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PREDICTORS OF RETIREMENT DISTRESS AMONG MALE

FORMER INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETES

presented by

MERCEDES E. CARSWELL

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Doctoral degree in Psychology and Kinesiology

 

 

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PREDICTORS OF RETIREMENT DISTRESS AMONG MALE FORMER
INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETES

By

Mercedes E. Carswell

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Psychology
Kinesiology

2008

ABSTRACT

PREDICTORS OF RETIREMENT DISTRESS AMONG MALE FORMER
IN TERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETES

By

Mercedes E. Carswell

Utilizing Taylor and Ogilvie’s (1994) model of adaptation to career transition, this study
identiﬁed predictors of maladaptive transitions out of sports (i.e., the presence of
psychological distress) among male intercollegiate athletes who retired due to
deselection. Former student-athletes (N = 140) from revenue—producing sports completed
an online retrospective questionnaire. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that
current levels of psychological distress were associated with lower career decision-
making self-efﬁcacy, the use of maladaptive coping strategies, greater losses in
participation motivation factors, and lower levels of perceived social support at the time
of retirement. There was not a signiﬁcant relationship between athletic identity at the
time of retirement and current distress. Additionally, no support was found for the
hypotheses that identity foreclosure and masculinity predicted psychological distress.
Overall, 46% of the variance in psychological distress was accounted for by the predictor
variables in the ﬁnal model. Multiple regression analyses indicated that racial identity
was not a signiﬁcant predictor of distress among athletes of color. Furthermore, social
support was not a moderator of distress for any of the predictor variables. Implications in
the areas of student-athlete development and student-athlete support services are

discussed.

Dedicated to any other graduate students who ever questioned if they were good enough
— the answer is YES!

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation to my Kinesiology advisor, Dr. Deborah Feltz,
for her guidance, patience, and willingness to take a chance on a wide—eyed Psychology

grad student who came to her ofﬁce asking about the feasibility of a dual degree.

I also want to express my gratitude to my Psychology advisor, Dr. Robert Caldwell, who
has been an amazing advisor for the last 4 years and believed in my abilities even when I

was overwhelmed with uncertainty and Imposter Syndrome.

I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Drs. Richard DeShon, Dan
Gould and Isis Settles, for sharing their expertise and making my dissertation defense

such a positive and rewarding experience.

To my family: Thank you Mom, Dad and John for your love, encouragement, prayers,

and belief in me. Thank you Dr. Mary Eunice Benjamin for everything.

To my cohort: Thank you Carolyn, Gillian, Janet, Mark, and Shallimar for helping me in
so many ways over the years. Mark - here is your acknowledgement in bold — thanks

for reading over my stats drafts.

I would like to acknowledge the NCAA Research Committee for their support of my
project. I also want to thank the numerous people who helped me with recruitment and
talked to others about the Student-Athlete Alumni Study on my behalf. Finally, I have to
thank all the former college student-athletes who took the time to help a stranger and

completed one of the longest questionnaires they had probably ever seen.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................... vii
LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................... viii
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .................................................... 1
CHAPTER H: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Retirement ................................................................... l4
Retirement as a Transition ....................................... l4
Retirement from Athletics ......................................... 15
Models of Athletic Retirement .................................. 21
Identity ...................................................................... 25
Athletic Identity ................................................... 27
Athletic Identity-Related Attributes ............................ 30
Foreclosed Identity ....................................... 30
Masculinity ................................................ 34
Alternate Identities ............................................... 36
Racial Identity ........................................... 37
Conclusions ........................................................ 40
Career Decision-Making .................................................. 40
Post—retirement Planning ......................................... 40
Career Maturity ................................................... 43
Career Decision-Making Self-Efﬁcacy ......................... 46
Conclusions ......................................................... 48
Coping Strategies ............................................................ 48
Participation Motivation ................................................... 50
Social Support ............................................................... 54
Athletes and Psychological Distress ..................................... 58
Overall Summary ........................................................... 62
CHAPTER III: METHODS
Participants .................................................................. 67
Measures ..................................................................... 71
Procedure ..................................................................... 77
Data Screening .............................................................. 78

CHAPTER IV: RESULTS

Statistical Analyses ......................................................... 80
Preliminary Analyses ...................................................... 81
Structural Equation Modeling of the Data ............................... 85
Testing of the Hypotheses .................................................. 93

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION

Interpretation of the Result ................................................ 97

Limitations ................................................................... 105

Study Implications .......................................................... ll 1

Future Research ............................................................. 1 15

APPENDICIES

A: DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONNAIRE ...................................... 120
B: ATHLETIC IDENTITY MEASUREMENT SCALE ....................... 122
C: EXTENDED OBJECTIVE MEASURE OF

EGO IDENTITY STATUS .............................................. 124
D: BEM SEX-ROLE INVENTORY — SHORT FORM ........................ 126
E: MULTIDIMENSIONAL INVENTORY OF

BLACK IDENTITY ........................................................ 128
F: CAREER DECISION MAKING SELF-EFFICACY

SHORT FORM ............................................................. 130
G: BRIEF COPE ..................................................................... 132
H: PARTICIPATION MOTIVATION ........................................... 135
I: MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALE OF PERCEIVED

SOCIAL SUPPORT ....................................................... 137
J: CONSENT FORM ............................................................... 139

REFERENCES ................................................................................ 141

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Demographic Data: Means, Standard Deviations, and
Frequencies of Participant Characteristics ..................................... 69

Table 2. Correlations Among Demographic Variables and Psychological

Distress ............................................................................ 82
Table 3. Correlations, Means and Standard Deviations ................................. 84
Table 4. Distress Factor Loadings in the Measurement Model ....................... 87

Table 5. Parameter Estimates of Predictors of Distress
in the Initial Full Model .......................................................... 89

Table 6. Parameter Estimates of Predictors of Distress
in the Final Full Model ............................................................ 92

Table 7. Multiple Regression Predictors of Distress among
Former Student-Athletes of Color .............................................. 95

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Conceptual model of adaptation to retirement among athletes ............ 4
Figure 2. Model of hypothesized relationships .......................................... 11
Figure 3. Initial Full Model ................................................................ 88
Figure 4. Final Full Model ................................................................. 91

viii

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Inevitably, every elite sport career will end. All athletes will arrive at a point
where age, injury, or ability requires their transition out of competitive sport. Careers
may end at any point, from high school, college, or professional athletic programs.
Transitions out of intercollegiate athletics are of special interest due to the number of
student-athletes who invest more than 20 hours a week to their sport before leaving the
collegiate ranks (Brown & Glastetter-Fender, 2000). By the time many college student-
athletes reach the end of their eligibility, they have dedicated 10 or more years to their
sport (McPherson, 1980). Dedication of this magnitude to a single aspect of an
individual’s life could easily result in a desire for a greater return for the signiﬁcant time
and physical investment. This desire is apparent in the number of student-athletes who
covet a position on a professional team. The estimated percentage of intercollegiate
athletes who aspire to play at a professional level ranges from 17% to 66% (ARI, 1989;
Blann, 1985; Brown & Glastetter-Fender, 2000; Curry, 1993; Kennedy & Dimick, 1987;
Smallman & Sowa, 1996). Despite players’ aspirations, the majority of intercollegiate
athletes will never play in the professional arena. The NCAA (2004) estimated that 1.3%
of men’s basketball, 2.0% of football and 4.1% of ice hockey student-athletes will move
from a NCAA institution to professional sports. Inherent in these statistics is the idea of
deselection, the inability to further one’s career by failing to successfully compete at a
higher level of competition. Deselection is the leading source of athlete attrition (Ogilvie
& Howe, 1986). Given that the majority of intercollegiate athletes will face retirement

from elite level sports due to deselection, athletes’ transition out of sport is of interest to

psychologists because of the end of the ﬁnancial, emotional, and social beneﬁts derived
from elite—level sports.

Retirement experiences among athletes have been examined at the collegiate and
professional level of play. Several studies were completed with contradictory results. For
instance, a number of researchers suggest that athletes frequently experience some form
of psychological complications when transitioning out of sports, including symptoms of
depression, anxiety, isolation, decreased self-esteem and substance abuse (Allison &
Meyer, 1988; Blinde & Stratta, 1992; Haerle, 1975; Kleiber & Brock, 1992; Messner,
1992; Mihovilovic, 1968; Murphy, 1995; Svoboda & Vanek, 1982; Webb et al., 1998;
Werthner & Orlick, 1986). Other researchers argue that the majority of athletes
experience minimal to no psychological distress or decrease in life satisfaction during
their retirement process (Curtis & Ennis, 1988; Greendorfer & Blinde, 1985; Kleiber et
al., 1987; Pema, Zaichkowsky, & Bocknek, 1996). However, the researchers who
propose that athletic retirement is a transitional period with relatively minor disturbances
also generally report that a small portion of their participants do report some level of
distress at the point of retirement. Even researchers who suggest that retirement is a
generally positive process acknowledge that up to 20% of retired athletes experience
signiﬁcant difﬁculty when retiring from their sports (Lavallee et al., 2000). Therefore,
whether or not the majority of athletes experience a healthy transition from sport may not
be the most signiﬁcant issue. There appears to be a number of athletes who face transition
difﬁculties when they retire. Clariﬁcation is required to understand what factors

contribute to difﬁculties in adapting to athletic retirement.

Although the consequences of retirement have been examined extensively, few
studies address the assortment of individual factors that may contribute to the quality of
an athlete’s transition. Individual differences may assist in identifying reasons behind the
contradictory ﬁndings. In an attempt to reconcile the inconsistent research findings in the
athletic retirement literature while incorporating potential individual differences, Taylor
and Ogilvie (1994) constructed a conceptual model of athletic retirement that presents
trajectories towards healthy and maladaptive transitions. Based on their review of earlier
theoretical work and empirical research, the authors theorize that the cause of retirement
(age, deselection, injury, or free choice) inﬂuences individual factors related to adaptation
as well as the available resources the athletes have to address their retirement difﬁculties.
Individual factors include developmental experiences, self-identity, perception of control,
social identity, and tertiary contributors such as socioeconomic class and minority status.
Available resources incorporate the retiring athlete’s coping skills, social support and pre-
retirement planning (Figure 1).

Taylor and Ogilvie (1994) suggested that individual factors interact with the
athlete’s available resources to determine the quality of retirement from sport. The
authors noted that retirement may be a healthy transition or a maladaptive process
inclusive of psychopathology, substance abuse, occupational problems, and family/social
concerns. Although their model identiﬁes multiple contributors to adaptation, the authors
did not empirically test the model and it is not clear how these components interact with
one another or what conﬁguration of factors could encourage a positive transition from
sport. Likewise, the model does not provide detail about a pattern of variables that may

serve as risk factors for retirement crises. Additional research is needed to explain how

 

 

Causes of Athletic
Retirement:
Age
Deselection
Injury
Free Choice

 

 

 

L

Factors Related to
Adaptation to Retirement:
Developmental Experiences

Self-Identity
Perception of Control
Social Identity
Tertiary Contributors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Available Resources:
Coping Skills
Social Support

Pre-retirement Planning

 

 

 

l

 

Quality of
Adaptation to
Athletic Retirement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retirement Crisis:
Psychopathology
Substance Abuse

Occupational Problems
Family/Social Problems

 

 

 

 

 

Intervention:
Cognitive
Emotional
Behavioral

Social

 

 

 

 

 

Healthy Career
Transition

 

 

 

Figure 1. Conceptual model of adaptation to retirement among athletes

(Taylor & Ogilvie, 1994).

the variables identiﬁed in the adaptation model relate to maladaptive retirement
experiences.

As noted earlier, deselection is the most common reason for retirement among
intercollegiate athletes. Thus, the population of intercollegiate athletes leaving sport due
to deselection (compared to injury or free choice) provides a sizable potential sample to
investigate a speciﬁc segment of the conceptual model of athletes adaptation to
retirement. Additionally, ﬁndings in this area may have far reaching applicability in the
area of student-athlete development given the over 16,000 student-athletes in basketball,
football, and hockey who do not move to the next level each year (NCAA, 2004).

How these former athletes adjust to their life without elite sports will vary based
on individual and environmental factors. Identity, the manner in which people deﬁne
themselves, is one potential individual factor that could predict which deselected athletes
adjust poorly to retirement. Research suggests that athletic identity may play a role in
adaptation to retirement (Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993). Higher athletic
identiﬁcation is associated with difﬁcult retirements (Lavellee, Gordon, & Grove, 1997;
Webb et al., 1998). However, researchers note that a strong and exclusive athletic identity
is required to see the detrimental affects on adaptation to retirement (Blinde &
Greendorfer, 1985). Few studies include measures of one aspect of athletic identity,
identity foreclosure, which is a commitment to an identity without exploring alternative
options (Marcia, 1966) and could address the issue of identity exclusivity. Therefore,
research on athletic identity and retirement can be strengthened by the incorporation of

measures assessing the athlete’s level of foreclosure.

Masculinity, conceptualized as an aspect of athletic identity for males for
purposes of this work, is another factor that could potentially inﬂuence transition out of
sports. Masculinity has been highly associated with athletic participation (Caron, Carter,
& Brightman, 1985). If a male athlete is no longer able to participate at an elite level, the
loss of sports may pose a threat to masculinity, thereby increasing the chances of
psychological distress.

Self-complexity, the number of identities and level independence among them,
may inﬂuence the athletes’ level of distress after retirement. Individuals with a greater
number of identities report lower levels of psychological distress than individuals with
fewer identity alternatives (Thoits, 1983). One potential alternative identity for athletes of
color is racial identity, which could also inﬂuence the retirement process. A strong racial
identity might hinder the group processes on interracial athletic teams. However, a strong
racial identity has been found to be protective in other domains against symptoms of
depression and anxiety (Cross, 1991; Helms, 1990; Sellers et al., 1998). High athletic
identity appears to have a diminishing effect on the strength of an athlete’s racial identity
(Jackson et al., 2002). Therefore, low racial identity, while potentially adaptive in sport,
may hinder transition when the faced with the loss of the athlete role.

Intercollegiate athletes, when compared to their non-athlete peers, are less mature
in their ability to make career decisions (Kennedy & Dimick, 1988; Martens & Cox,
2000; Sowa & Gressard, 1983). Although Taylor and Ogilvie (1994) identify pre-
retirement planning as a contributor to the quality of adaptation, they do not address how
the student-athletes’ beliefs in their ability to use their limited pre-retirement knowledge

could inﬂuence the model. Career decision-making self-efﬁcacy is a strong predictor of

future career exploratory behaviors and vocational decisiveness (Betz, 2001). Research
investigating transitions into a new career may consider career decision-making self-
efﬁcacy as a potential contributor the adaptation process.

The stressors facing deselected athletes are addressed with some form of coping
mechanisms, whether the strategies are adaptive or maladaptive. Limited research in the
area of coping with athletic retirement suggests that athletes will generally use coping
strategies that are associated with healthy transitions from sport (Sinclair & Orlick,
1994). However, athletes with strong athletic identities may have more maladaptive
coping strategies (Grove, LaVallee, & Gordon, 1997). Studies have failed to examine the
speciﬁc coping skills used by former college student-athletes who do not have a positive
transitional experience. There may be speciﬁc coping skills that are predictive of a poor
transition from elite sports.

One’s loss of participation in intercollegiate athletics may also result in the loss of
many of the beneﬁts gained from sport participation. Often, the incentives for
participating in sports are non-tangible reinforcers such as achievement or a sense of
belonging. Gould, Feltz and Weiss (1981, 1985) identiﬁed seven athletic participation
motivation factors: achievement/status, team atmosphere, excitement/challenge, ﬁtness,
energy release, skill development, and friendship. The factors are supported by the
ﬁndings in other sport-related participation motivation research (Dwyer, 1992; Gill,
Gross, & Huddleson, 1983). According to self-determination theory, the factors that
motivate behaviors (such as playing sports) also fulﬁll the basic psychological needs of
competence, autonomy, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 1985). It is unclear what occurs

when athletes are faced with the loss of intercollegiate sports and the athletic

participation motives as well as how this loss may contribute to retirement distress. It is
conceivable that former athletes who have not found a new career or life situation that
provides the motivating factors once derived from sports will have a difﬁcult transition
out of sports.

Social support appears to decrease the probability that a person will experience
depression and anxiety when faced with life stressors (Swift & Wright, 2000). However,
studies of athletes in transition show that strong athletic identity is related to inadequate
social support networks after retirement (Baillie & Danish, 1992: Brewer et al., 1993;
Messner, 1992). There is also evidence of a general deﬁciency in social support among
intercollegiate athletes (Storch et al., 2005). Although athletes tend to have large social
networks, they often are not receiving the social support they desire (Pearson & Petitas,
1990; Rosenfeld, Richman & Hardy, 1989). This discrepancy may be explained by
perceived social support. Athletes may not perceive that their social supports are truly
supportive. The physical availability of a particular social support does not necessarily
mean that the support person will provide the emotional support required to counter the
potential distress of retirement. Few studies have examined how the perceived social
support that athletes receive during retirement may inﬂuence their adaptation to leaving
sports. Perceived social support may be a more appropriate way of evaluating the
inﬂuence of social support on athletes’ adaptation to retirement.

Purpose

The primary aim of this study was to determine whether there are certain

variables that serve as risk factors for psychological distress among male former student-

athletes who played in revenue—producing college sports and were unable to play at a

professional level due to deselection. Utilizing Taylor and Ogilvie’s (1994) conceptual
model of adaptation to career transition, the study examined if and how these variables
are associated with a maladaptive transition from sport for student-athletes whose careers
ended due to deselection. More speciﬁcally, the study examined the main effects and
potential interactions between identity factors (athletic identity, identity foreclosure,
masculinity, and racial identity), career decision-making self-efﬁcacy, maladaptive
coping strategies, the loss of participation motivation factors, and perceived social
support as predictors of psychological distress. Social support was also evaluated as a
potential moderator of distress.

Hypotheses

The hypotheses that were tested are represented in Figure 2 and are stated as follows:

1. Identity risk factors at time of departure from sport are correlated to current
psychological distress:
a Athletic identity positively and directly predicts distress.
b. Identity foreclosure positively and directly predicts distress.

Masculinity positively and directly predicts distress.

P

P-

For student-athletes of color, racial identity negatively and directly

predicts distress.

2. Career decision-making self-efﬁcacy (CDMSE) negatively and directly
predicts distress.
Maladaptive coping strategies positively and directly predicts distress.

4. The loss of participation motivation factors positively and directly predicts
distress.

5. Perceived social support negatively and directly predicts distress.

6. (Not modeled) Perceived social support moderates the relationship between
maladaptive coping strategies and distress, identity risk factors and distress,

CDMSE and distress, and loss of participation motivation factors and distress.

7. Athletic identity is positively correlated with maladaptive coping strategies.

8. Athletic identity is negatively correlated with social support.

Deﬁnitions
Variables and terms relevant to the current study are deﬁned and/or
operationalized as follows:
Athletic identity is deﬁned as the degree with which student-athletes associate
themselves with the athlete role and is represented by the total score on the
Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993).
Career decision-making self-efﬁcacy (CDMSE) is the degree of the belief that
one can successfully complete the task of making career decisions (Betz, 2001). It
is measured deﬁned by the total score on select items from the CDMSE-SF (Betz
et al., 2003).
Deselection is the inability to further one’s athletic career and play at a higher
level of competition for reasons unrelated to age, injury, or free choice (Ogilvie &
Howe, 1986).
Identity foreclosure is a commitment to an identity, such as athlete, without
exploring alternative options (Marcia, 1966). Foreclosure is measured deﬁned by
a combination of the interpersonal and ideological foreclosure subscales of the
EOMEIS-2 (Bennion & Adams, 1986).
Maladaptive coping strategies are problematic coping strategies identiﬁed by
Carver (1997) that include self-distraction, behavioral disengagement, denial,

self-blame, and venting.

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11

Masculinity is a set of culturally ascribed characteristics that are expected from
men (Craig, 1992). Masculinity is measured by the BSRI masculinity subscale
score (Bern, 1981).

Participation motivation factors are the seven factors identiﬁed by Gould, Feltz
and Weiss (1981, 1985): achievement/status, team atmosphere,
excitement/challenge, ﬁtness, energy release, skill development, and friendship.
Perceived social support is individuals’ perceptions of how well their need for
support, information, and feedback is being fulﬁlled by members of their social
network (Procidano & Heller, 1983). Social support is measured by the total score
on Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet &
Farley, 1988).

Psychological distress is deﬁned as clinical symptoms of depression, anxiety,
and alcohol abuse/dependence as measured by the Personality Assessment
Inventory subscales (Morey, 1991).

Racial identity, conceptualized as racial centrality, is the extent to which being of
a certain race is central to an individual's deﬁnition of self and is measured by a
total score on MIBI centrality scale (Sellers et al., 1997).

