Career pathways in high performance sport include a number of emotionally resonant transitions. Sport systems must be able to effectively support the athlete’s endeavors to negotiate such challenges. This study investigated qualitatively the experiences of Olympic athletes who took part in a three-tier, post-games career transition support program. The aim of the program was to increase athletes’ coping resources to successful negotiate the post-Olympic period. Ten athletes who participated in the program were recruited to participate in semi structured individual interviews. Directed content analysis was employed to identify key themes in the data. Athletes perceived two components of the program as particularly helpful, the normalization of the emotional and psychological challenge of the post Games period and the use of problem focused coping to redirect athlete focus to the future. The findings from this study provide a preliminary framework for the planning of future post-Games career transition support programs.
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Olympic Athletes’ Experiences of a Post Games Career Transition Program
Siobhain McArdle, Phil Moore, and Deirdre Lyons
Realizing, Adapting, and Thriving in Career Transitions From Gymnastics to Contemporary Circus Arts
Fleur E.C.A. van Rens and Edson Filho
, 2018 ). Career transitions to contemporary circus are thus common amongst athletes, and gymnasts in particular. However, little is known about the lived experiences of circus artists, as few systematic studies have considered this performance domain ( Ross & Shapiro, 2017 ). Given that practitioners in
Understanding the Career Transition of Athletes
Patrick H.F. Baillie and Steven J. Danish
Transition out of a career in sports has been suggested as being a difficult and disruptive process for many athletes. An early and enduring identification, familiarity, and preference for the role of athlete may cause its loss to be a significant stressor for the elite, Olympic, or professional athlete. The purpose of this paper is to describe the various aspects of the career transition process in sports, beginning with early identification with the role of athlete and continuing through retirement from active participation in competitive sports. Athletes are often poorly prepared for the off-time event of leaving sports, and traditional theories of retirement may not be suitable. People associated with athletes (coaches, peers, management, family members, and sport psychologists) and athletes themselves need to be aware of the potential for difficulty during their career transition.
An Ecological Investigation of Polish Olympic Coaches’ Career Pathways and Their Experiences of Career Transition to Olympic Coaching Roles
Donka Darpatova-Hruzewicz, Piotr Marek, and Kamil Kaminski
coaching careers, transitions, and practices of high-performance coaches in other sociocultural contexts such as Eastern Europe and Poland in particular. This has engendered the conception and application of knowledge in largely functionalist ways that mute the salience of context and sideline the
Association of Coping Strategies With Symptoms of Burnout in Young Football Players in a Career Transition Phase: Are Professionalization and Occurrence of Injuries Mediating Factors?
Adson Alves da Silva, Gabriel Lucas Morais Freire, José Fernando Vila Nova de Moraes, Leonardo de Souza Fortes, Rodrigo Gustavo da Silva Carvalho, and José Roberto Andrade do Nascimento Junior
accomplishment. Significant correlation: * p < .05, ** p < .01—Pearson’s correlation. Table 4 shows the significant results ( p < .05) of the coping regression on the burnout symptoms in professional and amateur athletes who were in the career transition phase. The results indicated that coping strategies
One-to-One Support With a Professional Rugby League Player: A Case for Referral?
Nick Wadsworth, Ben Paszkowec, and Martin Eubank
International Higher Education . Lavallee , D. , Nesti , M. , Borkoles , E. , Cockerill , I. , & Edge , A. ( 2000 ). Intervention strategies for athletes in transition . In D. Lavallee & P. Wylleman (Eds.), Career transition in sport: International perspectives (pp. 111 – 130 ) Morgantown
The Effect of a Life Development Intervention on Sports Career Transition Adjustment
David Lavallee
The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the effectiveness of a life development intervention on career transition adjustment in retired professional athletes. Intervention (n = 32) and control groups (n = 39) were recruited for this study, both of which contained recently retired male professional soccer players. Data were collected on measures of career termination adjustment and coping with transitions, and the intervention group also participated in a life development intervention package. Results revealed significant postintervention treatment group differences on career transition adjustment in favor of the life development intervention, while significant within-group differences on career transition adjustment over time were also achieved for the intervention group. Results are discussed in relation to the personal and developmental costs of pursuing performance excellence.
Sueños de Béisbol: Hopes, Experiences, and Expectations of Professional Baseball Players in the Dominican Republic
Leonardo Ruiz, Judy L. Van Raalte, Thaddeus France, and Al Petitpas
themes were derived from the data: (a) athletes’ hopes and dreams, (b) stress, (c) faith, and (d) career transitions. Athletes’ Hopes and Dreams When reflecting on their hopes and dreams, these professional baseball players discussed two main areas, their hopes that they would play Major League Baseball
Migration and Career Transitions in Professional Sports: Transnational Athletic Careers in a Psychological and Sociological Perspective
Sine Agergaard and Tatiana V. Ryba
With rising globalization and professionalization within sports, athletes are increasingly migrating across national borders to take up work, and their athletic and nonathletic development is thereby shaped and lived in different countries. Through the analysis of interviews with female professional transnational athletes, this article contextualizes and discusses arguments for developing an interdisciplinary framework to account for lived experiences of the close intertwining between transnational migration and career development in professional sports. By combining our psychological and sociological perspectives, we identify three normative career transitions for transnational athletes. First of all, transnational recruitment that draws on social networks as well as individual agency. Secondly, establishment as a transnational athlete that is connected to cultural and psychological adaptation as well as development of transnational belonging, and thirdly, professional athletic career termination that for transnational athletes is connected to a (re)constitution of one’s transnational network and sense of belonging.
In Every End, There Is Also a Beginning: Experiences of Career Transitions Through Sport
Christine Nash and Melissa Thompson
experienced. For the purpose of this paper, we are focusing on career transition, which we are defining as “. . . the period during which an individual is either changing roles (taking on a different objective role) or changing orientation to a role already held (altering subjective state)” ( Louis, 1980 , p
