Referees are key sport personnel who have important responsibilities both on-and off-the field.Organized competition would not survive without referees, yet little is known about what cause referees to discontinue in the role. This research examines the experiences of former referees so that managers may better understand strategies that might encourage more referees to be retained. Fifteen previous basketball referees were interviewed about their refereeing experience. Ten themes emerged that were related to the sport development stages of referee recruitment, referee retention, and referee advancement. The results indicate that issues experienced during the retention phase (Problematic Social Interaction, Training/Mentoring, and Lack of Referee Community) and then at the advancing stage (Lack of Administrator Consideration, Administrator Decision Making, and Sport Policies) are linked to eventual departure from the role. Interestingly, off-court factors were reported as more influential in the decision to leave. Managerial strategies and implications are discussed.
Sport programs are often charged with creating a sense of community (SOC), and it is thought that doing so will benefit participants on and off the field of play. Since SOC is specific to the setting (Hill, 1996) and most research has been conducted outside of sport, the literature has not yet fully demonstrated how and when SOC is created within a sport context. Utilizing a grounded theory and phenomenological approach, this study investigated the mechanisms for creating SOC within a sport setting. Twenty former US college athletes were interviewed regarding their sport experiences. The results revealed that Administrative Consideration, Leadership Opportunities, Equity in Administrative Decisions, Competition, and Social Spaces were the most salient factors that fostered SOC. The results contribute to community building theory, and provide practical solutions for enhancing the participant experience.
The aim of the present paper was to outline a heuristic model that facilitates movement toward an integrated understanding of the youth sport system. We define the youth sport system as the set of interdependent persons and contexts that influence and are influenced by an athlete in youth sport. Our model builds directly from a systems perspective, and its tenets of holism, feedback loops, and roles (Broderick, 1993;von Bertalanffy, 1972). Specifically, we argue that the persons and contexts that surround an athlete in youth sport should be examined collectively, self-correct over time, and take on certain functions that are negotiated over time. The model extends past contributions toward integration (e.g., García Bengoechea, 2002) by outlining how proximal and distal processes within youth sport can be studied in a more unified way. Looking forward, research designed to capture the nuanced ways persons and contexts influence and are influenced by one another in youth sport will be best positioned to impact theory and practice in meaningful ways.
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