Revenue-producing sports are football, basketball, baseball, and hockey.

l2

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The current study considers predictors of retirement distress among deselected
intercollegiate male athletes in revenue-producing sports. An extensive review of relevant
retirement literature introduces the concept of retirement as a transition and then provides
an outline of current research on athletic retirement. This is followed by an overview of
various models of athletic retirement and the presentation of the model that serves as the
basis for the proposed research. The literature review continues with an examination of
potential predictors of retirement distress. Research in the areas of athletic identity,
identity foreclosure, masculinity and racial identity is discussed and potential interactions
among these variables are proposed. The career decision—making self-efﬁcacy literature
follows. After reviewing research ﬁndings in the areas of pre-retirement planning and
career maturity, the concept of career decision-making self-efﬁcacy is discussed as a
potential predictor of retirement problems. Coping strategies associated with retirement
are reviewed and maladaptive coping strategies are proposed as a predictor of distress.
Participation motivation literature is outlined and the loss of the incentives gained from
sports participation is proposed as a contributor to distress. Research studies on the utility
of social support are examined and a case is made for perceived social support as a
protective factor during retirement. Finally, literature focusing on athletes and
psychological distress is reviewed. An argument is presented for clinical symptoms to be

used as potential markers of retirement distress among former athletes.

13

Retirement
Retirement as (1 Transition]

Life is a process of continual change. Individuals experience countless transitions
across the lifespan. A transition is a “sharp discontinuity with previous life events”
(Brammer, 1992, pp 239). Schlossberg (1981) added that transitions are accompanied by
a change in self-concept, individual behavior and relationships. Retirement requires a
distinctive break from previous work experiences, changes in daily behavior, and social
relationships. Therefore, retirement is a signiﬁcant transition in one’s lifetime.

Baillie (1993) noted that retirement marks the end of a pursuit in which an
individual has invested a substantial amount of time, energy, and role identiﬁcation. This
conceptualization may be applied to sports as well. Greendorfer and Blinde (1985)
observed that sport retirement, speciﬁcally from intercollegiate play, is better
conceptualized as a transition process than a complete retirement given that many former
athletes may stay active in their sport (e. g., coaching, playing recreationally, and working
with athletes). For example, 75% of former athletes in their study were still participating
in sport at some level and retirement from the role of intercollegiate athlete did not mark
the end of their involvement with sports.

Brammer (1992) remarked that the majority of life transitions are associated with
an experience of loss. This loss may have adverse consequences. Moos and Tsu (1976)
noted that transitions have two contrasting psychological paths, an opportunity for

individual growth or a chance for individual deterioration. Retirement, as a transition, can

 

1 Given that the current study dealt exclusively with athletes leaving intercollegiate sports
due to deselection, the rather extensive literature in the area of athletic termination as a result
of injury is not covered. The reader is referred to Brewer (1994) and Wiese-Bjornstal and
colleagues (1998) for additional information.

14

be associated with some level of individual decline in well-being and may lead to serious
psychological concerns. Hopson (1981) suggested that a period of self-doubt and feelings
of depression are typical in a transitional period. Avery and J ablin (1988) surveyed more
than 40 Fortune 100 companies and found that retired employees noted difﬁculties
dealing with the loss of their peers, problems communicating with their spouses, and a
signiﬁcant reduction in self-esteem. Similar ﬁndings can be found in the sport retirement
literature.
Retirement from athletics

In one of earliest and the most cited studies on adjustment to athletic retirement
Mihovilovic (1968) found that in his sample of 44 former Yugoslavian soccer players,
53% missed the popularin being a team member gave them and 16% began drinking
more after leaving their team. Retirement was described as a traumatic experience among
those athletes who did not have a new profession to transition into after leaving their
team. Haerle (1975) surveyed former professional baseball players and learned that 50%
of participants were more oriented to their past sport experiences than to their future.
Past-oriented athletes reported that they experienced regret, sadness, and shock during the
transition process. In another study of reactions to athletic retirement with former athletes
who played at the high school, college, or professional level, 46% of the participants
indicated that a difﬁcult retirement was “quite characteristic” or “very characteristic” of
their overall experience (Webb, Nasco, Riley, & Headrick, 1998).

Research conducted with elite Olympic athletes has shown comparable results.
Ungerleider (1997) interviewed 57 former US. Olympians and found that 42% of

participants retrospectively reported minor difﬁculties when transitioning from sport to

15

the workplace. Another 21% reported having serious problems with the transition and
19% endorsed having very serious problems. The former Olympians experiencing very
serious problems indicated that they were unable to make the adjustment from sport to
the workplace. The former athletes also noted that they were unable to relinquish their
identity as an elite athlete, suggesting that inappropriately holding onto an exclusive
athletic identity may play a role in poor transitions. Notably, the ages of the participants
ranged from 24 to 83 with a mean age of 45 years old. Therefore, these results may differ
with a younger, intercollegiate sample.

International research with elite athletes also notes difficulties with athletic
retirement. Svoboda and Vanek (1982) found that 83% of Czech Olympic athletes
reported a variety of psychological, social, and vocational conﬂicts upon retirement from
sport. Former elite French and Swedish athletes also indicated that they experienced a
moderate level of negative emotions including emptiness, sadness, and uncertainty upon
retirement (Stambulova, Stephan, & J aphag, 2007). Werthner and Orlick (1986)
evaluated former Canadian Olympians and found that 78.5% of the former athletes
experienced a moderately to very difﬁcult time with the termination process as well as an
immediate drop in life satisfaction post-retirement. Additionally, the majority of the
athletes in the study who stated that they had no real problems in adjustment also
reported having a job in their sport after retirement, suggesting that they did not have to
fully transition out of the athlete role. Particularly, 95% of the sample subsequently
reported reaching increased or similar levels of satisfaction when compared to their
satisfaction level during their athletic careers, signifying that the distress during the

transition may be time-limited. Stephan and colleagues (2003) completed a study that

16

supports a time-limited distress period. The researchers completed semi-structured
interviews with 16 French former Olympic athletes over the ﬁrst 12 months following
career termination and found that after an initial decrease in subjective well-being,
athletes reported an increase, stabilization, and a ﬁnal increase in well-being after
retirement.

Investigations of transitions from intercollegiate sport also show that college
athletes may be susceptible to distress in the retirement process. Blinde and Stratta (1992)
found that 80% of the collegiate athletes who experienced unanticipated departures from
their sport careers related the experience to that of death and dying. The athletes in this
study were cut from the team or experienced their entire sports program being eliminated.
There were also no participants from revenue-producing sports. Therefore, it is unclear
how these results may generalize to former collegiate athletes who completed eligibility
or who played in a revenue-sport.

In his 1993 publication, Baillie discussed a study with more than 200 retired elite
athletes. Former Olympians, college football players, professional baseball players and
professional hockey players were questioned about their emotional and functional
adjustment to retirement from their sport. The majority of the former athletes indicated
that they had adequately adjusted to retirement by the time the study was conducted. The
participants noted that their adjustment took an average of 2 years, although some
continued to report difﬁculties after 10 years. Baillie’s results were supported by a later
retrospective survey of former high school, college, and professional athletes. Webb and
colleagues (1998) found that approximately 46% of their sample reported difﬁcult

retirements.

17

While there are a number of studies suggesting that athletes frequently experience
some form of psychological complications when transitioning out of sports, a
considerable amount of work supports the argument that athletic retirement is generally
experienced with minimal discomfort. Lavallee and his research team (2000) suggested
that no more than 20% of retired athletes experience signiﬁcant difﬁculty when retiring
from their sports career while the majority of athletes report a healthy transition out of
sport. In a study of elite female tennis players, half of the sample expressed relief at the
end of their sport careers (Allison & Meyer, 1988). In a study of former elite Slovan
athletes, the majority of participants perceived their transition from sports as
unproblematic with a minimal degree of difﬁculty (Erpic', Wylleman, & Zupanéié, 2004).
Only 8% of the Slovan former athletes described the career termination process as
negative. However, the sizable majority (82%) of participants in the study described the
end of their athletic career as voluntary and the research results indicated that former
athletes who ended their athletic career involuntarily experienced more frequent and
severe psychological concerns.

Curtis and Ennis (1988) surveyed former Canadian junior hockey players about
their experience of leaving sport. When compared to same-aged peers in the general
population, the former athletes did not signiﬁcantly differ on measures of life satisfaction.
Notably, some of former athletes in the study had difﬁculty adjusting to retirement. Over
50% of participants noted that retirement was a difﬁcult event, 15% said they
experienced “quite a feeling of loss,” and 19% reported that they missed playing hockey
“a lot.” Another study using a Canadian sample found similar results. Sinclair and Orlick

(1993) found that the majority (74%) of the former elite athletes in their sample were

18

generally satisﬁed with life after retirement and believed they handled their transition
well (60%). Yet 11% of the former athletes were not satisﬁed with life and 15% thought
they had handled the transition poorly. Additionally, 20% thought their time on the
national team was more important than their current activities. Interestingly, 32% of
participants reported taking 6 months to a year to adjust while another 22% said they
needed more than 2 years to adapt to retirement. Overall, while the majority of the
participants appear to have made a positive transition from sport, there are still a
noteworthy number who experienced some difﬁculties.

While the body of research on retirement from professional sports is broad, there
is limited research examining the effects of retirement from intercollegiate sports. In an
early study of adjustment among athletes and non-athletes, former intercollegiate athletes
had comparable levels of life satisfaction as non-athletes (Snyder & Baer, 1979). In later
research, Greendorfer and Blinde (1985) conducted a retrospective study of Big Ten
starting and non-starting athletes and found that 90% of their sample looked forward to
life after college, and 57% noted that they were “quite satisﬁed” or “extremely satisﬁed”
with their lives after retirement. However, as in other studies, a portion of participants
reported difﬁculties with the retirement transition. Approximately 17% of participants
noted some or extreme dissatisfaction with self upon retirement and 38% indicated that
they “very much” or “extremely” missed sport involvement.

Attempting to identify results speciﬁc to intercollegiate revenue-sports, Kleiber
and colleagues (1987) surveyed 426 former college basketball and football players and
found that there were no signiﬁcant differences in life satisfaction, regardless of the

amount of recognition they received in their last year of play or how many games they

19

played. Only those athletes who had sustained a career ending injury were signiﬁcantly
less satisﬁed with life. However, the study was limited by the lack of a non-athletic peer
comparison group. There is a possibility that while there were minimal within group
differences in life satisfaction, the former athletes may have been less satisﬁed when
compared to same-aged non-athletic peers.

Crook and Robertson (1991) reviewed the athletic retirement literature and noted
that studies examining professional and elite former athletes shortly after their retirement
tended to show support for difﬁcult transitions. Additionally, studies designed to assess
the adjustment of high school and college athletes several years after leaving their sport
appeared to offer support for relatively easy transitions. The authors concluded that
identifying the participation level of the athletes and the number of years after retirement
is important when making inference from the athletic retirement research. It is possible
that examining former college athletes shortly after their retirement could provide
evidence for difﬁculty with the transition out of sports. Few studies have looked at
former college athletes within a few years after retirement. Baillie (1993) noted that it
took an average of 2 years for former athletes (Olympians, college football players, MLB
and NHL players) in his study to adjust to retirement from sport. When completing
retrospective work with former intercollegiate athletes, surveys assessing problems
within or shortly after 2 years post-retirement may provide results supporting the notion
of a difﬁcult transition.

In summary, the literature provides evidence for and against the notion that
athletic retirement is a difﬁcult process. The time since retirement and whether or not the

retirement was voluntary seems to affect the level of distress. Studies that normalize the

20

adjustment process and report that the majority of their sample have an uncomplicated
adjustment period also have a signiﬁcant, albeit smaller, number of athletes who did not
transition well. Baillie (1993) noted that “although many athletes make successful and
satisfactory transitions from sport to retirement, there are, at the high school, college,
elite, and professional levels, signiﬁcant numbers of athletes for whom the adjustment is
difﬁcult, incomplete, and traumatic (pp. 403).” Additionally, studies have discussed
emotional adjustment in terms of life satisfaction measures and feeling word lists. Further
research is needed to determine the presence of psychological disorders symptoms during
former athletes’ transition from sport. Regardless of how psychological distress in
deﬁned, there are athletes who ﬁnd retirement highly distressing.
Models of Athletic Retirement

Blinde and Greendorfer (1985) noted that many of the early researchers in athletic
retirement utilized theories from outside of sport: frequently thanatology and
gerontology. Rosenberg (1981, 1982) discussed the two theories at length in two reviews
of the theories’ application to sport retirement. Thanatology theory relates retirement to a
social death by social isolation or ostracism from former coworkers. The gerontology
view of retirement associates retirement with old age in one of four underlying theories:
disengagement theory — the working society and retiree withdraw each other for mutual
beneﬁts, activity theory — the retiree replaces the employee role with another role and
keeps the same level of activity to prevent poor adjustment, and social break-down theory
— the retiree intemalizes a negative label from an external source upon retirement which
leads to social withdrawal, and continuity theory — the retiree redistributes his/her energy

among other roles after the loss of the employee role. Blinde and Greendorfer (1985)

21

observed that thanatology and gerontology theories are narrow approaches to retirement
that conceptualized retirement as an abrupt event and not a transition. They argued that,
without a transitional component, these theories are inappropriate for use with former
athletes, especially intercollegiate athletes who generally neither completely withdraw
from sports nor retire due to old age.

Research from the transition literature may be more applicable when
conceptualizing athletic retirement. Schlossberg (1981) created a universal model to
address the ways in which individuals adapt to transitions. She suggested that three
factors inﬂuence an individual’s adaptation to transition: the transition itself (role
change, affect, source, timing, duration, degree of stress), available supports before and
after the transition, and the individual (psychosocial competence, sex-role identiﬁcation,
age, health, race ethnicity, SES, values, and previous experience with transitions). Many
of these factors are apt to be similar among former college student-athletes transitioning
out of elite competition. There is probably minimal variance in the athletes’ source of
their retirement (injury or deselection), duration of the change (permanent), timing of the
change (4‘h or 5th year in college), age, and health. The remaining factors in the
Schlossberg model of retirement suggests that former college student-athletes with a
difﬁcult role change, negative affect, inadequate social support, lack of prior transition
experience, and minimal coping resources will have the most difﬁculty transitioning out
of sport. Additional research is needed to determine if these factors are related to
problems with transitioning out of athletics.

Similar to Schlossberg, Coakley (1983) theorized that transitions have multiple

factors that impact an individual’s well-being. He noted that retirement from sport is best

22

conceptualized in the context of many other variables of life circumstance. Coakley
argued that retirement has individual (age, race) and external (support systems, resources)
components. The reasons for termination (e. g., deselection, injury), will also affect the
transitional process. He suggested that researchers must appreciate and evaluate the
complexity of these factors in order to properly grasp the individual and group
differences in the retirement process.

Building from the work of Schlossberg and Coakely, Taylor and Ogilvie (1994)
constructed a conceptual model of athletic retirement. The model identiﬁes factors
contributing to the transitional process and presents trajectories towards healthy and
maladaptive transitions. The cause of retirement is theorized as the ﬁrst component in the
model. Age, deselection, injury, and free choice are thought to have different affects on
athletes’ views of their retirement. The cause of retirement interacts with individual
factors and available resources related to adaptation in the second section of the model.
The authors noted that individual factors include developmental experiences, self-
identity, perception of control, social identity, as well as tertiary contributors (other
personal, social, and environmental factors). The available resources are assets athletes
possess including coping skills, social support, and pro-retirement planning that can be
used to address retirement difﬁculties. The individual factors and available resources
interact to shape the quality of an athlete’s retirement from sport. The model implies that
retirement may then take one of two paths. Some former athletes make a healthy
transition out of sport while others may have a more maladaptive process. Problems may

include psychopathology, substance abuse, occupational problems, and family/social

23

concerns. In the ﬁnal section of the model, the authors identiﬁed potential interventions
for athletes experiencing a retirement crises.

While the Taylor and Ogilvie model identiﬁes multiple contributors to adaptation,
it remains somewhat vague on the way in which the components interact with one
another. The lack of speciﬁcity appears purposeful. The authors remarked on the ease in
which the model can be operationalized so that research can be conducted at each
segment of the model. Additional research is needed to identify conﬁgurations of factors
that could advance a poor transition from sport or serve as risk factors for retirement
crises.

Based on the literature reviewed on models and theories of retirement from sport,
the Taylor and Ogilvie model appears to be an appropriate and inclusive way to
conceptualize athletic retirement and therefore serves as the theoretical basis for the
present study. However, there are factors identiﬁed in the model that are not likely to
vary among the sample of interest in this study, deselected former intercollegiate athletes.
First, the cause of retirement, deselection, was identical across participants.
Developmental experiences - the athlete’s personal history in sport - are probably more
similar than not among intercollegiate athletes. By the time they reach college, student-
athletes have played a considerable number of games beginning in high school if not
earlier. Presumably, the numerous years of practice and competition have socialized the
players into their sport to a point that is relatively similar across the team members.
Second, perception of control over retirement would seemingly not vary a great deal
among deselected athletes. Taylor and Ogilvie (1994) noted that in cases in which

athletes are deselected, the departure from sport is predominantly outside the control of

24

the retiring athlete. Athletes who leave sport due to deselection are more likely to believe
they have little control in life’s outcomes (Webb et al., 1998).

Using the model based on the work of Taylor and Ogilvie (Figure 2), the present
study examined the predictive abilities of the remaining factors: self-identity, social
identity, tertiary contributors (participation motivation), coping skills, social support, and
pre-retirement planning (in terms of career decision-making self-efﬁcacy).

Identity

The concept of identity can be deﬁned using the theory of symbolic
interactionalism, which posits that individuals deﬁne themselves socially and “self”
emerges from everyday social interactions (Stryker, 1980). Further, self-definitions
consist of social identities. Stryker (1980) noted that identities answer the question “who
am I?” and that people answer this question in terms of their positions in various social
relationships and the social roles that are attached to these positions. A football player
may have an athlete identity based on his position on the football team and his role
responsibilities that are attached to being a member of the team. Identity also determines
how people behave in social situations (Stryker & Serpe, 1982; Thoits, 1983). Identity
provides a behavioral script for day to day activities.

Stryker and Serpe (1982) suggested that each identity has a level of salience and
commitment. Salience is the importance that individuals place on a particular identity and
determines the likelihood that it will be invoked in any given situation. A student-athlete
with a highly salient athlete identity might use that identity to direct his behaviors in the
classroom, at home, and with family members. Commitment is the degree to which

individuals’ interpersonal relationships depend on them behaving in accordance with the

25

identity, occupying a particular position and playing a speciﬁc role. A male basketball
player whose team and athletic future depend on him behaving as an athlete will likely
commit to the role of athlete. Identity salience and commitment may also inﬂuence well—
being. Stryker and Serpe (1982) hypothesized that the greater the commitment, the more
salient the identity, and the greater the impact of role performance on role-speciﬁc self-
esteem and general self-esteem. An athlete with a committed athletic identity has a more
salient athletic identity and may become distressed when faced with mediocre
performance on the playing ﬁeld or no longer being able to perform in the role of an
athlete.

Identity formation is a gradual process. Erikson (1968) proposed an eight—stage
life cycle in which the ﬁfth crisis, Identity versus Identity confusion, occurs during
adolescence. During this stage, the organizing theme is ﬁnding a sense of self. Without
prior commitment to a life role, individuals experiment with assorted personality
characteristics before ultimately coming to some resolution about their self-deﬁnition.
Although the identity crisis is associated with adolescence, Erikson hypothesized that
identity development as a life-long task in that the identity crisis is never fully resolved.
However, Erikson (1959) noted that obtaining an occupational status, such as “working”
as an athlete at a university, can aid individuals in reaching a successful resolution. The
period of personal identity instability may be disturbing for some adolescents and young
adults, with potentially serious psychological implications. Erikson (1968) theorized that
“in the social jungle of human existence there is no feeling of being alive without a sense

of identity (p. 130).”

26

College is a time of exploration and experimentation. The majority of college
students intend to make some type of “self-change” during their college years (Kiecolt &
Mabry, 2000). However, some research has shown that student-athletes appear to be at
risk for unresolved identity statuses. Nelson (1983) noted that college students who were
not involved in collegiate athletics were more likely to resolve their identity crises than
student—athletes. Some of the discrepancy may be associated with the way in which
student-athletes incorporate athletics into their self-concept.

Athletic Identity

Many individuals deﬁne themselves by their type of work and friends they have
(Brammer, 1991), implying that many student-athletes will deﬁne themselves as athletes.
Athletic identity is “the degree to which an individual identiﬁes with the athletic role”
(Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993, p. 237). Athletes on average have considerably
higher athletic identity scores on the Athletic Identity Measurement Scale than non—
athletes (AIMS; Brewer et al., 1993; Good et al., 1993). The athlete identity is thought to
develop over time. McPherson (1980) proposed that athletes experience positive
reinforcement from signiﬁcant others early in their athletic career. Young athletes are
also reinforced by the personal successes they experience in their sport which encourages
them to further deﬁne themselves as athletes and increase their ego-involvement in the
athlete role. Webb and colleagues (1998) noted that an athlete’s public reputation also
contributes to the formation of athletic identity. They argued that athletes may receive a
high degree of social status and esteem by their community from athletic participation

which could strengthen their identiﬁcation with the athlete role.

27

Brammer and Abrego (1981) suggested that all transitions are associated with
some form of loss, including the loss of important roles and self-identity. Years of
intensifying their athletic identity may have negative consequences for elite athletes if
sports participation is no longer available. Brewer (1993) reported that athletes who
deﬁne their self-worth primarily based on their athletic performance are vulnerable to
depression when faced with threats to their athletic performance. Although his results
were based on his work with injured athletes, Brewer suggested that athletic identity
would have the same association with depression following other identity—disrupting
events (e.g., athletic career termination). Ogilvie and Howe (1982) agreed, noting that
athletes who possess greater identiﬁcation with their sport have an increased chance of
experiencing a traumatic identity crisis when they must transition from elite athlete to
former athlete.

