The objective of this study was to explore career pathways to athletic success in American professional athletes with low socioeconomic background. Ten African American professional male athletes, who met the criteria of playing at least one year in a professional league and spending their formative years in an American underserved community, participated in the study. Interviews inspired by the cultural praxis of athletes’ careers, lasted 68-137 minutes, and the transcripts were thematically analysed. Four career stages (childhood years, middle/high school years, college years, professional years) and three themes (context, challenges, coping) were visible in the career pathways of the participants. During the first stage the athletes’ athletic foundation was developed by participating in inexpensive, easy to access sports in unstructured sporting environments, while simultaneously relying upon the strength of a mother to keep them safe. An increased susceptibility to the dangers of environmental factors (e.g., drugs, gangs) during the middle/high school years made this period of time the most precarious for the athletes, but was also the most crucial for their athletic development. The college years were a time of “catching up,” whereby the athletes entered a whole new environment for which they were physically (e.g., underweight) and psycho-socially (e.g., racial integration) unprepared, but their hard work and the help of peers and coaches propelled them to success (i.e., professional contract). Finally, the results indicate that coping resources the athletes developed dealing with hardship were perceived as key factors enabling them to endure the difficulties of a professional career. © 2020 International Society of Sport Psychology.

The objective of this study was to explore the career narratives of professional athletes from underserved communities in the United States. Two African American athletes (named Marcus and Imari for the study), who both met the criteria of playing at least one year in a professional league and spending their formative years in an underserved community, participated in this study. Life story interviews lasting about two hours were explored through the principles of narrative analysis, focusing on both content and structure. Each participant constructed a sink or swim narrative typology termed risk, descent, and gain that focused more on the environmental context in an underserved community than their athletic development, which opposes the performance narrative often depicted by professional athletes. Although the contextualised nature of risk manifested differently for Marcus and Imari, their life courses both reflected low points precipitated by risky decisions or circumstances followed by gainful moments ultimately culminating in professional contracts. The analysis also uncovered the realities and challenges associated with having the intersecting identity of being a poor, Black aspiring athlete in a racially charged atmosphere. Finally, the athletes’ perceptions of how their challenging formative development influenced their professional career pathway as well as the ramifications of sink or swim narratives in popular American culture are considered. © 2020, © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In this case study we used the holistic ecological approach (HEA) to examine an underserved athletic talent development environment (UATDE) in the United States to: (1) holistically describe a successful UATDE—in this case a community college basketball program known as Best Community College, and (2) explore factors contributing to the success of developing athletes that repeatedly earn athletic scholarships. Data were collected via in-situ observations, document analysis, and interviews (both formal and informal) with coaches, players, and other key stakeholders. The findings were summarized in two empirical models: (1) the UATDE empirical model of Best Community College, and (2) the underserved environment success factors (UESF) empirical model of Best Community College. The operation of the UATDE was significantly influenced by the underserved community in which it was embedded, translating to a lack of financial and human resources, while the team’s roster was occupied by athletically talented, but psychosocially vulnerable players. These challenges were overcome, in part, by a dedicated support team as well as the cultural paradigm established by the head coach as a cultural leader. Conclusively, this case study constitutes an important supplementation to the evolving body of literature utilizing the HEA, highlighting how an environmental context can shift the focus of athletic talent development when we consider the concept of a UATDE. Lay summary: This case study explored a successful community college basketball program located within an underserved American community. While the investigation concludes that socioeconomic challenges in the surrounding community created significant barriers to success, the head coach and support team were able to help players succeed in sport and life.IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Those working in community colleges must be made aware of issues stemming from where the environment is located and also related to the backgrounds of the prospective athletes. Community college sports programs are an important steppingstone to life and sport success for the athletes they serve but a lack of human and financial resources are a large barrier to success that can be counteracted by strong cultural leaders within the sport program. UATDEs must be considered a unique context and practitioners should let this context inform their practice, for example, by supporting the staff as much as the athletes, supporting the head coach in developing a functional cultural paradigm, and supporting the athletes’ broader psychosocial development and not only their performance. © 2023 Association for Applied Sport Psychology.

