Athlete vulnerability is not a topic that we hear much about as athletes, coaches and sport performance consultants. Athletes are typically encouraged to be “mentally tough”, to “push through the pain”, and gratefully make personal sacrifices for the “good of the team”. But at what cost? Where is the line? Where are the guard rails protecting the athletes in a competitive culture that prioritizes winning over mental health and gives coaches the authority to torture athletes in pursuit of victory?
In the 2018 Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), Dr. John Amaechi’s keynote presentation defined vulnerability as anyone who is not able to protect themselves against exploitation. As evidence for the vulnerability that athletes endure, Dr. Amaechi points out that student-athletes are unpaid, prohibited from unionization, unable to move freely without permission from their coaching staff, and often reminded they should just be grateful for the opportunity to participate in sports as if they have not earned the right to compete.
Each of these circumstances, Dr. Amaechi noted, would be considered egregious in circumstances outside of the competitive sports environment, however within the context of athletics, emotional, psychological, and verbal abuse are culturally condoned. To put it simply, athletes expect to get yelled at by their coaches, suffer through painful injuries for the greater good of the team, and make personal sacrifices to their education and social lives that extend far beyond the scope of athletics.
Research conducted by Stirling and Kerr (2008) points out that the coach-athlete relationship often demonstrates a gross imbalance of power dynamics with coaches maintaining absolute control over an athlete’s access to resources, rewards, and future career opportunities. Within this imbalanced power structure, psychologically abuse coaching behaviors such as belittling, name-calling, degrading, humiliating athletes in front of their teammates, hitting or throwing objects, yelling in an athlete’s face, and ignoring them completely are normalized (Stirling & Kerr, 2008). These common coaching behaviors threaten both the emotional and physical well-being of athletes and ultimately impact their sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and athletic identity. As a result of these culture expectations and the disproportionate power dynamics at play in sport between coaches and players, psychological maltreatment, verbal, psychological, physical and sexual abuse is oftentimes overlooked, ignored, and even covered up.
The multiple accounts of systemic abuse in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) uncovered by Sally Yates is yet another example of the consequences of unchecked power in sports. It is devastating that systemic abuse in sports still exists in the wake of the Me Too Movement . If our athletic heroes who compete on the world stage are vulnerable to this type of abuse in sport, then how much more vulnerable are our young athletes? When will it end? The system needs to change. The culture of coaching needs to change. The mental health, physical safety, and well-being of athletes needs to be prioritized.
References
Association for Applied Sport Psychology. (2018, December 4). AASP 2018 keynote: John Amaechi OBE- Overpromise and underdeliver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7z-toAoj_I
Stirling, A., & Kerr, G. (2008). Defining and categorizing emotional abuse in sport. European Journal of Sport Science, 8(4), 173–181.