The research generally supports the signiﬁcance of athletic identity in the quality
of athletic retirement. Webb and colleagues (1998) surveyed college students and alumni
with a background in organized sports. There was a strong positive correlation between
athletic identity and retirement difﬁculty with high levels of athletic identity associated
with higher endorsement of retirement difﬁculty. However, although the correlation was
signiﬁcant for the full sample, it was not signiﬁcant for the subsample of participants
who retired because they were unable to compete at the next level. Yet the
generalizability of the subsample ﬁnding is limited in that the subsample included
athletes who retired after high school as well as athletes who retired after college and
former professional athletes. It is possible that due to the increase in tangible and social

rewards (e.g. scholarships, salary, media coverage) at higher levels of play, high school

28

athletes who were unable to play at the college level had less difﬁculty retiring from
sports than college athletes who were unable to play at the professional level, or
professional players who were cut from a team, thereby confounding the results.
Athletes with stronger athletic identities also take longer to adjust socially and
emotionally to retirement (Grove, Lavellee, & Gordon, 1997). In a study of retirement
among male and female former elite athletes, Lavellee and colleagues (1997) found that
changes in athletic identity after retirement were associated with current negative affect.
Decreases in athletic identity after retirement were associated with greater success in
coping with retirement. Similar results were found in a longitudinal qualitative study of
college student-athletes. Lally (2007) conducted interviews with six athletes at three time
points - during their last season of competition, one month after retirement, and one year
after retirement. The athletes who started to intentionally diminish the importance of their
identiﬁcation with the athlete role and began to explore their interest and identities
outside of intercollegiate athletics prior to retirement reported smooth transitions out of
college sports at the one year follow-up. The sole participant who reported transition
difﬁculties was the only one who chose not to diminish his athletic identity before he
retired. Notably, the study was limited by a small sample size as well as the use of
Canadian athletes limiting the generalizability of the ﬁndings to US. student-athletes.
Alferrnann (2004) assessed the retirement process among more than 250 former
elite athletes with national and international competition experience from Germany,
Lithuania, and Russia. High athletic identity was associated with a longer adaptation
period, more negative emotions after career termination, and less life satisfaction.

Another study with an international sample showed similar ﬁndings. Erpié, Wylleman,

29

and Zupanéié (2004) assessed former elite Slovene athletes and found that the
participants who reported a high athletic identity at the time of sport participation
experienced more severe and frequent psychological difficulties during retirement than
participants who identiﬁed less with the athlete role.

Overall, research suggests that student-athletes tend to strongly identify with the
athlete role. This intense athletic identiﬁcation appears to have a negative impact on
transition from sport. Athletes endorsing strong athletic identities are more likely to
experience a threat to their psychological well—being upon retirement and require a longer
period to adjust to the loss of intercollegiate sports. Therefore, retirement crises may be
highly prevalent among former intercollegiate athletes with strong athletic identiﬁcations.

High athletic identity alone does not foretell which former athletes will face poor
retirement transitions. Most athletes strongly identify with the athlete role, but as
discussed in the athletic retirement literature section, the majority of athletes do not have
problematic transitions from elite sports. If strong athletic identity were the only predictor
of signiﬁcant distress, most athletes would experience some period of major difﬁculty in
their adaptation to retirement. There must be additional factors related to the athletic
identity construct that serve as risk factors to retirement distress.

Athletic Identity-Related Attributes

Foreclosed Identity. One attribute of athletic identity is the amount of identity
exploration and level of commitment an individual makes to the athletic identity. Framed
in Erikson’s identity theory, Marcia (1966) constructed a general identity model
consisting of four identity statuses: achievement, moratorium, diffusion and foreclosure.

Each status is deﬁned by the extent to which individuals actively search for their identity

30

and the degree of their commitment to that identity. Identity achievement, the
hypothesized ideal state, is reached after a period of exploration followed by commitment
to an identity. The moratorium stage is characterized by active exploration and a lack of
commitment to an identity. Individuals in the moratorium stage are thought to be in a
crisis due to their instability in self-deﬁnition. Individuals in identity diffusion tend to be
indifferent to identity issues, neither exploring nor committing themselves to a consistent
identity. Finally, foreclosure occurs when an individual has settled on an identity without
exploration. Often, individuals do not explore other identities because their chosen
identity was exceedingly encouraged by signiﬁcant others and acceptance of the identity
provided some type of beneﬁt (e.g., esteem and awards). Additionally, each of the four
identity statuses is theorized to incorporate two domains, interpersonal and ideological
identity (Adams, 1998). Interpersonal identity reﬂects the inﬂuence of peer, familial, and
romantic relationships while ideological identity concerns one’s exploration and
commitment to core values such as religion and politics.

Athletic identity and identity foreclosure are discrete yet correlated concepts
(Good et al., 1993). Although most athletes place a great deal of importance on their
athletic identity, they do not all have a foreclosed identity status. It appears to be those
athletes who have a strong athletic identity and a foreclosed identity status that
experience problematic transitions from sport. Brewer, Van Raalte, and Linder (1993)
noted that individuals must identify as athletes, both highly and exclusively, for athletic
identity to lead to difﬁcult athletic retirements. A strong and exclusive athletic identity
heightens stress and anxiety responses among retiring athletes (Grove et al., 1997).

Marcia ( 1966) indicated that individuals with a foreclosed identity tend to become

31

extremely anxious in the face of threats to their careers. The loss of college athletics will
likely force former athletes with foreclosed identities into at state of identity moratorium
marked by instability and an incomplete sense of self. Therefore, athletes facing an
identity threat due to deselection may experience anxiety during their transition from
sport as they attempt to redeﬁne themselves.

Student-athletes are at an increased risk for identity foreclosure due to their
general lack of exploration of alternative identities (Nelson, 1983; Petitpas &
Champagne, 1988). Good and colleagues (1993) found that intercollegiate athletes were
signiﬁcantly more foreclosed than non-athletes. The authors concluded that some college
student-athletes identify with the athlete role to a point that they neglect the exploration
of other identities. The lack of exploration could be explained by minimal interest in
other identities, but could be due to a lack of time. Student-athletes’ schedules are ﬁlled
with practices, team meeting, work-outs and other sport-related requirements. As a
signiﬁcant amount of student-athletes’ time is dedicated to sport, the time available to
engage in identity development outside of their sport is limited (Petitpas & Champagne,
1988). Alder and Alder (1991) followed a college basketball team over 4 years assessing
each team members’ self-concept and identity roles. The student-athletes in the study
experienced conﬂict among three central roles: student, athlete, and social being. The
authors noticed that as the seasons progressed, the majority of the athletes had to redeﬁne
the salience of each role. Most of the athletes chose to concentrate on their athletic
role/identity, a decision termed “role engulfment” (p. 176). Role engulfment occurred

despite differences in ethnicity, class, academic success and career aspirations.

32

The type of sport an athlete plays also appears to be related to the probability of
identity foreclosure. One study found that athletes in revenue-producing sports (deﬁned
as basketball, football, and ice hockey) have signiﬁcantly higher foreclosure scores than
athletes in other sports (Murphy et al., 1996). Therefore, athletes in revenue-producing
sports tend to lack exploration into other identities, such as their “student” identity.

The lack of exploration into other identities that deﬁnes identity foreclosure might
also tap into a lack of self-complexity. Self-complexity, the number of identities and level
of independence among those identities, may inﬂuence the athletes’ level of distress after
retirement. Linville (1985) proposed that self-complexity, in terms of social roles (e.g.,
athlete, student, son, friend) or interpersonal relationships (e.g., teammate, competitor),
can have serious consequences on psychological well-being. The lowest degree of
complexity occurs when an individual has a small number of identities that are highly
correlated; such as a student-athlete who has an athlete role, a teammate role, and a friend
role that are particularly interrelated. Without self-complexity, negative feelings about the
self in one domain will lead to the same poor evaluation of self in the other domains.
Linville’s research proposes that individuals with less self-complexity will show more
extreme affect and that individuals who have distinct identities are buffered against
negative affect (depression, sadness and anxiety) related to failure experiences.

Harris and Eitzen (1978) stated that the majority of athletes in their late teens or
early 205, who have dedicated themselves to their sport, are prone to derive their identity
almost exclusively from sport participation. When this occurs, removal from sport may
be detrimental. The harm seems contingent on retirement. Athletes who primarily base

their identity on athletic participation may not face major psychological distress until they

33

are no longer able to participate in sport (Heyman, 1986). Without athletic identity or
alternative identities to provide a script for everyday life, foreclosed athletes are without a
way in which to organize their self-concept and more likely to experience an identity
crisis.

To summarize, identity foreclosure is thought to reﬂect a lack of self-complexity
in this study and appears to be a contributor to poor retirement adjustment among former
athletes. When faced with retirement, individuals with a foreclosed identity may face
moratorium and an identity crisis that often results in intense anxiety (Marcia, 1966).
Athletes who are strongly identiﬁed with the athlete role and did not explore other
identities before committing to an exclusive athlete identity are seemingly at risk for
retirement distress.

Masculinity. Identifying with the role of athlete generally entails identifying with
the qualities often associated with athletes. Identities may have certain attributes (i.e.,
personality traits or behaviors) that can provide additional meaning to a speciﬁc identity
(Deaux, 1993). For example, the identity of mother may be associated with the attributes
of compassion and resourcefulness. Athletic identity also has attributes. One such quality
is masculinity; a set of culturally ascribed characteristics that are expected from men
(Craig, 1992). The concept of masculinity seems embedded in the athlete role; sports and
masculinity are socially intertwined. Sabo and Runford (1980) suggested that athletic and
masculine are almost synonymous in American culture. Acknowledging that sports teams
frequently serve as a school for the traditional male roles, Stein and Hoffman (1980)
reported that society deems that “the development of athletic ability is an essential

element in becoming a man (pp. 53).” The societal expectations of masculinity and

34

athletes were revealed in a study by Martin and Martin (1985), who surveyed
undergraduate students regarding their beliefs about male athletes. The majority of the
students perceived the ideal athlete as signiﬁcantly more masculine than the ideal person.

Research suggests that male athletes integrate masculinity into their self-
evaluation more than non-athletes. Stein and Hoffman (1980) examined the importance
of the athlete role among male college students who either had extensive sports
experience or no sports beyond a high school or college requirement. Non-athletes
viewed the athletic role as an important component of the deﬁnition of manhood. The
researchers suggested that the inability to meet the role of athlete limited non-athletes
from membership in the male peer group and the opportunity to be “one of the guys.”

Colley, Roberts and Chipps (1985) interviewed male and female college students.
The students varied on their level of sport participation: no participation, individual sport
or team sport. Data analysis revealed that sport participants had signiﬁcantly higher
scores on the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI; Bem, 1980) masculinity subscale than
non-athletes. There were no signiﬁcant differences between individual and team sport
participants. Similar results were discovered when Caron, Carter, and Brightman (1985)
assessed sex-roles among male non-athletes and male student-athletes playing individual
and team sports. Athletes in team sports scored signiﬁcantly higher on the BSRI
masculinity scale than athletes in individual sports or non-athletes.

Lantz and Schroeder (1999) also examined the relationship between the athlete
role and masculintiy. Using the AIMS and BSRI, they assessed 301 college students and
113 student-athletes, male and female, and found that participants who identiﬁed highly

with the athlete role also reported stronger masculine sex-role orientations. Further

35

analysis revealed that student—athletes endorsed higher levels of masculinity than non-
athletes. Another study with a small, monoracial (only Caucasian) sample found similar
results with athletes scoring higher in masculinity than non-athletes; however the results
were not statistically signiﬁcant (Houseworth, Peplow, & Thirer, 1989).

Thus, research suggests that masculinity and athletic identity are strongly
interconnected. When the athlete role is lost, it is highly likely that masculinity will be
affected as well. Given that high athletic identity appears to relate to poorer retirement
transitions, a high level of masculinity may also be a risk factor for distress. Further
research is needed to examine this potential relationship.

Alternate Identities

The lack of independent identities may be problematic for athletes in transition.
For example, although classiﬁed as “student-athletes,” intercollegiate athletes vary in
how they conceptualize the student and athlete domains of their identity. Settles, Sellers,
and Damas (2002) found that college student-athletes with high athletic identity scores
were more likely to view “athlete” and “student” as a single role identity. The
combination of roles allows student-athletes to focus their energies into one domain.
However, it is unclear if the distribution of effort would be the same for “athlete” as it
would be for “student.” The authors found that students-athletes with a strong athletic
identity tended to place less importance on academics. The lack of a separate student role
identity among student-athletes with stronger athletic identity may be a barrier to career
exploration. Directing energy to developing a student identity would likely include

acquiring a skill set for future employment and exploration into careers congruent with

36

their academic major. Student-athletes with strong athletic identiﬁcation may have a
more foreclosed identity status.

Self-complexity theory suggest that athletes with high athletic identiﬁcation and
do not separate their “athlete” and “student” role are more likely to show affective
extremity to a failure experience such as deselection. The theory also suggests that
student-athletes with foreclosed identities and no alternative identities will experience
distress upon retirement. Indeed, athletes who have a low number of alternative social
roles are less likely to consider their options outside of the athlete role and are less apt to
make a successful transition out of the intercollegiate athletics (Blinde & Greendorfer,
1985). Therefore, alternate identities may serve as a protective factor for athletes
transitioning out of sport.

Racial Identity. One possible alternate identity for student-athletes of color (i.e.,
members of racial and ethnic minority groups) is racial identity. Racial identity is based
on the social construct of a race and refers to an individual’s identiﬁcation with a
particular racial group founded on a sense of common heritage (Helms, 1993). Strong
racial identity is theoretically associated with life satisfaction and psychological well-
being; individuals who have explored their racial distinctiveness and committed to their
racial identity are more likely to report better psychological health (Cross, 1991; Helms,
1990). Racial identity centrality, the level of self-deﬁnition based on race, may also play
a role in well-being (Sellers et al., 1998). Rowley and colleagues (1998) found a positive
relationship between racial centrality and self-esteem among African American high
school and college students. Using solely college students, Sellers and colleagues (2003)

assessed over 500 African American college students on measures of racial identity,

37

discrimination and psychological distress. Results showed that racial centrality was
negatively associated with psychological distress; students with stronger centrality were
more likely to report lower levels of anxiety and depression symptoms. Racial centrality
also served as a buffer, moderating the main effect of discrimination on psychological
distress. These studies suggest that racial identity centrality promotes well-being and may
serve as a protective factor for African American college students experiencing racial
stressors.

Despite the beneﬁts of racial identity, student-athletes of color do not appear to
signiﬁcantly incorporate this alternate identity. Jackson and colleagues (2002) surveyed
over 500 incoming intercollegiate scholarship athletes at 24 universities. They found that
high athletic identity tended to diminish the strength of racial centrality. This relationship
was distinct among African American male student-athletes. African Americans who
scored high on a scale of athletic identity were less likely to identify with their racial
group. Racial identity appears to be low in centrality because the alternate identity,
athlete identity, is highly central. The authors concluded that African American student-
athletes reported low racial centrality due to the greater needs of their team. They
suggested that strong racial centrality may hinder team cohesion and group processes on
a multiracial team, a premise that would be in line with the theory of superordinate goals
in sport (McClendon, 1974). McClendon argued that the pursuit of a common team goal
reduces potential race conﬂict on the team. Therefore, viewing the self primarily as an
athlete instead of by race is advantageous to the team. African American student-athletes,
as members of an elite team, may not need the protective beneﬁts of racial centrality.

Their needs may be met with a strong athletic identity. Additionally, the athlete identity

38

may be more continuously rewarding on a larger scale than racial identity. The prestige
of college athletics, admiration from peers, attention from the media, and tangible
beneﬁts (e.g. scholarships, clothing and accessories) could positively reinforce the
importance of the athlete role over the racial role for an athlete of color.

Low racial centrality, while adaptive in sport, may hinder transition when student-
athletes of color are faced with the loss of the athlete role. By minimizing racial identity
during their time in college athletics, these former athletes may not have an alternative
identity to protect against the negative consequence of identity loss. Athletes of color
may face discrimination and racial stressors in college, but not truly experience the
related distress until they lose their protective athlete role. While still in college, African
American student-athletes report low levels of racial isolation and ﬁnd their college
experience relatively rewarding (Sellers, Kuperminc, & Waddell, 1991; Sellers & Damas,
1996). However, their positive viewpoint appears to change after leaving intercollegiate
sport. For example, Parharn (1993) noted that college student-athletes of color may feel
used or forgotten by their athletic program after completing their eligibility. Pema and
colleagues (1999) surveyed 33 graduating students and 43 graduating student-athletes
from high-revenue sports (e. g. football, basketball, and hockey) and found that African
American students were signiﬁcantly less satisﬁed with their lives than Caucasian
students regardless of injury history, occupational planning, and family socioeconomic
status. Racial identity centrality, which was not assessed in the study, may have a role in
these racial differences in adjustment.

Racial identity centrality has not been investigated as a potential contributor to

maladaptive retirement transition for former student-athletes of color, but there is indirect

39

evidence that it could be a signiﬁcant predictor of quality of adjustment. As noted earlier,
racial centrality — while negatively correlated with athletic identity — may have some
protective qualities against distress. Therefore, athletes of color with low racial centrality
and high athletic identity may be at risk for distress when the athlete role is threatened by
retirement. Athletes with low racial centrality would not have a strong alternate identity,
racial identity, to help protect them from or alleviate retirement distress.
Conclusions

The identity research reviewed in this section indicates that athletic identity,
masculinity, identity foreclosure, and racial identity may contribute to the quality of
adjustment athletes experience after retirement. These four factors are highly
interdependent. Athletic identity is positively correlated with identity foreclosure and
masculinity. Athletic identity is also negative correlated with racial identity. Given that
high athletic identity and foreclosure are related to problematic retirement as well as the
interconnectedness of athletic identity, racial identity, and masculinity. It follows that
athletes with high athletic identity, identity foreclosure, and high masculinity may be
most prone to face difﬁculty transitioning out of sport. Low racial identity centrality may
also be a risk factor for former student-athletes of color.

Career Decision-Making

Post-retirement Planning

Svoboda and Vanek (1982) noted that there is a tendency among elite athletes to
delay planning for post-retirement. Werthner and Orlick (1986) found a similar trend
among Olympic athletes. The delay in post-retirement planning insinuates a delay in

career exploration. Danish (1983) proposed that some athletes do not explore activities

40

outside of their sport and instead concentrate on athletic success while excluding other
non-sport activities, a process termed selective optimization. Student-athletes are apt to
remain conﬁned to athletic activities. Participation in intercollegiate athletics is
negatively related to participation in other campus activities (Stone & Strange, 1989).

One reason for the lack of exploration may be a desire to maintain the hope of a
professional athletic career. If athletes consider career plans beyond sports, they must
acknowledge that continuing in sports may not be possible (Pinkerton, Hinz, & Barrow
1989). Spady (1970) noted that athletes who recognize that playing professionally is not a
likely option may remain reluctant to give up the athletic identity because of the beneﬁts
of being an athlete (such as praise from others). Alternatively, Parham (1993) suggested
that career termination is not seriously considered among active intercollegiate athletes
because it is overshadowed by the intensity that surrounds their current participation in
sports. Athletes may view considering any activity outside of sport as a distraction from
their focus on their sport goals.

Student-athletes often lack the time to complete exploratory activities. Most
student-athletes have time constraints that prevent involvement in other extra-curricular
activities (Ferrante & Etzel, 1991). Harris and Eitzen (1978) noted that coaches and sport
organizations tend to socialize players into devoting the majority, if not all, of their
energy into sports. Brown, Glastetter—Fender, and Sheldon (2000) noted that 56% of their
sample of college student-athletes spent 30 or more hours a week participating in their
sport while 42% reported 20 — 29 hours. Not surprising, athletic identity is positively

correlated with the number of hours spent participating in sport (Cornelius, 1995).

41

Another contributor to athletes’ lack of exploration is the vocational foreclosure
many student-athletes appear to undergo. Kennedy and Dimick (1987) found that 66% of
African American and 39% of Caucasian college football and basketball players in their
study expected to play sports professionally. Other researchers have found lower
estimates within the range of 17% to 19% (Brown, Glastetter-Fender, & Sheldon, 2000;
Brown & Hartley, 1998; Curry, 1993). There also is a difference in expectations based on
the competitive level of the athletes’ institution. Blann (1985) found that 28% of Division
I athletes planned to play professionally compared to 10% of Division III athletes.

Smallman and Sowa (1996) discovered that 34% of the college student-athletes in
their sample expected to become professional athletes, although 24% of those said they
had a poor chance of being successful. These ﬁndings imply that a portion of student-
athletes who do not expect to succeed at the professional level still intend to make the
attempt. Their persistence despite discouraging prospects could be due to a lack of
exploration in other career domains; these athletes may believe that they do not know
anything other than sport. It is also unclear how the opportunities in serrri-professional
teams (e. g., arena football leagues, the NBA’s D-league) and established international
leagues may change these expectations. There may be a signiﬁcant number of
intercollegiate athletes whose career goals are to play at the semi-professional level.

