Towards a critical consideration of the effects of coaching practice on athletic retirement: a poststructuralist perspective

Dominant understandings of sports retirement have tied problematic outcomes to individual characteristics and the circumstances of an athlete’s exit from sport. In recent years, sociologists have problematised these readings, providing new ways of thinking about retirement transitions, experiences, and relationships. This area of research considers how an exposure to normalising arrangements of power might produce challenging responses to athletic retirement. Accordingly, scholars have drawn upon Foucauldian theory to reveal how the disciplinary logic of modern coaching can impact upon retirement experiences. However, there remains limited empirical research exploring the effects that the approaches, attitudes, and practices of coaching practitioners may have upon retirees’ post-athletic lives. Developing poststructuralist analyses of athletic retirement, this paper seeks to stimulate a further consideration of the retirement process within coaching research. Specifically, this ‘new horizons’ paper does so by advocating for a broader empirical exploration into the connection between sports coaching and sports retirement.