This study explores the primary challenges faced and strategies implemented in underserved athletic talent development environments (UATDEs) in the United States and examines how developing within such environments impacts athletes once they reach the college and professional levels of sports. Thirteen stakeholders (M = 10, F = 3), who had significant experience working with professional and youth athletes from underserved communities, participated in the study. Unstructured interviews lasting slightly over an hour (M = 74 min) were analyzed using the principles of reflexive thematic analysis and the process uncovered two categories: shared features of school-based UATDEs in the United States and the ripple effects of trauma which were used to structure the findings. Within these two categories, primary themes were presented relating to the challenges observed and strategies implemented to overcome these obstacles in UATDEs as well as how developing within a UATDE can influence an athlete upon leaving the environment. The study found that stakeholders (i.e., administrators, coaches, etc.) who work within UATDEs must be aware of the inherent challenges that the environment creates and how to best support the athletes who require increased psychosocial developmental attention. Further, the same stakeholders also need to be supported in their work. Finally, when athletes from UATDEs leave the environment, stress-inducing traumatic events of their formative years may stay with them requiring that stakeholders at the university and professional levels provide support to those that need it as talent can suffer from trauma. Lay summary: This study explored the perceptions of stakeholders who work with athletes in or coming from American underserved communities. The consensus is that significant challenges exist for coaches working in such environments and athletes developing in these circumstances will likely carry emotional trauma with them during their life and athletic careers.Implications for practice Applied practitioners working in UATDEs must prioritize the psychosocial development of their athletes as much, if not more, than athletic development. Organizations, such as AASP and ISSP must educate (e.g., through conferences, seminars, webinars, etc.) stakeholders and coaches working in UATDEs of the potential challenges faced and resources required to excel in such environments. Applied practitioners in university and professional sport must understand that athletes coming from UATDEs will need additional and specialized support focused upon, for example, the transition to a new environment or managing the ripple effects of trauma. © 2021 Association for Applied Sport Psychology.

Objective: To explore how the intersectional perspective of being a Black male from an underserved community shaped the professional cultural transition of American basketball players to Europe. Design: and Method: The seven Black male athletes, who met the criteria of playing at least one year in a professional European basketball league and spending their formative years in an underserved community in the USA, participated in this study. Life story interviews, lasting between one and 2 h, were analysed through the principles of narrative analysis. Creative non-fiction was used to represent the findings in the form of composite vignettes using the words of the participants to create an evocative and meaningful experiential reconstruction. Findings: The analysis uncovered three primary themes; steppingstones to becoming a professional basketball migrant; from America to Europe: a whole new world once again; and “don't bother to unpack your bags:” from ups and downs to settlement plans. Within these themes, the intersectional identity of being a Black male from a poor community underpinned the storyline. Conclusions: All seven participants left their underserved community at some point during their teenage years, and this transition into a more affluent, White dominated society proved beneficial for the move to Europe. Further, the shared intersectional identity of being an African American male from a low socioeconomic community had critical implications for how they experienced the cultural transition to Europe, and how they were received by the host environment. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Objectives: Dual career development environments (DCDEs) exist to support student-athletes in their endeavours to combine sport with education or work. Such environments are likely to vary in their structure, processes, philosophy, and degree of efficiency. With the overall aim of applying the holistic ecological approach (Henriksen, Stambulova & Roessler, 2010) to the study of DCDEs, the objectives of the present study are: (a) to provide a holistic description of a Danish athlete-friendly university as a DCDE, and (b) to investigate the factors influencing the environment’s effectiveness. Methodology: Based on two working models, the study takes a case study approach and a real-time perspective and uses multiple sources of data (interviews, observations, and documents). Results: Two empirical models summarize the findings and portray the DCDE as: (1) centred on a dual career (DC) support team that serves to support communication and coordination between the sport, study, and private domains; (2) focused on providing individual solutions for each athlete; (3) teaching student-athletes to plan, prioritize, communicate, and take responsibility for the balance in their DC endeavour; and (4) deeply rooted in a shared DC philosophy that puts sport first and recognizes that the student-athletes must be seen as whole persons. Conclusion: Researcher-practitioners in the DC context are encouraged to focus not only on the challenges and coping strategies of the individual student-athletes but to understand and (if necessary) optimize the entire environment around them. © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This consensus statement is the product of an international Think Tank on the initiative of the International Society of Sport Psychology. The purpose of the Think Tank was to unify major sport psychology organizations in a discussion of the current status and future challenges of applied and research aspects of athlete mental health. The contributors present six propositions and recommendations to inspire sport organizations and researchers. The propositions are: Mental health is a core component of a culture of excellence; Mental health in a sport context should be better defined; Research on mental health in sport should broaden the scope of assessment; Athlete mental health is a major resource for the whole athletic career and life post-athletic career; The environment can nourish or malnourish athlete mental health; and Mental health is everybody’s business but should be overseen by one or a few specified members. It is recommended that researchers unite to develop a more contextualized definition of athlete mental health and more comprehensive strategies of assessment, as well as join forces with sporting organizations to investigate sustainable elite sport environments and the role of the mental health officer. Sport organizations are advised to recognize athlete mental health as a core component of a healthy elite sport system and a key indicator of their effectiveness, support research initiatives, and to promote the mental health literacy of all their staff while engaging a mental health officer with the responsibility to oversee a support system. © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