Wotten (1994) noted that the athletic milieu fosters player dependence (e.g.,
depending upon others to choose majors and schedule classes) so that many student-
athletes do not develop adequate career problem-solving skills required for the transition

out of sports. Similarly, Wittmer and colleagues (1981) indicated that upperclassmen

42

athletes can become distressed by vocational and career concerns, wondering who will
assist them when they leave college athletics.

Pro-retirement preparation appears to be positively associated with post-
retirement emotional and functional adjustment (Baillie & Danish, 1992). Pema and
colleagues (1999) found that athletes who were able to state a post-collegiate
occupational plan were signiﬁcantly more satisﬁed with life after retirement than those
unable to state such a goal. Harris and Eitzen (1978) noted that most athletes who do not
explore alternative career options and are unable to move to the next level of play may
experience disappointment, underemployment, anxiety, or mental health concerns.

Torregrosa, Boixados, Valiente, and Cruz (2004) interviewed 18 active Spanish
Olympians to investigate their views of retirement. The researchers learned that the
athletes who gradually considered retirement as their careers progressed decreased their
uncertainty about the future and their potential for adjustment problems. However, the
majority of the athletes interviewed by the researchers indicated “relocation” retirement
plans (e.g., coaching, managing, media commentary, graduate education in sports). These
options may not be available for some intercollegiate athletes.

Post-retirement planning is associated with healthier retirement transitions, yet
many athletes do not prepare for life after sports. The paucity of planning likely decreases
their ability to make decisions about future career options and increases the risk of
retirement distress.

Career maturity
Career maturity is the readiness of an individual to make informed, age

appropriate career decisions and to cope with developmental tasks (Savickas, 1984).

43

Intercollegiate student-athletes are less likely to formulate mature career plans than their
non-athlete peers (Blann, 1985; Martens & Cox, 2000; Sowa & Gressard, 1983). Muczko
(1993) surveyed 73 senior football players who recently ﬁnished their last year of
football eligibility and found that, as a whole, the athletes were relatively indecisive
about their career choice. Nelson (1983) noted that college students who were not
involved in collegiate athletics were more likely to develop realistic vocational identities
than student-athletes. Student-athletes participating in revenue-producing sports tend to
score signiﬁcantly lower than non-athletes on measures of career maturity and in one
study had a mean career maturity score equivalent to ninth-graders (Kennedy & Dimick,
1987). Smallman and Sowa (1996) compared the median scores of their sample of
student-athletes with career maturity norms and discovered that the college athletes
consistently fell in the bottom 25% percentile.

This lower level of career maturity remains steady across NCAA division. Brown
and Hartley (1998) examined student-athletes in football and basketball and found no
signiﬁcant differences between Division I and Division H athletes. However, the
inﬂuence of another intragroup factor, revenue-producing sports, is less clear. Smallman
and Sowa (1996) found no signiﬁcant difference in overall career maturity of the student-
athletes based on race or type of sport (revenue or non-revenue). Yet Murphy and his
research team (1996) surveyed intercollegiate athletes and found that athletes in revenue-
producing sports had signiﬁcantly lower career maturity scores than athletes in non-
revenue producing sports.

Some researchers believe that a portion of the variance in career immaturity

among athletes can be explained by athletic identity and have found that athletic identity

is inversely related to career maturity (Greenspan & Anderson, 1995; Murphy et al.,
1996). Athletic identity is also inversely related to post-career planning (Lavallee,
Gordon, & Grove, 1997). Grove, Lavellee, and Gordon (1997) found that high athletic
identity was associated with high anxiety about career decision-making. Athletic identity
was also negatively correlated with the amount of pre—retirement career planning; student
with stronger athletic identities were less likely to plan for their vocational future.

As noted earlier, athletic identity and foreclosure are interrelated. Not
surprisingly, identity foreclosure is also related to career maturity. Identity foreclosure is
positively related to a dependent decision-making style that is considered maladaptive in
the career development process (Blustein & Phillips, 1990). Those who strongly commit
themselves to the athlete role may be less likely to plan for post-athletic career
opportunities prior to their retirement from sport (Gordon, 1995; Pearson & Petitpas,
1990).

There are some contradictory ﬁndings in the research literature regarding athletic
identity and career maturity. Despite the researchers’ hypothesis to the contrary, the
results of Brown and Hartley’s (1998) study of male student-athletes failed to
demonstrate a relationship between athletic identity and career maturity. Another study
with similar ﬁndings examined the differences in “career development” between college
athletes and non-athletes. Martens and Cox (2000) concluded that career development
was not associated with the participants’ level of athletic identity. However, secondary
analyses showed that while athletic identity was not associated with vocational identity
and occupational information gathering, it was related to vocational barriers. Participants

in the study who endorsed higher levels of athletic identity were more likely to perceive

45

greater obstacles in choosing a career. Increased vocational barriers could affect how
much student—athletes believe in their ability to choose a career; which in turn has
implications for career-decision-making self-efﬁcacy which is discussed later in this
section.

Overall, research tends to indicate that student-athletes display less career
maturity than their non-athlete peers. Career maturity is inﬂuenced by athletic identity
and identity foreclosure, with athletes who maintain high athletic identiﬁcation and
identity foreclosure showing more career immaturity. However, it is unclear how
athletes’ career maturity inﬂuences the career decisions they make and their beliefs about
their ability to choose a suitable career. These decisions could have a signiﬁcant impact
on the athletes’ adaptation to retirement.

Career Decision-Making Self-Eﬁicacy

Self-efﬁcacy refers to the level of conﬁdence individuals have in themselves that
they can accomplish a speciﬁc task. Self-efﬁcacy is a future-oriented cognitive appraisal
of how well a person can perform a behavior (Bandura, 1977). Perceived self-efﬁcacy
inﬂuences whether or not a behavior will be initiated, affects people’s choice of
activities, inﬂuences how much effort people will expend, and how long they will persist
in the face of barriers and aversive experiences (Bandura, 1977; Bandura & Adams,
1977). Behavioral consequences depend on an individual’s level of perceived self-
efﬁcacy for a certain task. Stronger perceived self-efﬁcacy is associated with more active
coping efforts. People who have high self-efﬁcacy about an activity, such as making a
decision about a career, are more likely to enter situations where the activity may occur

and will also attempt more difﬁcult variations of the tasks (Bandura, 1981). Low self-

46

efﬁcacy for an activity is associated with avoidance of that activity, poor performance in
the domain, and a lack of persistence when faced with difﬁculties (Betz, 2000).

Career decision-making self-efﬁcacy (CDMSE) is the degree of the belief that
one can successfully complete the task of making career decisions (Betz, 2001). Taylor
and Pompa (1990) found that CDMSE was the only signiﬁcant predictor of vocational
decisiveness among their undergraduate sample. CDMSE among college students is
positively correlated with exploratory behaviors and career decision-making attitudes and
skills (Blustein et al., 1989; Luzzo, 1993, 1995). Komspan and Etzel (2001) surveyed
over 250 Midwest junior college student-athletes and found that career maturity and
CDMSE were positively correlated; higher career decision making self-efﬁcacy was
associated with increased career maturity. Student-athletes who had more conﬁdence in
their ability to make career decisions were more likely to have mature attitudes about
making a career choice. However, it is unclear how these results would generalize to
student—athletes at 4-year universities.

CDMSE may help explain differences in career maturity. Student-athletes who
are less conﬁdent about making career decisions may be more likely to avoid exploratory
behavior leading to a decrease in career maturity (Komspan & Etzel, 2001). Additionally,
college students reporting high CDMSE also have lower trait anxiety (Gloria & Hird,
1999). Therefore, student-athletes endorsing low CDMSE may be at risk for vocational
foreclosure and high anxiety.

Student-athletes tend to have lower CDMSE when compared to the general
college student population. Brown and colleagues (2000) surveyed Division I student-

athletes and regardless of gender, the student-athletes’ mean score on the CDMSE was

47

signiﬁcantly lower than the mean score of the sample of undergraduates on which the
measure was standardized. Notably, 42% of their sample reported being uncertain about
their career plans. There was no information regarding potential differences among
athletes in revenue-producing sports.
Conclusions

Many intercollegiate athletes do not to explore their career options outside of
athletics and do not adequately prepare for life after sports. These athletes tend to score
low on measures of career maturity and career decision-making self-efﬁcacy (CDSME).
Poor pro-retirement planning increases the risk of distress after retirement. Consistent
with general self-efﬁcacy theory, student-athletes with low CDMSE are unlikely to start
the career decision-making process and or complete pre—retirement career planning if
faced with barriers. Potentially, athletes with low CDMSE could fail to decide and plan
on a career after retirement which would increase their likelihood of distress. Additional
research is needed to clarify the potential relationship between CDMSE and difﬁculty
transitioning out of sports.

Coping Strategies

Lazarus (1974) theorized that “coping” occurs when individuals are faced with a
threatening stressor and must make efforts to solve their problems with their adaptive
resources. Folkman and Lazarus (1980, 1985) described two main ways in which people
manage stress, problem-focused and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping
occurs when individuals utilize their problem-solving skills, usually when they feel that
something may be done about the stressor. Emotion-focused coping involves reducing or

managing the emotional distress brought on by the stressor and is generally used when an

48

individual thinks that the stressor cannot be changed and must be endured. The authors
noted that individuals tend to use a mixture of problem- and emotion-focused coping
skills during stressful periods.

Building on the work of Folkman and Lazarus, Carver and colleagues (1989)
identiﬁed 15 common strategies for coping: acceptance, active coping, alcohol/drug use,
behavioral disengagement, denial, focusing on and venting of emotions, humor, mental
disengagement, planning, positive reinterpretation and growth, restraint coping, seeking
social support for instrumental reasons, suppression of competing activities, and turning
to religion. The authors’ conceptualization of coping was later operationalized into a
widely-used scale of coping strategies, the COPE (Carver et al., 1989).

Coping mechanisms are critical in determining the outcome of transitional
periods. The availability and use of coping resources will impact the overall quality of
adaptation to retirement (Gordon, 1995). Brammer (1991) noted that individuals’ coping
skills will determine the amount of distress they experience and their ability to work
through a transition.

Speciﬁc coping mechanisms are associated with a positive transition out of sport.
Sinclair and Orlick (1994) found that having interests outside of sport, remaining busy,
and maintaining physical activity levels were related to a healthy adjustment from sport.
Grove, Lavellee, and Gordon (1997) assessed the coping strategies used by retired male
and female Australian elite athletes who had been retired for an average of 3 years at the
time of the study. Most participants used acceptance, positive reinterpretation, planning
and active coping as their primary coping strategies. Participants also reported seeking

instrumental and emotional social support. The least used coping strategies were turning

49

to religion, alcohol and drug use, and denial. A strong and exclusive athletic identity at
the time of retirement was positively related to avoidance-oriented coping strategies such
as venting of emotions, mental disengagement, behavioral disengagement, and reliance
on denial. Notably, these coping strategies are similar to the strategies labeled
maladaptive by Carver (1997): self—distraction, behavioral disengagement, denial,
substance use, self-blame, and venting. Crook and Robertson (1991) also noticed a trend
in coping among athletes and determined that athletes with a strong athletic identity may
fail to develop appropriate (healthy) coping resources to handle major transitions.
Therefore, it is plausible that student-athletes may be more likely to use maladaptive
coping strategies and experience a greater level of retirement distress.

While research indicates that certain coping skills are related to adaptive
transitions out of sport, more information is needed to clarify which coping skills are
used by student-athletes who do not adjust well to retirement. Additionally, athletes with
a high athletic identiﬁcation may be more likely to use more maladaptive coping
mechanisms because they have not developed the more adaptive strategies. Maladaptive
coping mechanisms are a potential predictor of distress.

Participation Motivation

Athletes are motivated to participate in sports for multiple reasons and retirement
from sports may result in the loss of many of the incentives that motivate athletic
participation. Before discussing participation motivators and athletic retirement, a brief
review of motivation theory is provided.

Motivation is the drive toward a behavior which may involve personal and social

factors; these factors provide a valuable incentive or reward to complete the behavior

50

(Clews & Gross, 1995). One of the more recognized conceptualizations of motivated
behavior is self-determination theory. The theory suggests that the basis of motivation
comes from an inherent tendency toward personal growth and three innate psychological
needs — competence, relatedness, and autonomy (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci,
2000). The theory posits that motivation falls on a continuum of self-determination with
the highest level of motivation being intrinsic in nature. Intrinsic motivators are based in
an evolved propensity to seek challenges, explore, and learn; they will lead an individual
to participate in an activity due to the enjoyment and satisfaction from participation
(Ryan & Deci, 2000). In the context of sports, intrinsic motives may include a sense of
personal achievement and skill development. Lower on the self-determination continuum
are motivators that satisfy an external demand or provide an external award. Extrinsic
motivators in intercollegiate athletics may include the social status of being an athlete,
rewards (e. g., scholarships), and winning championships. At the low end of the
continuum is the complete absence of motivation and self-determination, or amotivation,
in which individuals act without intent and just go through the motions (Ryan & Deci,
2000).

Given the theorized need for competence, relatedness, and autonomy, how do
athletes go about meeting these needs in the athletic domain, both intrinsically and
extrinsically? Research ﬁndings in youth sports begin to answer this question. An early
study of youth athletes assessing the reasons youth participate in sport found that the
strongest motivators included afﬁliation, excellence, and arousal. A study conducted by
Gill, Gross and Huddleston (1983) also examined the speciﬁc motivators for participating

in sports among young athletes. The authors developed the Participation Motivation

51

Questionnaire (PMQ) and surveyed over 1,000 youth involved in a summer sports skills
development program. Respondents’ answers were examined at a descriptive level and
then factor analyzed to identify categories of participation motivation. At the item level,
boys in the sample most frequently endorsed skill improvement as the most important
reason for participation followed by fun, desire to go to a higher level in their sport, the
opportunity to compete, and the challenge. Males also highly endorsed
achievement/status reasons for participation more so than female youth athletes. Eight
main motivation factors were identiﬁed from all the reasons for participation:
achievement/status, team, ﬁtness, energy release, others (miscellaneous reasons), skill,
friends, and fun.

Gould, Feltz, and Weiss (1985) extended on the previous research by examining
participation motivation among youth athletes in a more competitive context. The
research sample included over 300 young athletes (age 8 to 19) actively involved in
competitive swimming. Item endorsement analysis indicated that “I like to have fun”
ranked as the most important reason for participating in swimming. A factor analysis of
the items led to seven major factors underlying participation motivation in youth sports:
achievement/status, team atmosphere, excitement/challenge, ﬁtness, energy release, skill
development and friendship. The ﬁndings were generally consistent with results reported
by Gill and colleagues. In addition, both studies indicated that important participation
motivators come from internal initiative (e. g., excitement) and well as external factors
(e.g., status). However, the motivators important in youth sports may differ than the

primary motivators among college athletes.

52

Later research provided more information about sources of sport participation
motivation in the intercollegiate population. Dwyer (1992) used the PMQ with a sample
of undergraduate students and found general support for the factor structure identiﬁed by
Gould and colleagues (1985) although energy release was not identiﬁed as a separate
factor. Fitness, excitement/challenge, and skill development proved to be the most
important motives for participation in this population. The sample consisted of
undergraduate students at a Canadian university who were not in high proﬁle
intercollegiate sports thereby limiting generalizability. However, a study with
intercollegiate athletes found similar results. Flood and Hellstedt (1991) assessed
motivation for sport participation among US. college athletes using an adapted version of
the PMQ and found that competition was ranked as the most important motivator. The
researchers also added an Afﬁliation (with the university community) factor that proved
to be more important to female athletes than male athletes. Notably, male athletes who
competed in team sports reported that winning was their primary motivation for
participating in intercollegiate athletics.

Despite what is known about the incentives that motivate college athletes to play
sports, there is little information about what occurs when the athletes are faced with the
loss of intercollegiate sports and the source of these incentives to participate. Ryan and
Deci (2000) theorized that the basic needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness
must be satisﬁed throughout the life span in order for people to experience and maintain
psychological well-being. Therefore, the loss of athletics could mean the loss of the
intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that fulﬁll the need for competence, autonomy, and

relatedness. Svoboda and Vanek (1982) noted that in order to reach the ﬁnal stage of

53

transitioning out of sport, acceptance of the end of a sports career, athletes must be able
to redirect their focus and energy into other domains and activities which become as
fulﬁlling as sport. Danish and colleagues (1987) also discussed the concept of motivation
from a developmental stance and noted that retiring athletes must ﬁnd activities to
replace sport; activities that are as equally challenging and that lead to feelings of
competence and satisfaction. A retired football player who is derived his fun, release of
energy and sense of achievement from intercollegiate sports and is unable to ﬁnd a new
setting from which to obtain these rewards may become distressed. It is conceivable that
former athletes who have not found a new career or life situation that provides the
incentives (and source of competency, autonomy, and relatedness needs) once derived
from sport are more likely to have a difﬁcult retirement process. Additional research is
needed to clarify how the loss of participation motivation factors may contribute to
retirement distress.
Social Support

Social support is an exchange of resources between individuals in which one
participant enhances the well-being of the other (Shumaker & Brownell, 1984).
Procidano and Heller (1983) noted that the social support construct is often vague in the
social support literature and that social support research may evaluate the dimensions of a
social support network or the perceived impact of the network on an individual. For
example, social support may be measured by the number of people an individual can
identify as supportive or by the amount of support an individual reports receiving from

any number of people.

54

There has been some controversy regarding whether or not social support works
as a buffer, moderating the path from a stressor to feelings of distress. In a
comprehensive literature review on the functions of social support, Cohen and Wills
(1985) found that a buffering effect is present in studies that measure the participants’
perception of the accessibility of social support. The majority of research documenting a
relationship between social support and good health do so by assessing the respondents’
perceptions of being supported (Turner, 1983). Therefore, there is general agreement in
the literature that perceived social support can buffer distress. Perceived social support
appears to have a distinct buffering effect on psychological distress including depression
and anxiety (Dean, Lin, & Ensel, 1981; Swift & Wright, 2000; Turner, 1983).
Additionally, greater perceived social support is associated with greater psychological
well-being, among college students (Jay & D’Augelli, 1991).

Social support also appears to facilitate adjustment to retirement. Kessler, Turner,
and House (1988) examined the effects of unemployment on a sample of blue-collar
workers. They assessed a sizable sample of currently unemployed, previously
unemployed, and stably employed participants and found that the workers who were
involuntarily unemployed displayed more symptoms of depression, anxiety,
somatization, and self-reported physical illness. Turner et al. (1991) analyzed the same
data further and found that perceived social support modiﬁed the relationship between
unemployment and distress. Therefore, social support appears to be a moderating factor
which provides evidence for the buffering hypothesis in retirement.

Bolton and Oatley (1987) found that unemployed individuals, who maintained

frequent contact with family and friends during the month prior to being laid-off, did not

55

experience major distress after job loss. It can be argued that social support buffered
depression related to job loss. The authors concluded that the workplace provided a
reliable arena for social interactions and without an alternative source of social contact,
former employees were more likely to experience symptoms of depression 6 to 8 months
later. Kasl, Gore, and Cobb (1975) also noted that perceived social support served as a
modiﬁer in their study of unemployment and depression. Signiﬁcant levels of depression
were only seen among participants who did not experience high levels of social support.
The beneﬁts of social support have been identiﬁed in athletic retirement research as well.
Athletes who are able to talk with others about their career termination have a decreased
chance for career temiination distress (Lavallee, Gordon & Grove, 1997).

A potential risk factor for poor transitions out of sports is a deﬁciency of available
social supports. Unfortunately, a number of athletes do not have others to provide the
critical support needed to decrease distress. Rosenfeld and colleagues (1989) questioned
college student-athletes at a Division I university about their social support network. The
participants reported that teammates did not provide emotional support. Additionally,
social support did not seem to buffer stress for athletes in the study. However, the authors
primarily evaluated the effects of the social network and did not analyze the amount of
perceived social support. The results may differ if the amount of perceived support is
taken into account.

Although most athletes identify their teammates as a primary source of general
support, they report a general lack of social support in athletics (Pearson & Petitas, 1990).
Approximately 65% of male college student-athletes surveyed by Humphrey, Yow, and

Bowden (2000) endorsed talking things over with others as a strategy they used to

56

alleviate stress. However, the authors noted that coaches and fellow athletes could not
adequately provide this support. Research suggests that teammates are not strong sources
of emotional support (Rosenfeld, Richman & Hardy, 1989). Storch and his co-
investigators (2005) found that approximately 15% of male student-athletes reported
signiﬁcantly deﬁcient social support. Only 1 in 7 student-athletes in Baille’s (1993) study
were able to identify sources of emotional support.

Athletic identity could impact the amount of available social support possessed by
as athlete. Athletes with a foreclosed athletic identity tend to develop social supports that
promote and maintain their conﬁned identity (Heyman, 1986). These supports will no
longer be effective or adaptive while transitioning out of elite sport. Athletes with a
strong athletic identity may lack the essential social support network needed for
encouragement after retirement (Baillie & Danish, 1992; Messner, 1992).

In sum, the retirement literature suggests that low levels of perceived social
support may contribute to depression and other forms of psychological distress after job
loss. Few studies have examined how perceived social support during the athletic
retirement process might inﬂuence former student-athletes’ well-being when leaving
sports. High levels of perceived social support will likely decrease the probability of
psychological distress after athletic career termination. Athletes with high athletic
identiﬁcation may be at risk for inadequate support which in turn may increase the risk of
retirement distress. Further research is needed to understand the potential protective

effects of social support against retirement distress.

