The effect of athletic and non-athletic factors on the sports career termination process

Author: Cecic Erpic, S.; Wylleman, P.; Zupancic, M.

Description: Objectives: To investigate the way in which the quality of sports career termination process is affected by athletic and non-athletic factors. Influence of athletic (voluntariness and gradualness of sports career termination, subjective evaluation of athletic achievements, post-sports life planning, and athletic identity) and non-athletic factors (age, educational status, positive and negative non-athletic transitions) on different aspects of sports career difficulties is presented.

Method: Participants were 85 former elite Slovene athletes (aged 21–44 years) who had been retired for less than 4 years, ending a sports career at international or national level in one of 16 Olympic sports. Participants were presented with two questionnaires, including the Sports Career Termination Questionnaire assessing participants’ perceptions of the characteristics of the sports career process, and the Non-athletic Transitions Questionnaire assessing participants’ perceptions of the influence of non-athletic events and transitions on the quality of life.

Results: The quality of the sports career termination process depends on the voluntariness of career termination, participants’ subjective evaluation of athletic achievements, the prevalence of athletic identity, educational status, and the occurrence of negative non-athletic transitions.

Conclusions: The understanding of the sports career termination process, which incorporates both, athletic and non-athletic aspects, provides a more complex and multifaceted perspective of the course of athletic retirement and adaptation to post-sports life.

Subject headings: Sports career termination; Non-athletic transitions; Athletic factors; Athletic retirement; Post-sports life

Publication year: 2004

Journal or book title: Psychology of Sport and Exercise

Volume: 5

Issue: 1

Pages: 45-59

Find the full text : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1469029202000468

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Type: Journal Article

Serial number: 631