During the last decade, talent identification and development research that favours an individual perspective has been complemented by a focus on young athletes' social environments, termed “athletic talent development environments” (ATDEs). Two major lines of research have created a foundation for an ecological vision of talent development as the mutual accommodation between athletes and their ATDEs and of career development as an athlete's journey through various athletic and non-athletic environments. The Talent Development Environment Questionnaire allows the quantitative screening of athletes' environments, while the holistic ecological approach (HEA) promotes in-depth qualitative case studies of ATDEs. In this chapter, we focus mainly on the HEA, including: (a) two models that combine to illustrate an ATDE; (b) a summary of empirical case studies of successful environments in various sports and countries, culminating in a set of shared features of ATDEs that promote athletes' wellbeing and athletic and personal development; (c) an overview of recent trends within HEA (e.g. interorganisational collaboration in talent development) and (d) recommendations for coaches and sport psychology consultants, emphasising the importance of integrating efforts across the whole environment and building strong and coherent organisational cultures. In the discussion, we elaborate on developing the HEA discourse and point to future challenges for researchers and practitioners. © 2023 Henriksen and Stambulova

In the present paper, we introduce an ecological view of career transitions. We consider an athlete’s development as a journey through various athletic and non-athletic environments that support their striving for career excellence. On this journey, an athlete experiences a multitude of environments and transitions from one environment (e.g., one club, one country or one sport) to another. To develop this understanding, we introduce the concept of a transition environment defined as a dynamic and temporary system that bridges the setting that an athlete is transitioning from and to. We also suggest two working models that in unison can work as a roadmap for transition environment research and practice. The transition environment (TE) model helps to describe the TE and the transition environment success factor (TE-SF) model helps to understand why certain TEs are more successful than others supporting athletes in transition. The models can be used by researchers studying specific transition environments to understand how such environments facilitate or hinder transitions, and by practitioners (coaches, managers, sport psychologists) to support athletes’ transitions by improving their TEs. We hope the idea of an ecology of athlete transitions will find its way into empirical studies of different types of transitions (e.g., to another sport, to another level in sport, to another club or to another country) in multiple cultural contexts and contribute to the development of career-long psychological support services. © 2023 International Society of Sport Psychology.