57

Athletes and Psychological Distress

The greater part of the literature reviewed above did not use clinical measures to
evaluate the distress experienced during the transition from elite sport. As in the general
population, athletes may experience clinically signiﬁcant symptoms of psychological
distress after a major stressor (Brewer, 1993). The following section aims to substantiate
the rate of psychopathology among athletes in order to support the use of clinical measure
when measuring retirement distress.

The extent to which athletes experience clinically signiﬁcant concerns are
difﬁcult to assess given that athletes underutilize mental health services (Bergandi &
Wittig, 1984; Pinkerton, Hinz, & Barrow, 1989). However, in a roundtable discussion on
psychopathology, Ogilvie and associates (1981) concluded that the most common
psychological concerns among athletes are depression followed by substance (drug or
alcohol) use. Anxiety reactions are also of signiﬁcant concern.

Research suggests that athletes are more susceptible to psychological distress. In
an early study of mental health among college athletes, Carmen and his research team
(1968) found that of all students presenting for services at a college counseling center,
athletes tended to have more psychological concerns than non-athletes. However, the
study was limited by sample size (26 athletes and 26 controls). Wittmer and his
collaborators ( 1981) also found that athletes endorsed more adjustment problems than
non-athletes, including academic, social, and vocation difﬁculties. Academic and athletic
pressures may lead to depression, anxiety or burnout (Heyman, 1986). In a more recent
study examining the prevalence of depression among college athletes, 21% of college

athletes at a Division I university reported signiﬁcant symptoms of depression with

58

freshmen and female athletes showing increased odds of experiencing depression (Yang
et al., 2007).

Storch and colleagues (2005) assessed symptoms of social anxiety, depression
and alcohol use disorders among intercollegiate athletes and their non-athletic peers. The
researchers discovered that female athletes had higher depression and anxiety scores
when compared to male athletes and male and female non-athletes. Although male
athletes tended to report the least amount psychopathology, there was still a number of
athletes reporting clinically signiﬁcant levels of alcohol pathology (5.6%), depression
(3.7%), and social anxiety (22.2%). Notably, the sample of male student—athletes assessed
in this study included representatives from one revenue-producing sport (football).
However, separate analyses were not completed for this sub-sample. Therefore it is
unclear how self-reported psychopathology may vary amongst student-athletes based on
sport.

Alcohol is the most regularly used drug among college students (Nicholi, 1983).
Substance use shows systematic age-related trends. There is a signiﬁcant increase in
consumption and abuse or dependence diagnoses during young adulthood, peaking
between the ages of 18 and 25 (Chen & Kandel, 1995). Trajectories of heavy drinking are
most frequently found among youths who are male, low in self-efﬁcacy, and who drink in
order to get drunk (Schulenberg et al., 1996).

Athletes appear to be at risk for more alcohol-related problems than their non-
athlete peers. Rates of alcohol abuse tend to increase as involvement with athletics
increases (Leichliter et al., 1998). Athletes consume more alcohol, have heavier episodic

drinking, and consume considerably larger amounts of alcohol when they drink when

59

compared to the general student population (Martens, Dams-O’Connor, & Beck, 2006;
Nattive & Puffer, 1991; Weschler et al., 1997). In a survey of Big Ten college athletes,
20% of student athletes reported behaviors consistent with alcohol misuse or abuse
(Murphy et al., 1985 as cited in Marcello et al., 1989). Hildebrand, Johnson and Bogle
(2001) examined the drinking behaviors among college students with varying degrees of
athletic participation. They found that former high school athletes and current college
athletes consumed more alcohol during a semester, binge drank more often, began
drinking alcohol at an earlier age and were involved in more alcohol-related high risk
situations than college students who had never been athletes. Additionally, the
researchers discovered that current college athletes engaged in more alcohol-related high
risk behaviors, such as driving a car or engaging in sexual intercourse while under the
inﬂuence, than former high school athletes. Another study had similar ﬁndings with
college athletes reporting signiﬁcantly more alcohol-related harms (e. g., doing something
they related regretted, arguments with friends, unplanned sexual activity, damaged
property, and police involvement) than nonathletes (Nelson & Wechsler, 2001).

Further, team-sport participation appears to inﬂuence the level of alcohol
consumption among athletes. College athletes who participate in team sports consume
more alcohol, consumer a greater quantity of alcohol, and engaged in binge drinking
more frequently than college athletes involved in individual sports and those classiﬁed as
exercisers (Rockafellow & Saules, 2006).

There are some studies that ﬁnd negligible to no differences in the drinking
pattern of student-athletes and non-athletes. Overman and Terry (1991) assessed the

drinking behaviors of college students and the results showed minimal differences in the

60

drinking behavior of athletes and non-athletes; male non-athletes were inclined to drink
more during the week than male athletes who tended to drink mainly on special
occasions. Anderson and colleagues (1991) surveyed over 3,000 college student-athletes
and noted that athletes drank alcohol at a slightly rate lower than that of their college
student peers. Storch and his collaborators (2005) also found that male and female
student-athletes had a lowered frequency of alcohol problems than their non-athletic
peers. Given the discrepancies found in the alcohol use studies, there is a need for
additional research in order to clarify the individual factors that may increase the risk for
alcohol abuse.

Multiple factors may contribute to maladaptive alcohol use among athletes.
Tricker, Cook, and McGuire (1989) suggest that substance abuse may provide an easy
way to resolve the boredom and nostalgia. Alcohol use may also provide a temporary
solution to the some student—athletes’ problems (Chappell, 1987). High academic
pressure, athletic pressures and psychological numbing may lead some college students to
consume alcohol as a way to cope with stress and to relax (Ogilvie et al., 1.981; Roberts-
Wilbur, Wilbur, & Morris, 1987). Roberts-Wilbur and colleagues (1987) noted that
collegiate athletes often suffer from low self-esteem and may turn to alcohol to cope.
Coping research notes that coping skills utilized in the past during past stressors are
frequently activated during future transitions (Brammer, 1992; Parham, 1993). Alcohol, if
used as a coping mechanism prior to retirement, may be used during the transition
process and potentially turn into a problem later when faced with the stress of athletic

retirement.

61

Evans and colleagues (1992) investigated psychological factors related to
substance use among Division I athletes and non-athletes. Male and female athletes were
questioned about their reasons for consuming alcohol. The athletes endorsed
recreational/social use (78%), drinking to feel good (46%), and drinking to deal with life
stressors (28%) as the main reasons for consuming alcohol. Humphrey, Yow, and
Bowden (2000) noted that over half the male athletes in their study used alcohol as a
means for coping with stress. McGuire (1990) suggests that the sport environment can
threaten an athlete’s self-esteem and leave athletes susceptible to alcohol use. Alcohol
may also reduce self-awareness and self-doubts that might arise in the sporting
environment (Hull & Bond, 1986).

Taken as a whole, athletes appear to be more susceptible to clinical symptoms of
psychological distress (e. g., depression, anxiety, and alcohol use) than their non-athlete
peers. Therefore, using clinical measures are a reasonable method to assess psychological
distress after retirement from sport.

Overall Summary

To review, current retirement literature provides contradictory evidence regarding
the frequency of athletic retirement difﬁculties among former athletes. Still, there is
evidence that a number of former athletes experience a signiﬁcant level of distress when
transitioning out of sport. Retirement models indicate that individual variables (i.e.,
identity) and the retiree’s available resources (i.e., pre-retirement planning, coping
strategies, and social support) inﬂuence the quality of retirement. Speciﬁcally, Taylor and
Ogilvie’s (1994) theoretical model of athletic retirement presents trajectories towards

healthy and maladaptive transitions based on multiple factors. The authors theorized that

62

the cause of retirement (e.g., deselection) interacts with individual factors related to
adaptation as well as the athlete’s available resources determine the quality of retirement
from sport. They noted that retirement can be a maladaptive process inclusive of
psychopathology, substance abuse, occupational problems, and family/social concerns.
While the model identiﬁes multiple contributors to adaptation, it is not clear how these
components interact with one another or what conﬁguration of components might serve
as risk factors for retirement crises. Additional research is needed to understand how the
variables identiﬁed in the adaptation model relate to maladaptive retirement experiences.

Identity, the manner in which people deﬁne themselves, is one potential
individual factor that could predict which deselected student-athletes adjust poorly to
retirement (Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993). Higher athletic identiﬁcation is
associated with difﬁcult retirements (Lavellee, Gordon, & Grove, 1997; Webb et al.,
1998). However, researchers note that a strong and exclusive athletic identity is required
to see the detrimental affects on adaptation to retirement (Blinde & Greendorfer, 1985).
Few studies include measures of one aspect of general identity, identity foreclosure,
which could be related to the concept of low self-complexity and address the issue of
identity exclusivity. Therefore, research on athletic identity and retirement should also
assess the level of identity foreclosure.

Masculinity, conceptualized in this study as an aspect of athletic identity, is
another factor that could potentially inﬂuence transition out of sport. Masculinity is
highly associated with athletic participation and athletic identity (Caron, Carter, &

Brightman, 1985; Lantz & Schroeder, 1999). If an athlete is no longer able to participate

63

at an elite level, the loss of sports may pose a threat to masculinity, thereby increasing
anxiety and distress.

Another aspect of identity among student-athletes that has not been researched
extensively is racial identity. A strong racial identity has proven to be protective in
domains outside of sports (Cross, 1991; Helms, 1990; Sellers et al., 1998). However, high
athletic identity appears to have a diminishing effect on the strength of an athlete’s racial
identity (Jackson et al., 2002). It is unclear how lowered racial identity may contribute to
retirement crises among former student—athletes of color.

In sum, athletic identity, identity foreclosure, racial identity and masculinity are
highly correlated and appear to contribute to retirement adjustment. Based on the
research to date, athletes with high athletic identity, identity foreclosure, and high
masculinity appear to be more at risk for difﬁculties when transitioning out of sport. Low
racial identity centrality may also be a risk factor for retirement distress among former
student-athletes of color.

Intercollegiate athletes, when compared to their non-athlete peers, tend to be less
mature in their ability to make career decisions, a proﬁle consistent with low career
decision-making self-efﬁcacy (Kennedy & Dimick, 1988; Martens & Cox, 2000; Sowa &
Gressard, 1983). Following the logic of self-efﬁcacy theory, individuals with low
CDMSE are less likely to begin and complete the career decision process. Therefore,
student-athletes with low CDMSE may be less likely to make career plans which could
lead to signiﬁcant distress upon retirement from college sports. Additional research is

needed to clarify how CDMSE may affect the adaptation process.

64

The stressors facing deselected athletes are addressed with some form of coping
mechanisms, and the strategies may be adaptive or maladaptive. Limited research in the
area of coping with athletic retirement suggests that most athletes will use coping
strategies that are associated with healthy transitions from sport (Sinclair & Orlick,
1994). Studies have failed to examine the speciﬁc coping skills used by former college
student-athletes who do not transition well. A consistent pattern of coping skills used by
those who do not adjust well has not been identiﬁed. There may be particular coping
skills that are predictive of a poor transition from college sports. Additionally, high
athletic identiﬁcation could be associated with maladaptive coping responses.
Maladaptive coping skills, such as avoidant strategies, are a likely potential predictor of
retirement distress.

Athletes are motivated to participate in sports for various reasons; reasons which
provide athletes with some form of internal or external reward. Often, the rewards are
non-tangible reinforcers such as excitement or achievement. The loss of intercollegiate
athletics may also result in the loss of many of the incentives that motivate athletes to
participate in sports. The rewards of participation may fulﬁll the needs of competence,
autonomy, and relatedness as described in self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan,
1985). Little is known about what occurs when student-athletes are faced with the loss of
intercollegiate sports (the source of these incentives that fulﬁll their psychological needs)
and if the loss inﬂuences chance of retirement distress.

Social support appears to decrease the risk of depression and anxiety (Swift &
Wright, 2000). Unfortunately there is evidence of a general deﬁciency in social support

among collegiate athletes (Storch et al., 2005). Further, studies of athletes in transition

65

show that strong athletic identity is related to inadequate social support networks after
retirement (Baillie & Danish, 1992; Brewer et al., 1993; Messner, 1992). It is unclear
how the perceived social support student-athletes receive during their retirement process
may help or hinder their adaptation to leaving sports, but it appears that perceived social
support may decrease the likelihood of psychological distress upon retirement.

Athletes appear to be more susceptible to psychological distress and alcohol use
when compared to non-athletes (Martens, Dams-O’Connor, & Beck, 2006; Nattive &
Puffer, 1991; Weschler et al., 1997; Wittmer et al., 1981; Yang et al., 2007). Despite the
probability of serious psychological concerns among athletes, few researchers have used
clinical scales of psychological distress which seem appropriate for use in the athletic
population. Using clinical measures to assess athletic retirement distress could
signiﬁcantly add to the current literature and knowledge of sports career termination.

Employing the Taylor and Ogilvie model of adaptation to athletic retirement, the
current study examined the hypothesized relationships between identity factors (athletic
identity, identity foreclosure, masculinity, and racial identity), coping strategies,
CDMSE, loss of participation motivator factors, and social support as well as their

inﬂuences on maladaptive retirement experiences among former college student-athletes.

66

CHAPTER III

METHODS

Participants

Participants were 140 male former student-athletes who participated in a high-
proﬁle revenue sport (i.e., football, basketball, baseball, or hockey). Graduation from a
university was not a requirement for participation although 87% of participants reported
completing their college degree. Participants ranged in age from 21 to 29 with a mean age
of 24 years old. Participants were identiﬁed as deselected athletes if they indicated that
their college athletic career did not end due to injury or free choice although allowances
were made if they reported that they expected to play professionally or attempted to play
professionally (i.e., participated in a professional draft). Participants were required to
have played their last intercollegiate game within the last 5 years due to research
suggesting that the majority of retirement distress reported is within 2 years after leaving
the sport (Baillie, 1993). Although a 2 year cut-off was preferable, a 5 year cut-off was
used in order to increase the size of the participant pool due to a low response rate. The
average length of time between participants’ last college game and completion of the
study questionnaire was 27 months.

The majority of participants played football (92.1%) and attended a NCAA
Division I university (87.7%). The participants attended 105 different schools
representing 24 Division I, 8 Division II, 5 Division HI, and 2 NAIA conferences.
Regarding expectations of furthering their athletic careers, 75.7% of the participants

indicated that they attempted to play professionally while 41.3% reported that they

67

attempted to play at the semiprofessional level (e. g., minor, developmental, international,
and arena leagues). Of the 107 former college football players in the sample who
provided information about their NFL draft participation, 91.6% indicated that they were
involved in the NFL draft.

In terms of race and ethnicity, 53.6% of the sample self-identiﬁed as Caucasian
and 41.4% identiﬁed themselves as African American. There was an overrepresentation
of African Americans in the sample when compared to the current intercollegiate football
statistics. The NCAA (2007) reported that during the 2005-2006 school year, 33% of
student-athletes playing football were African American while 62% were Caucasian.
Familial status was assessed and 19.3% of the participants were married and 14.4% were
fathers. Participants were asked about their employment status and 32 participants
(22.8%) indicated that they were in athletic-related occupations: 4 worked in ﬁtness, 13
coached a sport at the high school or college level, and 15 played semiprofessional sports.
Additionally, 12 participants indicated that they were completing an undergraduate or
professional degree. More detailed demographic information for the study sample is

presented in Table 1.

68

Table 1

Demographic Data: Means, Standard Deviations, and Frequencies of Participant

 

 

Characteristics
Variable M (SD) Frequency
Age (years) 24.95 (1.27)

Last game (months)
College GPA

Sport
Football
Basketball
Baseball
Hockey

NCAA Division
Division I
Division H
Division HI
NAIA

Race/Ethnicity
Caucasian
African American
Hispanic/Latino
Native Hawaiian
Biracial

Marital Status
Single
Living with
signiﬁcant other
Married

27.31 (12.15)

2.87 (0.45)

69

129 (92.1%)
7 (5.0%)
3 (2.1%)
l (0.7%)

122 (87.1%)
10 (7.1%)
5 (3.6%)
3 (2.1%)

75 (53.6%)
58 (41.4%)
4 (2.9%)
1 (0.7%)
2 (1.4%)

100 (74.4%)

13 (9.3%)
27 (19.3%)

Table l (Cont)

 

 

Variable M (SD) Frequency

Yearly Income
Under $15,000 9 (6.4%)
$15,000 - $19,999 5 (3.6%)
$20,000 - $29,999 15 (10.7%)
$30,000 - $39,999 9 (6.4)
$40,000 - $49,999 19 (13.6%)
$50,000 - $59,999 16 (11.4%)
$60,000 - $69,999 13 (9.3%)
$70,000 - $79,999 10 (7.1%)
$80,000 - $89,999 10 (7.1%)
$90,000 - $99,999 3 (2.1%)
$100,000 - $124,999 9 (6.4%)
$125,000 - $149,999 4 (2.9%)
$150,000 - $174,999 2 (1.4%)
$175,000 - $199,999 3 (2.1%)
Over $200,000 9 (6.4%)
Missing 4 (2.9%)

70

Measures

Demographic Questionnaire. A 22-item scale was created for this study. The
questionnaire assessed basic demographic information (e. g., age, race/ethnicity, SES),
athlete-speciﬁc information (e.g., sport played, name of coach, starting status, playing
time, awards, date of last game, and attempts to play at a professional level), as well as
expectations of playing professional sports.

Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (AIMS; Brewer, Van Raalte & Linder, 1993).
The AIMS is a 10-item scale evaluating the strength of the athletic role in an individual’s
self conceptualization. Due to investigator error, the 7-point Likert scale suggested by the
authors was not utilized. Instead, participants responded to items like “Other people saw
me mainly as an athlete” and “I needed to participate in sports to feel good about myself”
using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree” and 5 = “strongly agree”). Scores
were calculated by summing the values of each item response. Possible scores range from
10 to 50, with higher scores indicative of stronger athletic identity. Brewer and
colleagues (1993) noted that the scale is internally consistent and has a reliability
estimate of .89 and showed convergent and discriminant validity. The Cronbach's or for
the scale with this sample was .81.

Extended Objective Measure of Ego-Identity Status-2, foreclosure subscale
(EOMEIS-Z; Bennion & Adams, 1986). The two foreclosure subscales of the EOMEIS-2
contain 16 items that evaluate individuals’ level of commitment to identity without
exploration. Participants responded to statements regarding occupation, religion and
activities on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Scores can range

from 16 to 96. Higher scores signify greater identity foreclosure. Bennion and Adams

71

(1986) established validity and reliability for the ideological and interpersonal foreclosure
subscales. In the present study, the ideological and interpersonal foreclosure items were
combined to create an integrated foreclosure score. The internal consistency of the scale
within this sample was .89 and was higher than the Cronbach's or reported in other
psychometric research (Bennion & Adams, 1986; Schwartz, 2002).

Bent Sex-Role Inventory — short form (BSRI,: Benz, [98]). The BSRI was
developed by Bern (1981) to measure masculinity and femininity in terms of culturally
desirable traits for males and females. The short form of the BSRI contains 30 sex-typed
attributes for which subjects rate themselves on a scale from 1 (never or almost never
true) to 7 (always or almost always true). The scale includes 10 feminine descriptors (i.e.,
gentle, compassionate), 10 masculine descriptors (i.e., aggressive, forceful), and 10
neutral/buffer terms (i.e., reliable, conscientious). Only the masculine items were used
due to the speciﬁc hypothesis regarding masculinity and the efforts to shorten the length
of the total protocol. Possible scores range from 10 to 70, with higher scores denoting
greater masculinity. The BSRI is a widely recognized measure of femininity and
masculinity and it has been used extensively since its development despite some
psychometric concerns (Hoffman & Borders, 2001). The internal consistency of the
masculinity subscale within this sample was .89 and is better than results reported in
previous psychometric research (Campbell, Gillaspy, & Thompson, 1997).

Multidimensional Inventory of Black Identity — centrality subscale (MIBI; Sellers
et al., 1997). The centralin subscale of the MIBI is an 8-item measure that evaluates the
importance of race to one’s deﬁnition of self. Using a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly

disagree” and 7 = “strongly agree”), participants responded to items like “Being Black

72

was an important reﬂection of who I was.” Items were averaged across all items within
the scale, with potential scores ranging from 1 to 7. Higher scores represent stronger
racial centrality. The scale was designed for use with an African American population but
in this study “Black” was replaced with a blank space in order for participants to use their
self—identiﬁed race and/or ethnicity. Participants were primed to think of their own
race/ethnicity before answering the questions in order to facilitate the ﬁll—in-the-blank
method of the adapted measure. The Cronbach's or for the 8-item scale with this sample
was .78 which is consistent with the ﬁndings from previous psychometric research using
the entire scale with larger samples (Cokley & Helm, 2001; Sellers et al., 1997).

