Retirement from sport and the loss of athletic identity

Lavallee, David; Gordon, Sandy; Grove, J. Robert

doi:10.1080/10811449708414411

Cited by 118 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(46 reference statements)

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“…Current boxers in this sample recorded relatively high measures on this scale (range 33 -49, mean score 37.85), which were higher than scores reported by Fraser et al (2008) (mean score 35.95) by athletes studied in their five-year evaluation of the ACE program at the AIS. Many authors Lavallee et al 1995;Lavallee et al 1997) (Brewer 1993). These high levels of AI exhibited by boxers appear to be enhanced by their love of the sport and the strong the attraction of the field.…”

Section: Capital -Valuing the Physicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Stronach

Adair

2010

CCS Journal

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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.

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Section: Capital -Valuing the Physicalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Stronach

Adair

2010

CCS Journal

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“…Previous suggestions for contextualization in studying athlete transition have been offered (J. Coakley, 1983;Lavallee et al, 1997a). Still, due to factors such as the challenge in methodology and access to qualified and willing study participants, conclusive results in studying contexts of sport retirement have been lacking.…”

Section: The Question Of Why These Storiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Coakley, 1983;Lavallee, Grove, & Gordon, 1997a;Werthner & Orlick, 1986). Other literature has, to a minor extent, identified and utilized contextual referencing and labels specific to the facilitation of their individual and group studies (Ceciae Erpiè, Wylleman, & Zupanèiè, 2004).…”

Section: Project Justification Hypotheses and Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The psychological effect of an athlete's (or other creative performing artists') willingness to document their feelings about sport (or their art) is largely unexplored. Highly-informing narrative methodologies, as well, are rare in critical sport inquiry (Lavallee et al, 1997a).…”

Section: The Narratives Of Ascension Image and Identity Constructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of the academic literature on athlete retirement in previous decades have been catalyzed and explored through the discipline of sport psychology and behavioral study disciplines such as career counseling and social psychology (Lavallee et al, 1997a;Schlossberg. 1981).…”

Section: Theoretical Situation: Micro and Macro Past And Presentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seeing Stars: Emotional Trauma in Athlete Retirement: Contexts, Intersections, and Explorations

Tinley¹

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2012Few areas of modern sport are as misunderstood in popular and academic literature as that of retired professional and elite athletes. While the subject has been studied, the case of the retiring athlete has yet to be fully explored in a detailed, qualitative, and interdisciplinary study focusing on nuanced contexts affecting the quality of an athlete's exit from sport. Utilizing 3 participant groups-29 elite athletes (16 sports, 18 males, 11 females), 9 professional sport administrators, and 8 sport media journalists-over an 18-month period extensive semi-structured interviews resulted in 1,436 raw data themes assigned to 13 direct, 3 indirect, and 3 emerging philosophical contexts. Significant direct contexts emerged including health, social support/influence, and preretirement counseling. Unexplored indirect contexts include athlete's relationship with media, corporate sport structures, and sport consumers. Emerging philosophical contexts include issues of fear-mortality, bodily awareness, and shifting Identities.Positive ideology, appreciation, and predisposed conditions such as having realistic perspective, and a knowledge of self were noted. Participant group responses and all 19 contexts were identified and noted for their interdependency.Hypotheses included that socially-constructed and cultural ideas exist about retired athletes and are embedded in perceptions of fame and fortune associated with the role of professional athletes. Results indicated that considerations of micro and macro social processes of athlete commodification (especially immediacy in production/consumption by the corporate sport and media/fan nexus) contributed to the quality of their transition. Cultural narratives and mythologies about athletes-as-heroes-including ways in which the athletes themselves internalize these popular ideas-produce a system in which elite athletes are often unprepared for life after sport. Analysis of the data suggested that role residue and mortality themes were present, while a longitudinal portion of the study confirmed the significant affecting contexts. Suggestions for reconsideration of retired elite athlete's sociocultural and economic roles were included as ambiguity in responsibility remained prevalent. Significant contributions of the study include application of data that offers behavioral, social, and cultural scientist insight to the transcendent challenges that constitute fluid and emerging human conditions when individuals move from one life condition to another. Additional contributions suggest social costs for disposing of transitioning athletes.

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