Sport and Film

The traditional, the ideal and the unexplored: sport coaches’ social identity constructs in film

“…For example, Crosson (2013) and Babington (2014) focus on the links between sport and national identity. The coach's role is analysed, if at all, in terms of this broader perspective, not in terms of the construction and portrayal of the sport coaches' sport identity, which is not treated as a problematic theme.…”

“…The sport coaching construct within mainstream fiction films has been described as stereotypical, reinforcing the traditional notion of the sport coach as a technician who conquers all, or a hapless individual, open to ridicule from athletes and fans (Crosson, 2013).…”

“…Although fictional and based on the directors'/screenwriters' notions of what sport coaching means to them, the sport coach characters have the potential to propagate an image that reinforces or challenges that being described by academic writers on the professionalisation of coaching, or reflects the narratives of the majority of sport films, depicting the sport coach as a mechanism to achieve a utopian dream (Crosson, 2013). Acknowledgement of how media, and in particular film, portrayals of sport coaches invoke or ignore emerging concepts of sport coaching is central to the professionalisation debate.…”

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AbstractThe sport coaching construct within mainstream fiction films has been described as stereotypical, reinforcing the traditional notion of the sport coach as a technician who conquers all, or a hapless individual, open to ridicule from athletes and fans (Crosson, 2013).Although this depiction is also prevalent in some independent fiction films and documentaries, film sub genres such as social realism and 'fly on the wall' style documentaries move away from the 'Hollywood sports film structure ' (Crosson, 2013) towards stories that focus on everyday coaching moments. Through a critical discourse analysis of two UK films (Bend it Like Beckham and Twenty Four Seven), both featuring sport coaches in central roles, we reflect critically on these mass media multi-dimensional representations in terms of the sport coaching professionalisation agenda in the UK and the social identification process of sport coaches within their sporting environments.

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The Visual in Sport History: Approaches, Methodologies and Sources

“…It was also helpful in showing students how to 'read' a film. 16 Currently, however, little attention has been paid to sports films from outside Hollywood.…”