Career Decision-Making Self-Efﬁcacy — short form (CDMSE; Betz, 2003 ). The
abbreviated form of the CDMSE consists of 25 items measuring respondents’ conﬁdence
in their ability to complete career decision-making tasks. Scale items cover the areas of
self-appraisal, ability to gather occupational information, goals selection, planning for the
future, and problem solving. Participants respond to the items such as “prepare a good
resume” and “make a plan of your goals for the next ﬁve years” using a 5-point Likert
scale, from 1 (no conﬁdence at all) to 5 (complete conﬁdence). Items are summed to
determine an overall score of career decision-making self-efﬁcacy with higher scores
corresponding to higher self-efﬁcacy. The total score has a reliability estimate of .94 and
the scale shows convergent validity based on other measures of career behavior (Betz et
al., 2003; Betz & Voyten, 1997). Previous factor analyses of the 25-item scale provided
varied results and do not support the existence of the ﬁve theorized subscales (Betz &
Taylor, 2001). Due to the lack of psychometric research supporting the use of the

CDSME as described by Betz and colleagues (2003) as well as concerns about the length

73

of the overall survey, a shorten version of the scale was created for use in this study.
Eleven items were drawn from the overall scale and chosen based on content. Each item
appeared to assess tasks required at the end of college. A factor analysis was conducted
with the 11 items and the factor loadings were relatively consistent with previous
research (Chaney, Hammond, Betz, & Multon, 2007). Two questions (items 7 and 9) had
signiﬁcant cross-loadings and were dropped from the ﬁnal version of the scale. The
Cronbach's or for the 9-item scale used in this study was .89. Possible scores range from 9
to 45.

Brief COPE (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989). Derived from the original 60-
item COPE, the Brief COPE is a 28-item inventory with 14 subscale scores that identify
various coping responses. Participants responded to statements such as “I made jokes
about it” and “I got comfort and understanding from someone” on a 4-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 (I have not done this at all) to 4 (I have been doing this a lot). Carver,
Scheier, and Weintraub (1989) indicated that ﬁve strategies in the original COPE were
inversely correlated to theoretically more functional strategies — denial, behavioral
disengagement, mental disengagement (renamed self-distraction in the Brief COPE),
venting, and alcohol use (renamed substance use in the Brief COPE). Self-blame, found
to be a predictor of poor adjustment, was added as an additional strategy in the Brief
COPE (Carver, 1997). Carver reported that he does not combine the strategies into
aggregate scales, but noted that researchers can create higher order factors using the
various strategies. He suggested that researchers use their own data to create the higher
order factors. Therefore, a factor analysis of all 28 Brief COPE items was conducted in

order to identify a higher order maladaptive factor. Based on the results of the factor

74

analysis, the two venting questions (items 9 and 21) were removed from the maladaptive
scale due to failure to load on the hypothesized maladaptive factor and high cross-
loadings. Additionally, the two substance use questions (items 4 and 11) were removed
given that substance use is one of the dependent variables in this study. The internal
consistency of the 8-item Maladaptive Coping subscale within this sample was .82.
Possible scores range from 8 to 32. Higher scores on the scale signify the use of more
maladaptive coping strategies.

Participation Motivation. A l4-item scale was created for this study to assess the
importance and stability of the seven participation motivation factors identiﬁed by Gould,
Feltz and Weiss (1981, 1985) based on their work with the Participation Motivation
Questionnaire (Gill, Gross, & Huddleston, 1981): achievement/status, team atmosphere,
excitement/challenge, ﬁtness, energy release, skill development, and friendship.
Participants were asked to respond to the items twice. First participants were asked to
retrospectively rate how important each of the seven factors was as a motivator for
participating in college athletics on a scale from 1 (not important at all) to 5 (very
important). Answers were summed to create a Participation Motivation — Then score.
Next participants were asked to the rate extent to which the same seven motivators are
available in their current daily life on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much so) and
the scores were summed to create a Participation Motivation — Now score. Possible total
scores for each section range from 7 to 35. The magnitude of the loss was determined by
the overall difference between the two sections (Then and Now). The internal consistency

of the scale within this sample was .75.

75

Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS; Zimet, Dahlem,
Zimet & Farley, 1988). The MSPSS is a 12-item scale that measures perceived support
from family, friends, and a signiﬁcant other. Participants describe the adequacy of their
support using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly
agree). Possible scores range from 7 to 84, with higher scores indicative of greater
perceived social support. Zimet and colleagues (1990) reported strong internal
consistency and test-retest reliability. The 3-factor model of the scale is supported by
multiple psychometric studies (Canty-Mitchell & Zimet, 2000; Clara, Cox, Enns, Murray,
& Torgrudc, 2003; Dahlem, Zimet, & Walker, 1991; Zimet et al., 1990). The Cronbach's
or for the scale with the study sample was .92.

Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991). The PAI is a clinical
measure of psychopathology utilized in numerous mental health settings. Morley and
Boggs (2003) noted strong content and discriminant validity among the 11 clinical scales
in the inventory. Only items from three of the clinical scales (Depression, Anxiety, and
Alcohol Problems) were used in the present study. On each scale, items were endorsed
utilizing a 4-point Likert scale (0 = “false, not at all true” and 3 = “very true”) and
summed for a total score. The 24-item Depression scale is designed to evaluate
depressive symptoms and phenomenology. Cognitive, affective and physiological
symptoms of depression are assessed. Depression scores can range from 0 to 72. The 24—
item Anxiety scale addresses the cognitive, affective and physiological symptoms of
anxiety. Anxiety scores can range from 0 to 72. The 12 items on the Alcohol Problems
scale evaluate features consistent with alcohol dependence and the consequences of

problematic alcohol use. Alcohol Problems scores can range from 0 to 36. The scale

76

reliability analysis of the three clinical scales using the current sample led to the
following results: Anxiety or = .89, Depression or = .89 and Alcohol (1 = .77 which is
lower, but generally consistent with the results reported in the scale manual (Morey,
1991).

Scale Modifications. With the exception of the Demographic Questionnaire, the
second section of the Participation Motivation scale, and the Personality Assessment
Inventory scales, the items in each measure were placed in past-tense form. Participants
were directed to provide a retrospective evaluation (i.e., mindset at the time of retirement)
of the hypothesized predictor variables. Participants were directed to “think of yourself at
the end of your college athletic career” when completing the AIMS, EOMEIS-2, BSRI,
MIBI, CDMSE, Brief COPE, and MSPSS. Copies of the measures used in this study and
described above are located in the appendices with one exception. Due to copyright
protection, the Personality Assessment Inventory scale is not included.

Procedures

The study questionnaire was placed online using the survey service company
SurveyMonkey.com and took approximately 40 min to complete. Informed consent was
obtained using the online questionnaire. The consent form was presented as the ﬁrst
webpage of the questionnaire and former student-athletes indicated their voluntary
agreement to participate in the study by beginning the online questionnaire. Participants
were primarily recruited through intemet invitations. The investigator located the NFL
and NBA draft list from the years 2005 through 2007 and matched the names of the draft
participants to their proﬁles on social networking websites (i.e., Facebook and Myspace).

Potential participants were sent a brief recruitment message describing the study and

77

provided a hyperlink to the study website. Web-based technical problems prevented
proper transmission of the hyperlink and made the 391 invitations sent through MySpace
inefﬁcient — only 4 participants completed the survey for a response rate of less than 1%.
Invitations sent through the second social networking website, Facebook, were more
effective with 131 of the 534 people who were sent the message completing some portion
of the survey for a response rate of 24.5%. Participants were also recruited through word
of mouth by associates of the investigator. The total number of people informed about the
study by the associates is unknown, but 45 individuals who completed the study were
recruited in this manner. Staff members of Athletics Departments (e.g., Student-Athlete
Support Services, Varsity Clubs, and NCAA Compliance Ofﬁcers) at over 140 NCAA
Division I colleges and universities (including 15 Historically Black Colleges and
Universities) were contacted by the investigator requesting assistance with recruitment.
With the assistance of 11 schools, 29 participants were recruited for the study.
Participants received $10 as compensation for completing the survey and were also
entered in a rafﬂe to win one of ﬁve $100 gift cards. Due to the participation incentives
and NCAA regulations, former student-athletes were required to have no remaining
NCAA eligibility in order to participate.
Data Screening

Each completed questionnaire was fact-checked using the demographic
information collected in order to verify that every participant included in the ﬁnal sample
was a former student-athlete. The investigator ensured that the name of the school, head
coach, participation on the team, and in some cases athletic awards reported by

participants were consistent with information gathered from the various universities’

78

Athletics Department website. Of the 209 participants who completed at least the
demographic portion of questionnaire, 29 questionnaires were immediately discarded due
to indications that the questionnaires were not completed by former student-athletes and
invalid. Next, nine participants were removed from the sample because they only
completed the demographic section of the entire questionnaire. Another four participants
were excluded from analysis because they completed the study questionnaire more than 5
years after their last college game, as were ﬁve participants who indicated that they left
college sports due to an injury which is not considered deselection for the purposes of
this study. Finally, an additional 22 participants were not included in the ﬁnal sample
because more than 25% of the data (including the outcome measure) were missing.

A series of independent t-tests and chi—square tests were conducted to assess
demographic differences between the 22 participants removed from the ﬁnal sample due
to missing data and the 140 participant retained for hypotheses testing. There were no
signiﬁcant differences between the demographic proﬁles of participants removed from
the ﬁnal sample and those retained based on the former student-athletes’ age, grade point
average, time since last college game, income, race, expectation of playing their sport

professionally, past attempts to play professionally, or college degree status.

79

CHAPTER IV

RESULTS

Statistical Analyses

All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 15.0 (SPSS Inc., 2006) and
AMOS 7.0 (Arbuckle, 2006). The majority of the study hypotheses were tested using
structural equation modeling (SEM). Two advantages of using SEM are that (1) there is a
simultaneous test of the model ﬁt and the individual parameters of the hypothesized
relationships and (2) the relationships with latent variables can be examined without
contamination from measurement error because the error is estimated explicitly in the
model (Kline, 2005). Additionally, SEM allows for analyses with unobserved, latent
variables (in this case Psychological Distress) and observed variables making SEM a
preferred method for modeling multivariate relationships (Byrne, 2000). Predictor
variables, retrospectively endorsed by participants, were expected to be signiﬁcant in the
predicted directions toward the latent concept of Psychological Distress (deﬁned as the
shared variance of Anxiety, Depression and Alcohol Problems). The statistical
signiﬁcance of the Beta coefﬁcients was examined to evaluate the primary hypotheses.
The hypothesized negative main effect of racial identity was tested using multiple
regression analysis due to the smaller number of participants of color (N = 65).
Regression analysis was also used to test the hypothesized moderation of Social Support.

The SEM analysis involved a two-step procedure — the conﬁrmation of the
measurement model followed by the evaluation of the theoretical model. Goodness-of—fit

statistics were used to determine how well the hypothesized model ﬁt the collected data.

80

As recommended by Kline (2005), the model chi-square ()6), Root mean square error of
approximation (RMSEA), and Comparative Fit Index (CFI) were used to assess model ﬁt
in this study. The Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) is a popular index that is less affected by
sample size and was also used to assess model ﬁt (Schreiber et al., 2006). The general
rules for acceptable ﬁt using these indices are that xz/df S 2, RMSEA < .08, CF12 .95,
and TLI Z .95 (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Schreiber et al., 2006).
Preliminary Analyses

Normality. Means, standard deviations, correlation coefﬁcients, kurtosis, and
skewness values for the study variables are presented in Table 2. Outliers (cases with
standardized scores greater than 2 Z 3.00) were truncated to reduce the inﬂuence of the
extreme values on the analyses (Haworth, 1996; Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). In four
cases (1 participation motivation, 2 anxiety, and 1 alcohol problems), the raw scores were
adjusted; the cases were assigned a score that was equivalent to the next most extreme
score in the distribution. After the truncation of scores, measures of skew and kurtosis
(Table 2) were 5 2 for all variables suggesting an adequate distribution of scores
(Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). An examination on the intercorrelations among predictor
variables was conducted to assess for multicollinearity. Bivariate correlations between
the independent variables (shown in Table 2) were relatively low, ranging from -.23 to
.33, minimizing concerns of multicollinearity (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). Multivariate
normality was assessed by comparing the Mahalanobis distance values against the x2

critical value. The maximum value for Mahalanobis distance found in the sample (24.35)

81

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82

was less than the )6 critical value for eight dependent variables (26.13) which indicated
that there were no substantial multivatiate outliers in the sample.

Missing Data. The ﬁnal sample consisted of 140 participants, 41 of whom left at
least one item unanswered in the questionnaire. Notably, 32 of the 41 participants with
any missing data only had one or two of the 156 items missing (1% of the total data
points missing). Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML), which estimates
parameter values that are most consistent with the raw data by making use of all available
data points was used to handle missing data in the SEM analyses. FIML outperforms
more traditional methods for dealing with incomplete data (i.e., listwise deletion,
pairwise deletion, and mean imputation) and leads to less biased and more reliable
parameter estimates (Allison, 2003; Peters & Enders, 2002). FIML is not available in
SPSS and therefore a different missing data approach was used when the regression
analyses were conducted. Expectation Maximization (EM), an algorithm technique that
identiﬁes the expected value of the log-likelihood given the sample parameter values and
then maximizes the expected log-likelihood to produce new estimates of the parameters,
was used to impute missing data points (Allison, 2003). The missing values were
replaced with the expected values, given the ﬁxed values of the sample parameters. The
EM algorithm is highly recommended over the use of the traditional methods of dealing
with missing data (Peugh & Enders, 2004).

Demographic Variables. A correlation analysis (Table 3) was conducted to assess
if demographic factors were related to participants’ current level of psychological distress
and needed to be included in the analysis of hypotheses. There were no signiﬁcant

relationships between current distress and age, time since last college game, income,

83

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84

race/ethnicity, marital status, NCAA division, starting status, expectation of playing their
sport professionally, past attempts to play professionally, or college degree status.
Therefore, these demographic variables were not considered in the tests of research
hypotheses.

In order to test if the time since participants’ last college game had a quadratic
relationship to their current level of psychological distress, a curvilinear regression
analysis was conducted. The variable for the time since the last game and a quadratic
term (time since last game squared) were entered into a regression equation. The
coefﬁcient associated with the quadratic term was nonsigniﬁcant [[3 = -.,11, t = -0.33, p =
.74], indicating that there was not a curvilinear relationship between time since last game
and current distress.

Clinical Results. The average participant experienced non-clinical levels of
depression (M = 13.65, SD = 10.05), anxiety (M = 13.95, SD = 9.47), and alcohol
problems (M = 7.06, SD = 4.80). Frequency analyses showed that 5.7% of anxiety
scores, 15.0% of depression scores, and 8.7% of alcohol problems scores could be
considered clinically signiﬁcant (t-score Z 65). Overall, 32 participants (22.9%) scored in
the clinically signiﬁcant range on at least one of the three measures of psychological
distress which is lower that the national prevalence rate of 26.2% for a diagnosable
mental disorder (Kessler et al., 2005).

Structural Equation Modeling of the Data

Measurement Model. The measurement model is the portion of the overall model

that contains the latent variable and its indicators and is assessed in the same manner as a

conﬁrmatory factor analysis. In the current model the latent (unobserved) variable,

85

Psychological Distress, was measured by three indicator (observed) variables:
Depression, Anxiety, and Alcohol Problems. The measurement model has six
observations available to estimate the six model parameters making the model a “just-
identiﬁed” model. In just-identiﬁed models, the parameter estimates perfectly reproduce
the sample covariance matrix, and model ﬁt cannot be directly tested. Therefore, one of
the predictor variables (Athletic Identity) was added to the model for the purposes of
providing more observations than parameters and creating an “overidentiﬁed” model.
The revised measurement model resulted in a good ﬁt of the data to the hypothesized
structure: ([x2 (2) = .75, p = .69], xZ/df = .37, RMSEA < .01 with a 90% conﬁdence
interval of .00 — .13, CFI = 1.00 and TLI = 1.00. All three indicators loaded signiﬁcantly
on the latent variable (see Table 4). The results of the measurement model show that
Psychological Distress is adequately represented by its three indicators and that the latent
variable is psychometrically sound.

Full Model. The initial full structural model (Figure 3) consisting of the latent
variable and seven predictors (Participation Motivation, Maladaptive Coping, Career
Decision-Making Self-Efﬁcacy, Social Support, Identity Foreclosure, Athletic Identity
and Masculinity) was evaluated to determine if the hypothesized relationships in the
model were supported by the collected data. The ﬁt statistics for this model indicated
poor ﬁt ([x2 (33) = 73.46, p < .001], ledf = 2.22, RMSEA = .09 with a 90% conﬁdence
interval of .07 — .12, CFI = .86 and TLI = .77). The parameters estimates are presented in

more detail in Table 5.

86

Table 4
Distress Factor Loadings in the Measurement Model

 

 

Measuredvariable 3223383112.? SE 2.3283221“. ,,
Anxiety 3.98 < .01 .86 < .001
Depression 4.58 .95 .93 < .001
Alcohol Problems 3.98 .81 .42 < .001

 

87

 

Participation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Motivation
Career
Decision-making
'23 Self-efficacy
.96
@ Depression ’ -.25 Maladaptive
Coping
_93 .44
.48
.65
. ”j I
@ Anxiety e PsychologIcal .15 SOCIa'SUPPO 7‘36
.80 DIstress °

 

 

 

 

 

Identity
-00 Foreclosure

.15 r/
'39 .1 4 Athletic
Alcohol Identity

-.10

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masculinity

 

 

Figure 3. Initial Full Model

88

Table 5

Parameter Estimates of Predictors of Distress in the Initial Full Model

 

 

. Unstandardized Standardized
Predictor . . SE . . p
regressron weight regressron weight
Motivation .06 .02 .23 .006
CDMSE -.07 .02 -.25 .004
Mal. Coping .I7 .05 .48 < .001
Social Support -.02 .0] -.IS .05
Foreclosure —.001 .0] -.004 .95
Athletic Identity .04 .02 . I4 .07
Masculinity -.02 .0] -. I 0 .l7

 

N = 140,122 = 0.44

89

The results of the initial full model suggested the need for modiﬁcations to the
theoretical model in order to improve of the overall ﬁt to the data. Based on the
nonsigniﬁcant regression coefﬁcients in the initial model, Masculinity and Identity
Foreclosure were eliminated as predictors. This modiﬁcation is logical in that both
constructs were conceptualized as aspects of athletic identity. It is possible that the
athletic identity measure adequately captured the concept of masculinity and exclusive
identity without the contributions of masculinity and foreclosure scales. The removal of
Masculinity and Identity Foreclosure variables were considered theoretically justiﬁed and
the two variables were not retained for the ﬁnal model. Additionally, the hypothesized
covariance between Social Support and Athletic Identity was not signiﬁcant so the
parameter was removed for the ﬁnal model. Statistical results suggested a covariance
between CDMSE and Social Support. This potential covariance is theoretically
defensible; higher perceived social support has been found to predict stronger CDMSE
(Quimby & O’Brien, 2004). Therefore, the covariance was added to the model.