This study combines the holistic ecological and holistic developmental approaches through a mixed-methods intrinsic case study with a convergent design to explore how a Dual Career (DC) Development Environment (DCDE) facilitated student-athletes’ transition to a Scandinavian university. The case was explored through multiple sources of data inspired by the research methodology in the holistic ecological approach and the DC-Environment Success Factors (DC-ESF) working model. Semi-structured interviews, with student-athletes and support providers, and documents analysis were complemented by a quantitative monitoring of the student-athletes’ transition experiences. Findings are presented in a joint display by merging the qualitative and quantitative data in an empirical version of the DC-ESF model. The empirical model summarizes the case by situating the environment in student-athletes’ development and showing a challenging transition with athletic and non-athletic demands, and a well-coordinated and supportive environment with a mission of a balanced and synchronized whole and targeting empowerment of the whole person. The student-athletes developed their DC competences and a holistic attitude to development, improved in sport and study, and in their ability to balance their DC. This study contributes to the literature by bridging the gap between transition and environment research. By integrating the two approaches the study explicitly shows the fit between the student-athletes’ needs and the environment’s support leading to the conclusion that effective DCDEs works to meet student-athletes’ needs by helping them to develop DC competencies to create and maintain an optimal DC balance. © 2021. American Psychological Association

Research into athletes' dual careers has been guided by two main approaches. The holistic developmentalapproach has increased our understanding of the demands student-athletes' face and the competences needed tobalance their DC. The holistic ecological approach has shifted the attention to the developmental context andhow DC development environments (DCDE) support or hinder student-athletes' development. So far, DCDEsand their functioning have been described and deemed effective based on general outcome measures (e.g.,sport and academic achievements, dropout rate), but without a clear link to the student-athletes' actual demandsand supportive needs. In this study we explored how a DCDE facilitated student-athletes' transition to, and firstyear adaptation at university level, by combining the holistic ecological and holistic developmental approachesand considering DC balance as a primary concern for DC support. A mixed-methods intrinsic case study wasimplemented to explore the complexity and uniqueness of a specific bounded case, that is, a Scandinavianuniversity-based DCDE and student-athletes' development within it. Inspired by the holistic ecologicalapproach and the DC-environment success factors (DC-ESF) working model we explored the case usingmultiple sources of data. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the transition experiences ofnine student-athletes and the perspectives on the environment and support from four key support providers.This was complemented by documents analysis and a quantitative monitoring of the student-athletes' transitionexperiences (e.g., perceived DC balance, demands, and coping) throughout the educational year. Findings arepresented in a joint display by merging the qualitative and quantitative data in an empirical version of the DCESFmodel. The student-athletes experienced a challenging transition with both athletic and non-athleticdemands. The environment was well-coordinated with support providers centered around a mission of "abalanced and synchronized whole" and targeting empowerment of the whole person. There was convergenceacross sources of information with qualitative and quantitative data showing that the student-athletes improvedin their sport and study, and in their ability to balance their DC while also developing their DC competences.By integrating the holistic ecological and the holistic developmental approaches we were able to situate theenvironment in the student-athletes' development and explicitly show the fit between student-athletes' needs(i.e., perceived demands) and support provided in the DCDE. Based on our finding we believe effectiveenvironments are those that work to optimize their structure and culture to meet student-athletes' needs, helpstudent-athletes develop their DC competencies and maintain their DC balance. © 2021 International Society of Sport Psychology

