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As part of a coach’s informal learning process, previous athletic experience is a foundational element of an athlete’s future coaching career, determining the perspectives, beliefs, and behaviors the coach will use in their interactions with athletes. Although it is investigated more generally, previous athletic experience is rarely considered in understanding specific coaching behaviors related to supporting athletes’ needs and motivation. This study investigated 15 novice coaches’ personal athletic and coaching experiences to determine how these experiences influenced their own coaching practice with regard to the engagement in autonomy-supportive and/or controlling behaviors. The interview data revealed that novice coaches used their past experiences to inform their practice in the following three ways: (a) experienced controlling behaviors as an athlete, which transferred to a desire to be more autonomy supportive in coaching; (b) experienced controlling behaviors as an athlete, which transferred to a desire to be more controlling in coaching; and (c) experienced autonomy-supportive behaviors as an athlete, which transferred to a desire to be more autonomy supportive in coaching. These results suggest the importance of considering previous athletic experience as an antecedent to coaches’ engagement in autonomy-supportive behaviors.

There is extensive evidence illustrating the influence of coach behavior on athletes’ perceived basic psychological needs. However, much of that research has been conducted with athletes of similar developmental stages (i.e., children, adolescents, or adults). In sports such as figure skating, coach–athlete relationships often span several years and developmental stages; yet, researchers have not comprehensively investigated whether coaches consider athletes’ physical, social, self, cognitive, and emotional development in their interpersonal style. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore (a) what need-supportive and/or need-thwarting behaviors coaches use with athletes in different developmental age groups and (b) whether coaches’ use of need-supportive and need-thwarting behaviors was developmentally appropriate based on theoretical implications and empirical evidence grounded in both developmental and self-determination theory. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 13 coach–athlete dyads (13 coaches and 13 athletes) across four age groups: middle childhood (6–10 years), early adolescent (11–14 years), mid-adolescent (15–17 years), and early adulthood (18–25 years). Deductive reflexive thematic analysis of the 26 interviews revealed four themes highlighting (a) competence-supportive, (b) autonomy-supportive, (c) relatedness-supportive, and (d) need-thwarting behaviors. There were both consistencies and variations in coaches’ use of those behaviors across the four age groups.