The ﬁnal full model with standardized parameters estimates for the structural paths is
illustrated in Figure 4. The ﬁt indices indicate a good ﬁt of the data to the hypothesized
structure ([70 (18) = 22.29, p = .22], xz/df = 1.24, RMSEA = .04 with a 90% conﬁdence
interval of .00 — .09, CFI = .98 and TLI = .97). The model accounted for 46% of the
variance in Psychological Distress. There were no substantial changes in the regression
weights (Table 6) between the initial and the ﬁnal model and only an additional 2% of the
variance in Psychological Distress was explained by the modiﬁcations. The parameter

changes were made post hoc in order to improve the overall model ﬁt and the changes

90

 

‘ I
i Participation

 

 

  
 
     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

i Motivation ’
/
/
/
/
.22
Career
Decision-making
.94 .
.26 Self-efﬁcacy
‘ E1 Depression] .
\
r—EG—j Maladaptive 33
' Co in
Q Anxiety PsychologIcal P 9
DIstress
l
.16

Social Support'

 

.36

 

 

@% Alcohol

 

 

 

 

Athletic
Identity

 

 

residual

 

Figure 4. Final Full Model

91

Table 6

Parameter Estimates of Predictors of Distress in the Final Full Model

 

 

. Unstandardized Standardized
Predictor . . SE . . p
regressmn weight regressron weight

Motivation .06 .02 .22 .007
CDMSE -.08 .03 —.26 .004
Mal. Coping .17 .05 .47 < .001
Social Support -.03 .01 -. 18 .03
Athletic Identity .04 .02 .14 .07

 

N = 140, R2 = 0.46

92

were partly empirically driven (although theoretically plausible). Therefore, the ﬁnal
model is tentative and should be cross-validated in future research (Martens, 2005).
Testing of the Hypotheses

Hypotheses 1 — 5. As indicated in Table 6, conclusive support for Hypothesis la
was not found, as the relationship between Athletic Identity and Psychological Distress
was not signiﬁcant (B = .14, p = .07). Additionally, no support was found for hypotheses
lb and 1c, as Identity Foreclosure (B = -.004, p = .95) and Masculinity (B = -.10, p = .17)
failed to signiﬁcantly predict Psychological Distress. The regression path between
CDMSE and Psychological Distress was signiﬁcant (B: -.26, p = .004) supporting the
Hypothesis 2, lower levels of retrospectively-endorsed self-efﬁcacy regarding career
choices at the time of retirement predicted increased current distress. Maladaptive Coping
was also a signiﬁcant predictor of Psychological Distress (B = .47, p < .001), the use of
more maladaptive coping strategies at the time of retirement predicted greater current
distress (Hypothesis 3). Participation Motivation also contributed to the prediction of
Psychological Distress (B = .22, p = .01). Consistent with Hypothesis 4, the results
indicated that greater losses in athletic participation motivation factors predicted
increased current distress. Hypothesis 5 was also supported. Social Support had a
signiﬁcant regression path toward Psychological Distress (B = -.18, p = .03) signifying
that lower levels of perceived social support at retirement predicted increased current
distress.
Hypothesis 1d. Among student-athletes of color, Racial Identity was hypothesized to
negatively predict Psychological Distress. First, in order to validate the need for a

separate analysis, an independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the Racial

93

Identity scores for Caucasian participants to scores for participants of color. Caucasian
participants (M=3.25, SD=1.17) endorsed having signiﬁcantly lower levels of Racial
Identity at the end of their college careers than participants of color (M=4. 17, SD=0.99),
t(138) = —4.95, p < .001. Of note, the average Racial Identity score among African
Americans in this sample was lower than the mean score (M=5.23, SD=1.08) among
African American college students assessed in previous research (Sellers et al., 1997).
Next, in order to evaluate how well Racial Identity predicted Psychological Distress
among athletes of color (N = 65), a standard multiple regression analysis was conducted
in which Psychological Distress was regressed onto Racial Identity and the ﬁve
predictors that were retained in the ﬁnal SEM model (Participation Motivation,
Maladaptive Coping, CDMSE, Social Support, and Athletic Identity). Psychological
Distress was deﬁned by an unweighted composite score using the combined standardized
means of the Depression, Anxiety, and Alcohol Problems scales. The summary of the
regression analysis is presented in Table 7. There was a lack of support for the
hypothesis; Racial Identity at the time of retirement was not a signiﬁcant predictor of
current psychological distress among athletes of color (B = .01, t = 0.15, p = .88).
Hypothesis 6. Perceived social support was hypothesized to moderate the
relationship between each of the predictor variables and Psychological Distress. As noted
earlier, Identity Foreclosure and Masculinity were not signiﬁcant predictors of
Psychological Distress and therefore excluded from the interaction analyses. A series of
multiple regression analyses were conducted to test if Social Support altered the

relationship between the predictor variables (Athletic Identity, Participation Motivation,

94

Table 7
Multiple Regression Predictors of Distress among Former Student-Athletes of Color

 

 

Predictor B SE B t p
Participation Motivation .13 .03 .41 4.86 < .001
CDMSE -.ll .03 -.33 -3.64 .001
Maladaptive Coping .17 .04 .37 4.07 < .001
Social Support -.02 .02 -.l l -1.29 .201
Athletic Identity .05 .03 .16 1.73 .088
Racial Identity .03 .20 .01 .15 .882

 

N: 65, R?- = 0.61 F (6, 58) = 15.24, p < .001

95

Maladaptive Coping, and CDMSE) and Psychological Distress using the composite
distress score described earlier. Variables were centered and the interactions of Social
Support with each of the predictors were computed as cross-products. The interaction
term and corresponding simple independent variables were then entered into the
regression model. The regression analyses resulted in no signiﬁcant two-way interactions
between Social Support and Athletic Identity [B = .001, t = 0.10, p = .99], Participation
Motivation [B = .08, t = 0.95, p = .34], Maladaptive Coping [B = —.01, t = -0.07, p = .94],
or CDMSE [B = -.05, t = -0.56, p = .57]. Perceived social support was not a moderator of
distress for any of the predictor variables.

Hypothesis 7. The hypothesis that Athletic Identity would be positively correlated
with Maladaptive Coping was investigated using the Pearson product-moment coefﬁcient
(Table 2). As hypothesized, there was a signiﬁcant positive correlation [r = .36, p < .001]
between Athletic Identity and Maladaptive Coping. A higher level of athletic identity at
the time of retirement was associated with the use of more maladaptive coping strategies
at the time of retirement.

Hypothesis 8. The hypothesis that Athletic Identity would be negatively correlated
with Social Support was also investigated using the Pearson product-moment coefﬁcient
(Table 2). The correlation was not statistically signiﬁcant [r = -.10, p = .27]. There was
not a signiﬁcant relationship between the participants’ athletic identity at their time of

retirement and their level of perceived social support at retirement.

96

CHAPTER V

DISCUSSION

Interpretation of Results

The present study was conducted in order to identify risk factors for retirement
distress (i.e., psychological distress) among male former student-athletes who were
unable to play at a professional level due to deselection. The study examined how well
identity factors (athletic identity, identity foreclosure, masculinity, and racial identity),
career decision-making self-efﬁcacy, maladaptive coping strategies, the loss of
participation motivation factors, and perceived social support predicted current
psychological distress. Perceived social support was also evaluated as a potential
moderator of distress.

A number of interesting results emerged from this study. First, career decision-
making self-efﬁcacy was associated with problems adjusting to life after sports.
Participants who noted lower levels of self-efﬁcacy regarding career choices at the time
of retirement reported higher levels of psychological distress. While previous research
has shown that student-athletes tend to have lower CDMSE when compared to the
general college student population (Brown, Glastetter-Fender & Shelton, 2000), little is
known about the longer-term implications of this difference. These research ﬁndings
support the argument that low CDMSE at the time of retirement could contribute to
problems adjusting to life after sports. Since student-athletes are less mature in their
ability to make career decisions than their non-athlete peers (Kennedy & Dimick, 1988;

Martens & Cox, 2000; Sowa & Gressard, 1983), it follows that some student-athletes will

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not be conﬁdent in their ability to decide on a career after leaving college sports.
Consistent with the general self-efﬁcacy theory, student-athletes with low CDMSE are
less likely to begin the career decision-making process and participate in pre-retirement
career planning when faced with barriers (Betz, 2000). Therefore, it is possible that the
former student-athletes with low CDMSE failed to decide and plan on a career after
sports and were unprepared for retirement. They may also have chosen a career without
fully exploring their options and still had some degree of vocational indecisiveness. Upon
leaving college sports, former student-athletes with low CDMSE may have been forced
to make initial career decisions in order to meet their ﬁnancial needs. Undertaking career
development tasks after leaving their university without the assistance of the university-
based support services and career counselors may have become overwhelming and could
have led to distress.

Maladaptive coping strategies were also associated with current psychological
distress. Former student-athletes who indicated that they used more maladaptive coping
strategies such as denial, behavioral disengagement, and self-blame at the time of their
retirement reported experiencing higher levels of current distress. The ﬁndings are
consistent with the coping literature that notes coping skills affect the quality of
retirement and can determine the amount of distress a retiree experiences (Brammer,
1991; Gordon, 1995). Former student-athletes using maladaptive coping strategies as they
were ending their athletic careers may have not obtained healthier coping skills during
their transition out of college sports and continued to rely on the maladaptive coping
skills when faced with stressors during retirement. The maladaptive coping skills may

have initially decreased the athletes’ level of distress but did not allow for any problem—

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focused strategies that may have prevented future acute distress. At some point, the
maladaptive strategies were likely no longer effective resulting in an increased and
sustained level of retirement distress. The maladaptive strategies may have been
effective when dealing with acute stress but prolonged use of those strategies probably
interfered with their ability to obtain and employ more productive and healthier coping
strategies that would have been more effective - thereby exacerbating distress over time
(Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989).

Another study hypothesis was that the loss of athletics would mean the loss of the
intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that motivated athletes to participate in sports and that
would lead to increased retirement distress. The study results supported this premise;
greater losses in motivation factors were associated with higher levels of current distress.
The participants who endorsed a loss of motivation factors were unable to find a job or
activity that replaced sports in terms of satisfaction in domains such as fun, energy
release, or achievement. Even if the former student-athletes had activities that could be
satisfying, they may have been unable redirect their focus and energy from sports to the
new area and still felt deprived in some manner (Svoboda & Vanek, 1982). Former
student-athletes who reported a signiﬁcant loss in motivation factors were probably
unable to meet the basic needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness after leaving
college sports. These are factors that Ryan and Deci (2000) noted are required to
maintain psychological well-being. This study is believed to be one of the ﬁrst to
measure what motivates college athletes to participate in sports as well as what occurs

when athletes are faced with the loss of intercollegiate sports and the source of those

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incentives to participate. These results will require replication, but may be a worthwhile
and productive area for future research.

Social support was also associated with maladjustment to retirement. Lower
levels of perceived social support at retirement predicted higher levels of current
psychological distress. The ﬁndings are consistent with the general retirement literature
that indicates that low levels of perceived social support contributes to psychological
distress after job loss (Kessler, Turner, & House, 1988; Lavallee, Gordon & Grove,
1997). Participants who perceived that they had an adequate level of social support at the
time of retirement probably utilized their supports as they transitioned out of college
sports and faced retirement stressors resulting in less psychological distress. Support
persons likely served as a sounding board when needed and aided with problem-solving.
Perhaps the former student-athletes with solid social support were comforted by the
thought that they did not have to “go it alone” and felt more empowered to begin a new
direction in their lives. Former student-athletes who did not perceive adequate social
support resources may have felt abandoned throughout the retirement process and
became overwhelmed and distressed trying to deal with the transition out of college
sports by themselves.

Despite the direct effect of social support, no backing was found for the
moderation effects of social support on the relationship between the predictor variables
and psychological distress. The study sample size may have limited the ability to detect
moderation effects if the effect size was small. Therefore, similar studies with larger
samples are needed to clarify potential interaction effects. Additionally, there was not a

signiﬁcant relationship between the participants’ athletic identity at the time of retirement

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and their level of perceived social support at retirement which is not consistent with
previous research (Baillie & Danish, 1992; Messner, 1992). The lack of signiﬁcant
ﬁndings may indicate that athletes with a strong athletic identity may perceive a strong
support system even though they may not have an effective social support network. As
noted in the literature review, athletes with a foreclosed athletic identity tend to develop
social support systems that promote and maintain their conﬁned identity which may be
adequate during college but not beneﬁcial when transitioning out of elite sport (Heyman,
1986).

Another signiﬁcant study result was based on relationships between predictor
variables. Consistent with the ﬁndings of Grove and his co-investigators (1997), former
student-athletes who endorsed a strong athletic identity at the time of retirement were
more likely to use maladaptive coping strategies such as mental disengagement,
behavioral disengagement, and denial. It is possible that the one-dimensional
identiﬁcation as an athlete led student-athletes to apply coping skills that were effective
in the athletic domain, but maladaptive in general, to other domains of their lives. For
example, self-distraction or denial of a problem could be a quick method to handle a
problem while on the playing ﬁeld and allow athletes to perform well under pressure. Yet
those same coping strategies would likely prove maladaptive when facing larger, longer-
term life stressors such as retirement.

An additional relationship was not initially hypothesized but discovered during
the analyses. Higher perceived social support was related to higher CDMSE. Former
student-athletes who perceived that they had an adequate level of social support may

have believed that they could use their support system to help solve problems related to

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choosing a career path and gain assistance with any barriers that they might encounter
during their career transition. As noted earlier, individuals with high CDMSE will
participate in pre-retirement career planning even when faced with barriers. This
willingness to persist in career planning despite barriers may be a function of social
support. Support persons might offer suggestions to deal with barriers, provide
encouragement that increase former student-athletes’ conﬁdence in being able to make
career decisions, or help the athletes think through their options which could increase
former student-athletes’ beliefs in their ability to make satisfactory career decisions.

The remaining study hypotheses were not supported by the results. Despite
previous research suggesting that athletic identity signiﬁcantly predicts retirement
distress (Lavellee, Gordon, & Grove, 1997; Webb, et al, 1998), the relationship between
athletic identity and psychological distress was not signiﬁcant in this study. Previous
researchers did not use as many additional predictors in their statistical models so it
possible that athletic identity had a weaker association with retirement distress when
other variables were considered given that the simple correlations with anxiety,
depression and alcohol problems were signiﬁcant.

Identity foreclosure also failed to reach signiﬁcance in this model and was not
signiﬁcantly related to psychological distress. This ﬁnding was surprising, given that
identity foreclosure also was correlated to each of the three areas (depression, anxiety,
and alcohol problems) used to measure distress. Similar to athletic identity, it is possible
that identity foreclosure did not account for a signiﬁcant amount of the variance once the
other predictor variables were entered into the model. Since identity foreclosure was

conceptualized as an aspect of athletic identity, it is possible that the athletic identity

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construct encompassed some degree of foreclosure leaving the foreclosure construct with
little unique variance in the model. It is also plausible that identity foreclosure has a
more complex relationship with current distress than found in this study’s model.

It is also possible that identity foreclosure did not reached signiﬁcance in the
model due to the way the concept was measured in this study. A general scale of identity
foreclosure was utilized with the assumption that general identity foreclosure would also
represent foreclosure in athletic identity. A more direct measure of identity foreclosure in
the athletic domain might have provided different results. Additionally, identity
foreclosure was thought to represent a lack of self—complexity in this study. It is plausible
that an absence of self-complexity, more so than athletic identity foreclosure, is a risk
factor for retirement distress. An assessment of self-complexity could clarify if former
student-athletes have readily available alternative identities when the elite athlete identity
is no longer available. Individuals with more self-complexity may be protected from
negative affect when faced with failure experiences (Linville, 1985). Future athletic
retirement researchers might consider evaluating former student-athletes’ self-complexity
as a predictor of retirement distress.

There was no support for the hypothesis that masculinity would signiﬁcantly
predict psychological distress. It is possible that the conceptualization of masculinity
needed for this study was not adequately captured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory
(BSRI) which was used to measure masculinity. The BSRI has been used extensively in
research since the 19705, but psychometric research over the years has noted problems in
validity and poor support for factorially pure masculinity or femininity subscales

(Campbell, Gillaspy, & Thompson, 1997; Choi & Fuqua, 2003). Researchers argue that

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the masculinity scale may be best used as a measure of instrumentality; traits that are goal
oriented, self-assertive, and focused on the external world (Archer & Lloyd, 2002;
Hoffman and Borders, 2001). The study hypothesis had to do with a “sense of manhood”
not an instrumental approach to life. This misidentiﬁcation of the masculinity construct
could be the basis for the insigniﬁcant ﬁndings.

A different conceptualization of masculinity, in terms of gender role conﬂict, may
have been more appropriate for this research and led to signiﬁcant results. Male gender
role conflict occurs when the socialized and restrictive role of a man leads to negative
consequences and can occur when men are faced with major life transitions such as
retirement (O’Neil, 2008). Pleck (1995) noted that it is not masculinity in itself that is
problematic but an overadherence to a restrictive stereotypical masculine role that will
result in distress when a man cannot meet the stereotypical standards. Gender role
conﬂict is associated with depression and other forms of psychological distress (Hayes &
Mahalik, 2000; Mahalik & Cournoyer, 2000). Future research may consider examining
the inﬂuence of male gender role conﬂict in the athletic retirement process.

Racial identity (i.e., racial centrality) at the time of retirement was not a
signiﬁcant predictor of current distress among athletes of color. Participants who deﬁned
themselves strongly in terms of their race at the time of retirement were no more likely to
report current distress than participants who placed less importance on race. It is possible
that another dimension of racial identity would be more appropriate in this study. Private
racial regard (Sellers et al., 1998), how a person feels about his/her own racial group,
seems to address issues of self esteem in terms of racial pride. Indeed, research with

African American high school and college students suggests that higher levels of private

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regard are associated with higher self-esteem (Rowley et al., 1998). Steinfeldt and
Steinfeldt (2008) found that African American student-athletes at a predominantly White
institution endorsed high levels of Private Regard despite reporting decreasing levels of
racial centrality as their years in college increased. The way student-athletes of color feel
about their own race may be more essential and have more implications on their well-
being than how central race is in their lives. Racial identity may still serve as a protective
factor for student-athletes of color, just in a different manner than initially hypothesized
in this study. Future research should reevaluate the relationship between racial identity
and retirement distress using the racial identity dimension of private regard.

Racial centrality may also be signiﬁcantly related to distress in an indirect
manner. Discrimination has been found to moderate the relationship between centrality
and psychological distress. Among African Americans young adults, racial centrality
appears to buffer the negative effects of racial discrimination — racial discrimination
appears to result in signiﬁcant distress among individuals who endorse higher levels of
racial centrality (Sellers et al, 2003). Therefore, racial centrality may only be a signiﬁcant
predictor of retirement distress if student-athletes are faced with race-based
discrimination during their transition out of college sports. Future researchers may
consider questioning former student-athletes about their experiences of discrimination in
order to see if the racial identity moderation effect holds true.

Limitations

Caution is required when drawing conclusions from the study results due to

several limitations. Sample size is an important limitation of the study. Covariances and

parameter estimates are sensitive to sample size (Ullman, 2007). It is possible that the

105

insigniﬁcant ﬁndings may have been signiﬁcant with a larger sample that would have
provided greater statistical power. Replications studies with larger samples will be
needed to verify the study conclusions.

The retrospective design of the study also proved to be a limitation when
interpreting the results. The primary statistical procedure utilized in the present research,
structural equation modeling, was limited in what it could test because the study design
did not support causal inferences. The signiﬁcant SEM path coefﬁcients in this study
were not statistical evidence for causality; they indicated that there was a signiﬁcant
relationship between variables, but not a causal link. Further, researchers cannot test the
directionality of a relationship in SEM (Kline, 2005). The direction of the effect of one
variable on another in a SEM model is an illustration of the researcher’s hypotheses and
not the true direction of the statistical relationship. Therefore, despite the theoretical basis
for the hypothesized direction of relationships between variables, it is plausible that the
direction of the effect could actually be reversed.

Another study design limitation was the length of the questionnaire. It is possible
that some potential participants chose not to take part in the study when they observed the
length of the survey. Also, participants who did not complete the entire survey due to the
length may have differed in some unmeasured manner from those who completed the
questionnaire. However, as noted in the Results section, there were no signiﬁcant
differences in the demographics between the participants who were missing less than
25% of the data and those completing less than 75 % of the survey.

The study also has limitations due to the questionnaire content. Due to the use of

self-report clinical psychopathology measures; the accuracy of the anxiety and depression

106

symptoms and well as alcohol consumption could not be veriﬁed. Also, the predictor
variables were endorsed retrospectively likely leading to biased answers and making any
strong causal conclusions unfeasible. The bias might be due to generally poor memory or
it could be related to the former student-athletes’ current mental health. There is a
documented negative bias in the recall of autobiographical memories among individuals
struggling with depression and anxiety (Burke & Mathews, 1992; Clark & Teasdale,
1982). It is possible that former student-athletes who are currently dealing with
symptoms of psychological distress tend to have more negative views when evaluating
their lives at the time of retirement (which touches on the issue of directionality discussed
above). Future longitudinal research can clarify this matter. By measuring the
hypothesized predictor variables at the time of retirement and then asking for a
retrospective evaluation of those same variables later into retirement, researchers will be
able to determine if former student-athletes who score higher on distress measures have
less accurate retrospective evaluations of how they felt as they were retiring. Also, if the
predictor variables are measured at the time of retirement and again later into retirement
(non-retrospectively), the longitudinal design would allow for analysis of the change in
the variables as a predictor of distress.

Additionally, the lack of information regarding previous mental health status
makes it impossible to rule-out that the ﬁndings are not related to preexisting mental
health conditions. Replication studies using a longitudinal design are needed to determine
if the study ﬁndings hold when there is a more accurate assessment of the variables at the

time of retirement as well as knowledge of previous mental health status.

107

Another study design limitation is the use of a web-based survey. Because
participants were unmonitored, it is difﬁcult to know if they were providing accurate
demographic information such as age and income or if they were actually completing the
questionnaire themselves. However, use of the social networking sites that provide self-
reported demographic information for each member allowed for increased assurance that
the right people received the study invitations.

People who choose to participate in online research are self—selected — not a
random sample of the population (Birnbaum, 2004). It is possible that the former student-
athletes who chose to complete the questionnaire felt better about their current position in
life than those who did not participate. In the current study, the mean score on the
psychological distress scales were well within the non-clinical range - approximately
67% of the sample scored below the clinically signiﬁcant range on the measures of
psychological distress. The former student-athletes who chose to participate in the study
were generally not very distressed. Former student-athletes who chose not to participate
may have been experiencing a higher level of distress and did not want to disclose their
problems. Additionally, since many participants were recruited using social networking
websites, it is possible that former students-athletes who use the networking sites differ in
experiences than those who do not. For instance, they may be more sociable and have
more friends or be considered more academic given their computer skills than student-
athletes who do not use social networking sites. Due to the web-based design of the
questionnaire, the study sample may also be biased by computer access. Former student-
athletes without computer access would not have received nor had the opportunity to

respond to the e-mail study participation invitation. Further, potential participants with

108

limited computer access may have been aware of the study but unable to obtain enough
time on a computer to complete the questionnaire. It is unclear how well the study results
reﬂect the experiences of former student-athletes who have limited or no computer
access. These limitations reduce the generalizability of the ﬁndings to the larger
population of former college student-athletes.

Even with the limitations of web-based research, the use of the internet allowed
for a more diverse sample (e.g., geographical location, type of university) that would
have been more difﬁcult to obtain using traditional mail-based recruiting. Researchers
using the web-based research can recruit specialized populations and reach people with
special characteristics (Birnbaum, 2004). The study sample was not limited to a
traditional convenience sample which allowed for increased diversity in terms of NCAA
conferences and geographical location which increases the generalizability of the
ﬁndings.

