Am I just not good enough? The creation, development and questioning of a high performance coaching identity

While the career experiences and trajectories of various sports workers have received increased scholarly attention, those of professional coaches have, in comparison, received scant consideration. This paper focuses on the career experiences of Maeve (a pseudonym), a high performance coach, and the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sport, education and society education and society, 2016-07, Vol.21 (5), p.778-795
Main Authors: Purdy, L.G., Potrac, P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Athletes
Athletic Coaches
Audio Equipment
Biographies
Career
Career Development
Careers
Coaches & managers
Experience
High-performance Sport
Identification (Psychology)
Identity
Narrative-biographical
Narratives
Professional Identity
Self Concept
Semi Structured Interviews
Sports
Sports Coaching
Sports psychology
Workers
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Summary:While the career experiences and trajectories of various sports workers have received increased scholarly attention, those of professional coaches have, in comparison, received scant consideration. This paper focuses on the career experiences of Maeve (a pseudonym), a high performance coach, and the critical incidents related to the creation, development, and, ultimately, questioning of her professional identity. Data were collected through a series of narrative-biographical interviews and were subject to a process of iterative data analysis. The results indicated that her significant investment into her coaching self, combined with the vagaries and uncertain nature of work in high performance coaching, led her to experience a biographical disruption that interrupted the narrative coherence of her coaching life. The findings add further credence to recent critiques of only understanding and representing coaching careers in a linear and chronically staged fashion.
ISSN:1357-3322
1470-1243
DOI:10.1080/13573322.2014.941795