This presentation will share a good practice example of a how a Dual Career (DC) Development Environment (DCDE) facilitated student-athletes’ transition to a Scandinavian university. We designed the study as a mixed-methods intrinsic case study (Hodge & Sharp, 2016) with a convergent design (Creswell & Creswell, 2018), combining the holistic ecological and holistic developmental approaches (Henriksen & Stambulova, 2017; Wylleman, 2019) and considering DC balance (Stambulova et al., 2015) as the primary concern for support. Using the DC-Environment Success Factors (DC-ESF) working model (Henriksen et al., 2020) as our guide we explored the case through multiple sources of data. Semi-structured interviews, with nine student-athletes and four support providers, and document analysis were complemented with ten-months of quantitative monitoring of the student-athletes’ transition experiences (e.g., DC balance, demands and coping). Findings are summarized in an empirical version of the DC-ESF model which, for example, showed a challenging transition within a well-coordinated and supportive environment; student-athletes taking part in everyday activities infused by a flexible sport-study exchange and support providers emphasizing balance and targeting empowerment of the whole person. Student-athletes improved in sport and study and in their ability to balance their DC. They started to recognize that to develop optimally they needed to consider their needs across life domains. These findings, and more, will be situated as part of the specific bounded case to illustrate how a DCDE can support student-athletes in the process of striving for career excellence in sport and life, by balancing their DC.

This case study of a dual career development environment (DCDE) was informed by the holistic ecological approach (HEA) and aimed at: (a) providing a holistic description of a DCDE at university level in Sweden, and (b) investigating the perceived factors influencing the environment’s effectiveness in facilitating the development of student-athletes. We blended ‘in situ’ observations, interviews, and documents analysis to explore the case, and HEA-informed working models were transformed into empirical models summarizing the case. Findings show a well-coordinated DCDE with the key role of coaches in daily dual career support, and how efforts were integrated through a dual career-support team sharing a philosophy of facilitating healthy performance development and life balance, with a whole-person and empowerment approach. This study adds to the literature by identifying features of a successful DCDE and insights from the case can be useful for practitioners in their quest to optimize their DCDEs and support. © 2020 Human Kinetics

Athlete mental health, though long present within research and practice, has recently become a central topic area within the sport and exercise psychology field. The International Society of Sport Psychology has been at the forefront of these discussions, evidenced by a foundational position stand in 2018 and subsequent consensus statements derived from international think tanks. Within this position stand, contributors from the international community spanning five continents collaborated to present key, updated ideas and emerging concepts relating to clinical understandings of athlete mental health, trends in athlete mental health status, the role of the sport environment, mental health in relation to athlete careers, the global treatment of athlete mental health, cultural considerations in relation to understanding this topic, and nine synthesising postulates. © 2024 International Society of Sport Psychology.

This paper is a comprehensive update of the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) Position Stand on career development and transitions of athletes issued a decade ago (Stambulova, Alfermann, Statler, & Côté, 2009). A need for updating the 2009 Position Stand has grown out of the increasing inconsistency between its popularity and high citation, on the one hand, and its dated content that inadequately reflects the current status of athlete career research and assistance, on the other. During the last decade, sport psychology career scholars worked on structuring the athlete career knowledge and consolidating it into the athlete career (sport psychology) discourse (ACD). The aims of this paper are to: (1) update the decade-long evolution and describe the current structure of the ACD, (2) introduce recent trends in career development and transition research, (3) discuss emerging trends in career assistance, and (4) summarize in a set of postulates the current status and future challenges of the ACD.  © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This case study in Danish swimming was informed by a holistic ecological approach in talent development and aimed to explore (a) collaborative relationships between the Danish swimming federation, a municipality, and a local swimming club, termed “an organizational triangle,” and (b) factors influencing the success of their collaboration at the local level. Data collection and analysis were guided by the athletic-talent-development-environment (working) model and a newly developed collaboration-success-factors (CSF) model. Methods included interviews with talent-development coordinators representing the organizations and analysis of documents. Results allowed the authors to transform the CSF (working) model into an empirical model containing the collaboration preconditions (e.g., power to make decisions), processes (e.g., strategic planning), and initiatives (e.g., efficient use of the swimming pool) and shared assumptions of the talent-development philosophy (e.g., long-term focus). The success of this organizational triangle was visible in the way the organizations increased the quality of talent development in the local swimming club. © 2020 Human Kinetics, Inc.