Lords of the Square Ring: Future Capital and Career Transition Issues for Elite Indigenous Australian Boxers

Abstract

In Australia a serious and widely documented statistical gap exists between the socio-economic circumstances of the country's Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. Areas of divergence include life expectancy, health, housing, income, and educational opportunity and employment. This has made entry into an occupation or vocation problematic for some Aboriginal people. While sport has provided opportunities for a small number of talented Indigenous athletes, it has rarely been a pathway to lifelong prosperity. This paper contends that as a result of overreliance on an abundant bank of physical capital, Indigenous Australian boxers are particularly vulnerable to potential occupational obsolescence should their bodily assets erode more quickly than envisaged. Utilising an interpretive phenomenological approach, the paper examines retirement experiences of fourteen elite male Indigenous Australian boxers; the goal of this research is to understand their post-sport career decision making. In this respect, Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, capital and field are utilised to frame and interpret the capacity of Indigenous boxers to develop sustainable career pathways -future capital -during their time as elite athletes. In terms of career transition and retirement planning, boxers' engagement with education and vocational training is typically restricted to occupations that complement their sense of physical capital. While this limitation has been observed among boxers from various ethnocultural backgrounds (Hare, 1971;Ramos, 2010;Weinberg & Arond, 1969), it is particularly noticeable among non-white boxers (Hare, 1971) and, in the context of the present study, Indigenous Australian athletes. These 'Lords of the Square Ring' remain largely unaware or removed from the possibility of pursuing career pathways beyond those that draw upon or accentuate their physicality.

Female Student-Athletes’ Transition out of Collegiate Competition

“…Collegiate student-athletes can become over-identified with athletics, which causes them to neglect career options and academics (Anderson, 2012;McGillivray, Fearn, & McIntosch, 2005). Histor-ically, collegiate student-athletes are far behind their non-student-athlete peers when it comes to planning for a career due to their lack of goal setting, career salience, and career decision-making abilities hindered by their sport involvement (Taylor & Pompas, 1990;Martinus, 2007;Stronach & Adair, 2010). Anderson (2012) and Lavallee and Robinson (2007) warned that career uncertainty could lead to vulnerability, anxiety, and in some cases unemployment when athletic careers ended.…”

Athletes' career transition out of sport: a systematic review

“…Educational involvement and career 261 planning were also positively associated with post-sport life adjustment among college 262 athletes (Lantz, 1995), and athletes attributed their limitation of life choices after sport career 263 termination to a lack of personal development (Chow, 2001; Stronach & Adair, 2010;Swain, 264 1991). 265…”

The game of (your) life: professional sports careers

“…Furthermore, a successful professional sports person will already have experienced other transitions from amateur, youth and pre-professional to a more elite level which requires greater and increasing dedication to sports activities, resulting in, one could argue, less time to spend on other life activities (Baker et al, 2003). A drive to excel at sport may engender a lack of skill in dealing with non-sport activities (simply due to intensive focus elsewhere) and a less developed understanding around life choices (Stronach and Adair, 2010). Research has illustrated that former athletes showed difficulties dealing with non-sport situations.…”

“…Studies have found that athletes have attributed limited life choices post professionally playing sport to a lack of opportunities for personal development (e.g. Chow, 2001;Stronach andAdair, 2010 andSwain 1991). Professional sports people, it is argued; regard post-play planning when actively competing as a distraction from their sport performance (Petitpas et al, 1992).…”