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COPYRIGHT 2007 University of South Alabama
Coaching can be very rewarding but also very demanding and frustrating; this may explain why 35% of coaches in USA Swimming stop coaching each year (Raedeke, 2004). As a group, elite coaches are more visible to the general public in comparison to lower level coaches such as high school or college coaches. Not surprisingly, the stressful situation and risk for burnout among elite coaches also attracts attention in the media, often as a result of a well-known coach suddenly deciding to quit due to self-reported high level of stress and emotional exhaustion. Despite these highly visible cases, prevalence rates of burnout among elite coaches are scarce in the research literature (Raedeke, 2004).
Burnout as a concept was first described in the scientific literature during the 1970s (Freudenberger, 1974; Maslach, 1976) and has since then become a recognized phenomenon in many cultures and settings, including the athletic community. Possibly the first mentioning of burnout within the athletic domain, but outside academia, was in the published self-biography of world famous middle-distance runner Gunder Hagg, who noted: "I am not burned out, but I am ill" (Hagg, 1952, p. 47) as a response to media criticizing a drop in his running performance. Initially, however, the study of burnout was limited to human services and helping professions; it was even suggested that continuously working in emotionally charged situations with people in distress was a necessary prerequisite for burnout to occur (Maslach, 1982). This suggestion was later modified when the focus shifted from stress arising from interpersonal contacts to stress developing when a mismatch exists between the perceived demands of the situation and one's capabilities and resources for meeting those demands. The individual may consciously observe this stress or it may remain unnoticed for a long time. Regardless, the individual may gradually start to feel emotionally drained, and begin to change her or his attitude towards the job and co-workers. If this mismatch becomes chronic, burnout may develop (Maslach, 1998; Maslach & Leiter, 2000; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001).
Six key-types of person--job mismatches have been identified as potential sources of burnout. These are: work overload, lack of control, lack of reward, lack of social support and community, lack of fairness, and value conflict (Maslach & Leiter, 1997). Two of these, work overload and lack of reward, have also been associated with coach burnout (Capel, 1986; Capel, Sisley, & Desertrain, 1987; Vealey, Udry, Zimmerman, & Soliday, 1992). This is hardly surprising when considering that coaching, apart from everything else, involves a great deal of close relationships, with the coach--athlete relationship frequently labeled as the most intense and demanding relationship within the sporting world (Jowett & Crockerill, 2003).
The complexity and extraordinary demands placed on the coach are vividly conveyed in the following passage: "Coaches are performers, educators, administrators, leaders, planners, motivators, negotiators, managers, and listeners, but they are also people" (Giges, Petitpas, & Vernacchia, 2004, p. 431). Common coaching duties, such as travel planning, public relations, fund raising, and managing relationships with their coaching staff further add to the multitude of factors potentially being perceived as stressful. Within the context of sport, coaches represent the population that best fit into the framework of provider-recipient originally suggested to be a crucial element in the process of burnout, thereby indicating that coaches are prime candidates for burnout (Dale & Weinberg, 1990; Giges et al., 2004).
In contrast to the staggering number of studies examining burnout in various occupational settings (Schaufeli & Buunk, 2001), a more limited number of studies have examined burnout among athletic coaches. A recent systematic review on burnout among coaches reported 23 studies including 6460 coaches (Goodger, Gorely, Lavallee, & Harwood, 2006). These studies are highly homogenous with regard to research designs (92.7% cross-sectional), coach populations (95.1% of the sample are US coaches), and instruments used (95.4% used the MBI). In terms of competitive level, coaches included in these 23 studies represent various sub-elite levels such as high schools (24.5%), colleges (65.8%), and at the club level (7.3%), with a striking absence of elite level coaches (2.4% non-identified).
Burnout scores presented so far do not indicate that coaches are at a higher risk of burnout than many other professions. Some studies even present burnout scores that have been interpreted as low (Caccese & Mayerberg, 1984; Capel et al., 1987; Dale & Weinberg, 1989; Price & Weiss, 2000; Raedeke, 2004; Raedeke, Granzyk, & Warren, 2000). Other studies, however, have reported moderate to high levels of burnout when compared with data based on norms for educators established by Maslach, Jackson, and Leiter (1996). The...
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