Preparing for exit from sport: A phenomenological examination of the pre-transition experiences of Division I female intercollegiate athletes

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study:

The purpose of this study was to discover the meanings female intercollegiate athletes ascribe to their experiences preceding exit from NCAA Division I competition. The study sample included five Division I female intercollegiate athletes. Four of these attended a large public research institution in the Southern Plains area of the United States (three Caucasian and one African-American) and the fifth attended a large private religiously affiliated university in the Midwest (Caucasian). The five athletes previously competed in four sports - track and field, basketball, soccer, and cross country. The methodology utilized was Moustakas' (1994) transcendental phenomenology and the study included a number of data collection methods including demographic profiles, participant-produced drawings, individual phenomenological interviews, bi-weekly journal responses, and examinations of printed and audiovisual data related to participants' sport experiences.

Findings and Conclusions:

Results from data analysis procedures yielded seven themes related to participants' experiences in preparing to exit competitive sport. These themes included bittersweet, on your own, being part of a team, I will forever be an athlete, free time, it creeps up on you, and they think they do a lot. In addition to these themes, textural and structural descriptions of experience, as well as the invariant structure of experience were developed. Overall, athletes appeared to express both positive and negative feelings regarding their experiences leading up to formal sport transition. Athletes also reported on the significance of important relationships in assisting with their transition, their struggle to adjust to a new sense of self following career termination, and the belief they were mostly unprepared to deal with the reality of sport transition due to the prolonged engagement with sport they experienced. Suggestions for future research included expanding qualitative studies on athlete experience, the use of alternative qualitative methods in sport-related research, and examining the influence of contextual factors on athlete transition.