The Sage handbook of qualitative research in psychology, London: Sage, 2008, pp. 147–167.

28.

Sparkes

Douglas

. Making the case for poetic representations: an example in action. Sport Psychol 2007; 21: 170–190.