Kitrina Douglas - Life Story Research in Sport: Understanding the Experiences of Elite and Professional Athletes through Narrative

First published 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 Kitrina Douglas and David Carless

The right of Kitrina Douglas and David Carless to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data

Douglas, Kitrina.

Life story research in sport : understanding the experiences of elite

and professional athletes through narrative / Kitrina Douglas and

David Carless.

pages cm. (Routledge Research in Sport and Exercise Science)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Professional athletesBiography. 2. Professional athletesPublic

opinion. 3. Narrative inquiry (Research method) I. Carless, David,

1970 II. Title.

GV733.D68 2015

796.023dc23 2014018131

ISBN: 978-0-415-70900-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-88581-0 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Dedication from Kitrina:

In memory of Jack Thomas (1924 to 2009): A remarkable cyclist and storyteller.

Dedication from David:

To Mum and Dad, with love and thanks.

Without a great number of people sacrificing their time on our behalf it would have been impossible to carry out this research, not least to write this book. First, our gratitude and respect go to participants from the Ladies European Tour (LET), who were known to Kitrina before this research began. It has been your encouragement, interest and frank openness which made it possible to explore in more depth the experiences of professional sportspeople. You have each demonstrated sisterhood throughout this process. Thank you. We are also indebted to the athletes and professional sportspeople who have become known to us in the course of carrying out this research. Some, like women from the LET, have contributed over several years and have given feedback on multiple occasions, others less frequently. We are indebted to you all for the time, expertise and candid reflections.

The opportunity to present our work, gain feedback and engage in in-depth conversations with academic colleagues, students, other professional sportsmen, sportswomen and coaches over more than a decade has made it possible to expand, test and deepen our understanding about life in professional sport from the perspectives of those who have a different lens or who perform different roles. We want to acknowledge here your contribution to our work: thank you. We have also highly valued the opportunities afforded us by Dr Kyle Phillpots, Director of Training and Education (PGA) at the Professional Golfers Association of Great Britain, The Ladies Golf Union of Great Britain, Professional Golfers Association of Europe, the Dutch Golf Federation, Dutch Golf PGA, Women & Golf magazine, and English Golf Union South-West. Added to the above, we are mindful of the benefits we have gained since we first began researching elite sport in 2000 from in-depth discussions with sport science, sport psychology, and qualitative research students and peers. In this regard we would like to extend special thanks to Brett Smith, now at Loughborough University, and Pedro Ferreira, University of Coimbra, for the multiple invitations to present at their institutions. We would also like to thank Helen Owton, Shaunna Burke, Hilary McDermott, colleagues from the National Anti-Doping Panel for Sport (UK), Anne Flintoff, Martyn Joseph, Joanne Foreman, Simon Jenkins, Guy Thomas, James Hutchinson, Karen Hutchinson, Peter Hutchinson, Kandis Ip, Pauline Douglas, Lucy Foster, Peggy Conley, Alison Smith, Edd Vahid, David Gilbourne, Alec Grant, Andrew Sparkes and Ken Fox who have invested time reading, reflecting or discussing issues with us. Jerry Bingham at UK Sport made it possible to widen and extend our initial research by providing funding for two projects in 2006, and what researcher isnt grateful for funding? We also thank Kelsey Erickson, Lorena Lozano and Suzanne Peacock for offering feedback on draft chapters, and Ashley Cooper for extending Kitrinas visiting fellowship at the University of Bristol across the course of this research. We reserve a very special thanks to Emeritus Professor Kim Etherington for her gentle admonitions and calls to reflexivity and ethical research relationships.