My PhD – Irish Athlete Transitions Experience and Support
As some of you may know, I am currently halfway through my first year studying and researching for a PhD in Sports Psychology. This blog will be a brief outline of the areas I will be exploring over the course of the next 3 years and how it can be useful to those of you involved with athletes as their family members, coaches or peers.
Athlete Transitions and Social Support
The two main concepts that I will be studying are athlete transitions and social support. These topics, although not often discussed in general sport psychology situations, are massively important and impactful on an athlete’s career and its progression or lack thereof. An athletic transition is a change or event that occurs in an athlete’s career. This can be a normative transition, which is expected to occur such as progressing from junior to senior, or a non-normative transition, which is unexpected such as injury or changing clubs/coaches (Alfermann & Stambulova, 2007). These changes are only one aspect of the ‘within-career’ transitions that an athlete faces, often the only side we see looking on from the outside. If we take a holistic view of things, we can see that athletes at all ages, but especially those younger athletes, face numerous transitions outside of sport, as they progress in their athletic careers. The Developmental Model by Wylleman & Lavallee (2004) highlights this holistic view of within-career athletic transitions (and it is my go-to model for this whole PhD). The model is split into 4 sections and outlines how the athlete develops athletically, psychologically (from childhood to adolescence to adulthood), psychosocially (looking at changes in who supports the athlete), and academically/vocationally (their school/work life) (Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004). The model aligns the different stages an athlete experiences as they transition and age, for example, an athlete going into the mastery athletic level at around age 18-20 will also be going from adolescence to adulthood, while receiving more support from coaches and possibly a partner, with less reliance on parents, and progressing to possibly higher education or professional occupation. Given this example, we can start to see that the athlete isn’t just impacted by the events or transitions within their sport, but in other areas of life too.
Positive and effective social support is seen as a buffer to an athlete facing challenging experience during or after a transition (DeFreese & Smith, 2014). Social support is defined as “an exchange of resources between at least two individuals perceived by the provider or recipient to be intended to enhance the well-being of the recipient” (Shumaker & Brownell, 1984, p. 13). Over the course of an athlete’s career, the sources of this support can vary. We see this in the Developmental Model’s psychosocial level (Wylleman & Lavallee, 2004). During the early childhood stages of an athlete’s sporting career, parents, siblings, and peers provide the main support. As they transition into the next stages of their development, the coach becomes more of a consistent and important source of support, with family still providing support although potentially in a more reduced and often more general support capacity (Hassell et al., 2010). Looking at the holistic view of the athlete, the presence of this support is necessary to cover all the various transitions they will experience in their personal development on and off the sporting field/court/track.
How can this be applied outside research?
The role of peers, family and coaches play a massive part in the career of an athlete and the support they provide, or don’t, can influence the development of the athlete. The research shows that the presence of positive social support networks for athletes improves their transitions and coping with the different situations and challenges these present. So how can we provide this social support? We need to look at it in the different sources this support is presented. The below advice is guided by the literature and ‘in-the-field’ ground personal experience as an athlete and coach/support staff member.
Peers:
- Be a listening ear for other athletes/teammates. You don’t need to provide any tools to ‘fix’ a situation, just hold space to allow the athlete to be listened too.
- Provide a healthy, productive distraction. Go out for coffee, food, or some other non-sporting activity to help maintain a level of sport-life balance.
Parents/Family:
- Know your role and the type of support needed. Parents/family don’t need to provide technical or tactical support for the athlete, they should focus on mental and emotional support looking at the person, not the athlete. Link in with coach to get understanding of the sporting aspects and how they athlete operates in that environment.
- Support with all the non-sport aspects of the athlete’s life. By having the support in place to cover the other aspects of the athlete’s life and the transitions/challenges they will face, the athlete can focus on their sport performance and work with the coach to develop that.
Coaches:
- You are the main sporting support for the athlete but can also be a significant role model in their life. Consider this in your approach with all your athletes. Learn a bit about them outside of the sport and work to gain a more holistic view of what their life is like.
- Relationships with parents/family members are so important. You are around the athlete in a different scenario than they face at home, so use this information to help parents/family members see how the athlete is coping and if any other support is needed. Two-way communication is key in this.
Effective social support may seem like common sense, but it is not always common practice. By these three main groups (parents/family members, coaches, and peers) working together in a productive manner, the athlete can perform at their best on and off the field, allowing them to deal with the various normative and non-normative transitions that will appear in their life. The support network is a TEAM for the athlete and when a team works right, Together Everyone Achieves More.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post. If you did, please share it on your social media platforms and tag @omacperformance. If you would like support for yourself or your team, please reach out via the Contact section.
Thanks,
Oisin