The deﬁnition and operationalization of deselection could be considered a
limitation in the current study. As noted earlier, participants were identiﬁed as deselected
athletes if they indicated that their college athletic career did not end due to injury or free
choice although allowances were made if they reported that they expected to play
professionally or attempted to play professionally (i.e., participated in a professional
draft). Athletic deselection was deﬁned in this study by omission rather than inclusion —
what it is not (i.e., career termination due to age, injury, or free choice) rather than what it
is. A better conceptualization of deselection could strengthen the design of future athletic

retirement research.

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Athletic deselection has been described as a Darwinian process in which athletes
who do not meet the performance standards required at the next level of competition do
not progress any further (Taylor, Ogilvie, & Lavallee, 2006). Professional league (e. g.,
NFL, NBA) performance requirements were not assessed nor considered in this study. It
may have been beneﬁcial to ask former student-athletes if they took part in training or
scouting events (e. g., NFL combines) and the results of their participation. The concept
of athletic deselection also assumes that the athletic career termination is involuntary.
Deselected athletes desire to play at the next level but are not offered the opportunity to
do so. Although 75% of the participants in this study expected to play professionally and
77% attempted to play professionally, it is unclear how many participants truly had the
sole desire to be a professional athlete. Future research attempting to operationalize
athletic deselection might ask former student—athletes how seriously they aspired to play
professionally using a Likert scale and only include the athletes who score at the high end
of the scale. Another behavior seemingly indicative of a strong desire to play
professionally is obtaining a sports agent. Unfortunately, whether or not former student-
athletes had or even sought out an agent was not assessed in this study. By limiting the
sample to former student-athletes who reported an intense desire to play professionally,
took part in scouting events, and attempted to play professionally by participating in a
professional draft and/or acquiring an agent, it is plausible that a more pure sample of
deselected athletes could be obtained for future athletic retirement research.

The generalizability of the results is limited in terms of the sport played by former
student-athletes. There were a small number of former basketball, baseball, and hockey

players in the sample but 92% of the participants played college football. This precluded

110

separate analyses based on sports. The results may generalize more toward the population
of former football players than all male former student-athletes in revenue-producing
sports. Replication of this study with signiﬁcantly more former basketball, baseball, and
hockey players is recommended. Further research is also needed to determine if there
would be similar ﬁnding with female athletes and former student-athletes who did not
play in a revenue-producing sport.

The study results may also not be reﬂective of the experiences of former student-
athletes who did not graduate. The 87% graduation rate in the study sample is higher than
the national federal graduation rate of 55% for male student-athletes (NCAA, 2007).
While degree attainment was not linked to distress in the study’s preliminary analyses, it
is possible that the results would have been different had there been a larger portion of
the sample who did not graduate. More research is needed to determine if these results
are replicable with a larger sample of former student—athletes who did not graduate.
Study Implications

Despite the limitations discussed above, the present study makes a noteworthy
contribution to the understanding of retirement experiences among former intercollegiate
athletes. The ﬁndings could have considerable implications in the area of student-athlete
development and may better inform CHAMPS/Life Skills programming aimed toward
student-athletes transitioning out of college as well alumni returning to college to
complete their degrees.

The results could be used to create additional tools for the early recognition of
student-athletes who are more likely to have difﬁculties adjusting to life after sports. An

assessment tool consisting of measures of participation motivation factors, coping skills,

lll

CDMSE, and social support might be used to identify senior student-athletes at risk and
direct them to supportive services such as career counseling workshops, student
psychological services, and substance abuse prevention programs.

The study results might also be used to develop a series of workshops for current
student-athletes preparing to leave college sports. The intervention might take the form of
a college course for credit in which high risk (or even all) senior student-athletes must
enroll. There are already life skills programs in place that might be used as a template.
For example, Stankovich and colleagues (2001) introduced a program for student-athletes
based on a Positive Transition Model that consists of a lO-week college course that
allows student-athletes to increase self-awareness, identify transferable skills, and
participate in career development tasks. The researchers noted that completion of the
program was associated with increased career decision-making skills and decreases in
athletic identity, which according to this study’s model would decrease the chance of
psychological distress after retirement. The ﬁndings from this study could be used to
enhance this and other similar life skills program. Suggestions on ways to incorporate
CDMSE, coping skills, participation motivation factors, and social support are discussed
below.

The study results indicated that career decision-making self-efﬁcacy at the time of
retirement is associated with current distress. Therefore, while career counseling services
are critical during the end of the student-athlete’s career, it is not only providing the
material that is important. Empowering the student-athletes so that they believe that they
can make appropriate career decisions is also necessary for success. Shurts and Shoffner

(2004) suggested that career counselors incorporate the Learning Theory of Career

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Counseling into their work with student—athletes — using the counseling process as a
method of exploration and learning rather than immediate career decision-making. The
authors argued that by assisting student-athletes in designing learning experiences that
lead to new skill development, counselors can help counter problems related to identity
foreclosure and social isolation as well as empower student-athletes in making a
satisfying career choice.

Maladaptive coping skills, also associated with current distress, could be
addressed in life skills programming. There are numerous coping skills training programs
that may be appropriate when working with the student—athlete population. Stress
Inoculation Training, a cognitive behavioral intervention for coping with stressors, has
been used successfully with athletes (Meichenbaum, 1996). Helping athletes identify
their current coping style and working to replace the more maladaptive mechanisms with
healthier coping skills would likely reduce the chance of future retirement distress.

Participation motivation factors are another potential area to enhance current
programming. Athletics support services staff may consider using a measure of
participation motivation like the one used in this study as an assessment tool. The areas
that each student-athlete endorses highly could be used to develop a more individualized
retirement plan. For instance, if a student-athlete indicates that team atmosphere and skill
development are important reasons he participates in college football, then support staff
can help him identify and test ways he can obtain these factors in his life after leaving
campus.

Social support was also associated with distress. Semi-structured interviews with

successful college athletes showed that the athletes viewed social support as

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indispensable and the support allowed them to develop coping skills to overcome
adversity during their athletic career and facilitated their success (Morgan & Giacobbi,
2006). Yet many student-athletes do not have adequate social support (Baille, 1993).
Further, Cockerill (2005) noted that athletes must be prepared to accept the support when
it is available. Therefore, skills training on developing healthy support networks and
becoming comfortable asking for and accepting support could be a beneﬁcial part of life
skills programming. Psychoeducational workshops and support groups could be effective
ways to disseminate the information.

The study results also have implication outside of life skills programming. There
appears to be a need for more mental health services for senior student-athletes. Given
that nearly 23% of the study sample reported clinically signiﬁcant levels of psychological
distress after an average of a little over 2 years following their last college game,
Athletics Departments may consider hiring or contracting staff with mental health
training in order to provide preventive services for senior student-athletes who have the
risk factors for future distress as well as interventions for alumni returning to campus to
complete their degrees who are showing signs of distress. Mental health providers who
are available to discuss retirement concerns with student-athletes could be an invaluable
resource given that athletes who are able to talk with others about their career termination
have a decreased likelihood of career termination distress (Lavallee, Gordon & Grove,
1997).

Notably, some student-athletes will not be open to services even when they could
beneﬁt most from them. Wolff and Lester (1989) indicated that is important that athletes

confronting retirement have the opportunity to try to continue their athletic career

114

because they must have exhausted every possible avenue before they are good candidates
for counseling. Given the numerous avenues to continue toward a goal of playing
professional sports (e.g., international, semi-professional, and developmental leagues),
some student-athletes may be resistant to supportive counseling services at the time of
departure from college sports. Therefore, it may be advantageous if Athletics
Departments have professionals on staff to provide services for student-athlete alumni or
develop a referral list of providers who are knowledgeable of the psychological
implications of sports retirement.

Additionally, there may be a need for psychoeducation and normalizing around
obtaining counseling services. Asking for help is often a highly stigmatized issue. Voguel
and colleagues (2007) found that among college students the public stigma toward
counseling inﬂuenced self-stigma which then affected help-seeking attitudes and
willingness to seek help. The relationship between perceived public stigma toward
counseling and self-stigma was stronger in men than in women. Since public stigma
would be difﬁcult to change, addressing individual stigma may be more effective.
Therefore, having a series of general well-being seminars as well as requesting that all
student-athletes meet once with a mental health professional, endorsed by administrative
and coaching staff, who is available to “talk about anything” could increase the usage of
counseling services.

Future Research

One area that was not considered in this study is the physiological implications of

retirement. Some former athletes may have difﬁculty transitioning from a regular

schedule of intense physical training to a self-determined exercise plan that must be

115

scheduled around their daily responsibilities. It is unlikely that former athletes would be
able to invest the same amount of time for physical activity as they did when playing
their sport. Elite athletes who have a substantial investment in their body may experience
a threat to their self-esteem if they perceive a physical decline after transitioning out of
sports (Stephan, Bilard, Niot, & Delignieres, 2003). The decrease in physical activity and
associated weight gain and the loss of muscle mass might lead to poorer body image and
some level of psychological distress. Stephan and colleagues (2007) proposed that
physical factors be included in athletic retirement models due to the relationship between
body and self-esteem among athletes. Future research in the area of retirement transition
may consider assessing the physical activity level of athletes prior to and after retirement
as well as measuring potential changes in body image.

Another physiological issue is that the loss of regular physical activity is also the
loss of a protective factor against mental health concerns. The US. Surgeon General
(1996) concluded that “physical activity appears to relieve symptoms of depression and
anxiety and improve mood.” Regular exercise is thought to reduce symptoms of
depression and anxiety in part by increasing endorphins, decreasing muscle tension, and
reducing cortisol levels (Mayo Clinic, 2007). It is possible that when faced with the risk
factors for maladaptive transitions out of sports, regular physical activity could reduce the
chance of retirement distress. Additional research is needed to in order to better
understand all of the physiological implications of athletic retirement.

Future research may consider other measures of retirement distress in addition to
the assessment of psychopathology and substance abuse. Measures of self-esteem, global

well-being, and life satisfaction could provide more detailed information about the mental

116

health aspects of the transition. It is also possible that some participants would be more
willing to endorse problems with life satisfaction than endorse symptoms of clinical
psychopathology. Taylor and Ogilvie’s (1994) model also theorizes that a retirement
crisis may manifest in occupational problems and family/social problems. Therefore,
future research can build upon the current ﬁndings by assessing job satisfaction,
marital/relationship satisfaction, and the quality of interpersonal relationships as outcome
measures.

As the athletic retirement literature continues to develop, researchers examining
the retirement experience might consider evaluating another cause of career termination —
free choice. A number of athletes leave their sport in their own terms. Reasons can
include changes in priorities, new interests, new roles in life (e. g., parent, business
owner), or the accomplishment of all of their athletic goals. Free choice, unlike athletic
deselection and injury, allows athletes to control the decision about whether or not they
will continue to participate in their sport. Free choice might have implications for a
healthy transition out of sport. For example, athletes who leave due to free choice often
have solid post-career goals (Baillee, 1993). It could be interesting to examine how the
athletic retirement experiences among athletes who leave sports due to free choice differ
from the experiences of athletes who leave due to deselection or injury.

Free choice may also have consequences for athletes who have a strong self-
efﬁcacy for playing their sport professionally. Self-efﬁcacy will affect the athletes’
choice of activities, inﬂuence how much effort athletes expend toward playing
professionally, and how long they will persist in the face of barriers and aversive

experiences (Bandura, 1977; Bandura, 1997). If a college football player chooses to

117

persist in his NFL goals despite a lack of ability to play at the professional level and he
remains on that career path too long, there could be serious implications for his future
well-being. Therefore, athletic retirement researchers may also evaluate free choice in
terms of the repercussions when an athlete unwisely chooses not to retire from elite sport.
Factors that contribute to the quality of a student-athlete’s transition out of college
sports and that may compromise psychological well-being during retirement require
further clariﬁcation. Undoubtedly, more research is needed to determine the
generalizability of this study’s ﬁnding. However, the study results contribute to the
current retirement literature and it is anticipated that the study results can be used to
design and enhance student-athlete support services and interventions targeting alumni
and at-risk senior athletes. Knowledge of the athletic retirement process may help
decrease the prevalence of psychological morbidly during athletic retirement and ensure a

more enriching life after college sports for student-athlete alumni.

118

APPENDIX A

DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONNAIRE

119

1. Date of birth _ _ / _ / (dd/mm/yy)

2. Race/Ethnicity
[:1 White or Caucasian [:1 Black or African American 1:] Hispanic or Latino [1 Asian

1:] American Indian or Alaska Native [I Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
[:l Biracial (please specify)
3. Sport: [:1 Football 1:] Basketball [:1 Baseball [:1 Hockey

 

4. Starting status: Did you start for your team on a regular basis (more than 50% of the
time)? [:1 Yes 1:] No

5. Please list any athletic awards you received during college.

6. Date of last college game in which you played (mm/yyyy).

 

7. Did you expect to play at the professional level? 1:] Yes 1:] No

 

 

 

8. College/ University 9. Name of your head coach
10. College Major 11. College GPA
12. Did you graduate? [:1 Yes E] No 13. Current Occupation

 

14. Marital Status
[:lSingle [:1 Living with Significant Other DMarried [:1 Divorced [:1 Widowed

15. How many children do you have?

 

16. If applicable, how many of your children were born before or during you college
career?

17. Which group describes your annual family income?

[1 Under $15,000 [:1 $50,000 - $59,999 [:1 $100,000 - $124,999
El $15,000 - $19,999 [:1 $60,000 - $69,999 1:] $125,000 - $149,999
El $20,000 - $29,999 1:] $70,000 - $79,999 1:] $150,000 - $174,999
El $30,000 - $39,999 [:1 $80,000 - $89,999 [1 $175,000 - $199,999
[:1 $40,000 - $49,999 [:1 $90,000 - $99,999 El over $200,000

18. Why did your college athletic career end?
[3 End of eligibility [:1 Injury or medical concerns [I Cut from team

E] Personal choice (e.g., no longer interested, not enough playing time)
1:] Other (Please specify)

19. Did you attempt to play at the professional level (NFL, NBA, NHL)? [3 Yes E] No
20. If yes, what happened?
21. Did you attempt to play at the semi-professional level (arena football, NBA D-
League, AHL, ECHL)? DYes E] No
22. If yes, what happened?

 

120

APPENDIX B

ATHLETIC IDENTITY MEASUREMENT SCALE

121

 

l to
(strongly disagree)

5
(strongly agree)

 

I considered myself an

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

athlete. l 2 3 4 5
I had many goals related 1 2 3 4 5
to my sport.

Most of my friends were 1 2 3 4 5
athletes.

My sport was the most 1 2 3 4 5
important part of my life.

I spent more time

thinking about my sport 1 2 3 4 5
than anything else.

I needed to participate in

my sport to feel good 1 2 3 4 5
about myself.

Other people saw me 1 2 3 4 5
mainly as an athlete.

I felt bad when I dId 1 2 3 4 5
poorly In my sport.

My sport was the only

important thing in my 1 2 3 4 5
life.

I would have been very

depressed if I were 1 2 3 4 5

injured and could not
compete in my sport.

 

 

122

 

APPENDIX C

EXTENDED OBJECTIVE MEASURE OF EGO IDENTITY STATUS

123

Directions: Please respond to the following questions using the following scale:

 

1 2 3 4 5 6
strongly moderately agree disagree moderately strongly
disagree disagee agree agree

My ideas about men's and women’s roles were identical to my
family’s ideas. What worked for them would obliviously work for 1 2 3 4 5 6
me.

 

I might have thought about a lot of different jobs, but there was
. . . 1 2 3 4 5 6
never really any questIon after my famIly saId what they wanted.

 

My family knew what was best for me in terms of how to choose
. 1 2 3 4 5 6
my frIends.

 

I guess I was pretty much like my family when it came to politics. I 1 2 3 4 5 6
followed what they wanted to do in terms of voting and such.

 

My ideas about men's and women’s roles came right from my 1 2 3 4 5 6
family. I didn’t see any need to question what they taught me.

 

My own views on a desirable lifestyle were taught to me by my 1 2 3 4 5 6
family and I did not see a need to question what they taught me.

 

lonly picked friends myfamily would approve of. 1 2 3 4 5 6

 

I always liked doing the same recreational activities my family did 1 2 3 4 5 6
and did not ever seriously consider anything else.

 

lonly went out with the type of people that myfamily expected me 1 2 3 4 5 6
to date.

 

My family decided a long time ago what I should go into for 1 2 3 4 5 6
employement and l was following through with their plan.

 

My family’s view on life were good enough for me, I did not need 1 2 3 4 5 6
anything else.

 

I attended the same church/temple/mosque as my family has 1 2 3 4 5 6
always attended. I never really questioned why.

 

I never really questioned my religion. If it was right for my family it 1 2 3 4 5 6
must have been right for me.

 

All of my recreational preferenceslgot from my family andldid 1 2 3 4 5 6
not really try anything else.

 

| only dated people my family would approve of. 1 2 3 4 5 6

 

My family always had their own political and moral beliefs about
issues like abortion and mercy killing and I always went along 1 2 3 4 5 6
accepting what they believed.

 

 

 

 

124

APPENDIX D

BEM SEX-ROLE INVENTORY — SHORT FORM

125

Using the following scale, mark the answer that best respresents how well each

of the following characteristics described you:

1 2 3 4 5
never or usually not sometimes occasionally often
or almost true but infre- true true
never true quently true

 

defended own beliefs

 

independent

 

assertive

 

strong personality

 

forceful

 

had leadership abilities

 

willing to take risks

 

dominant

 

willing to take a stand

 

aggressive

 

 

 

126

6 7
usually always
true or almost
always true

APPENDIX E

MULTIDIMENSIONAL INVENTORY OF BLACK IDENTITY

127

Directions: The following questions have to do with your feelings. Please take
your race/ethnicity and mentally place it into the spaces below.
Example: If you identify as Latino, the first question would be...
Overall, being Latino had very little to do with how I felt about myself

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Strongly Neutral Strongly
Disagree Agree

1. Overall, being had very little to do with how I felt about myself.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. In general, being _ was an important part of my self-image.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. My destiny was tied to the destiny of other __ people.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. Being __ was unimportant to my sense of what kind of person I was.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
5. I had a strong sense of belonging to __ people.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
6. I had a strong attachment to other _ people.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. Being __ was an important reflection of who I was.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8. Being _ was not a major factor in my social relationships.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

128

APPENDIX F

CAREER DECISION MAKING SELF—EFFICACY — SHORT FORM

129

INSTRUCTIONS: For each statement below, please read carefully and indicate
how much confidence you had that you could accomplish each of these tasks by

marking your answer according to the key.

 

(1) to (5)

 

 

No Confidence Complete
at all Confidence
Make a plan of your goals for the next 1 2 3 4 5
five years.
Accurately assess your abilities. 1 2 3 4 5

 

Determine the steps you needed to
take to successfully complete your 1 2 3 4 5
chosen major.

 

 

 

Determine what your ideal job would

1 2 3 4 5
be.
Prepare a good resume. 1 2 3 4 5
Decide what you value most in an 1 2 3 4 5
occupaﬂon.

 

Figure out what you were and were
not ready to sacrifice to achieve your 1 2 3 4 5
career goals.

 

Identify employers, firms, institutions

 

 

. . . . 1 2 3 4 5
relevant to your career possrbillties.
Define the type of lifestyle you would 1 2 3 4 5
like to live.
Successfully manage the 10b 1 2 3 4 5

interview process.

 

ldentitfy some reasonable major or
career alternative if you were unable 1 2 3 4 5
to get your first choice.

 

 

 

 

130

APPENDIX G

BRIEF COPE

131

Directions: The following list has a number of common ways people deal with
transitions. Using the scale provided below, mark the ways you used to deal with
leaving college sports.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 4
I didn’t do I did this

at all a lot
I turned to work or other activities to take 1 2 3 4
my mind off things.
I concentrated my efforts on doing 1 2 3 4
something about the situation I was in.
I said to myself "this isn't real. 1 2 3 4
I used alcohol or other drugs to make 1 2 3 4
myself feel better.
I got emotional support from others. 1 2 3 4
I gave up trying to deal with it. 1 2 3 4
I took action to try to make the situation 1 2 3 4
beﬂen
I refused to believe that it had happened. 1 2 3 4
I said things to let my unpleasant feelings 1 2 3 4
escape.
I got help and advice from other people. 1 2 3 4
I used alcohol or other drugs to help me get 1 2 3 4
through it.
I tried to see it in a different light, to make it 1 2 3 4
seem more positive.
| critized myself. 1 2 3 4
I tried to come up with a strategy about 1 2 3 4
what to do.
i got comfort and understanding from 1 2 3 4
someone.

 

 

132

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 4
I didn’t do I did this

at all a lot
I gave up the attempt to cope. 1 2 4
I looked for something good in what was 1 2 4
happening.
I made jokes about it. 1 2 4
I did something to think about it less, such
as going to movies, watching TV, reading, 1 2 4
daydreaming, sleeping, or playing video
games.
I accepted the reality of the fact that it had

1 2 4
happened.
I expressed my negative feelings. 1 2 4
I tried to find comfort in my religion or

. . . 1 2 4

spiritual beliefs.
I tried to get advice or help from other

1 2 4
people about what to do
I learned to live with it. 1 2 4
I thought hard about what steps to take. 1 2 4
l blamed myself for things that happened. 1 2 4
I prayed or meditated. 1 2 4
I made fun of the situation. 1 2 4

 

 

133

 

APPENDIX H

PARTICIPATION MOTIVATION

134

Please rate if each of these factors was a “very important,

” “somewhat

important,” or “not at all important” reason for you to participate in college

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

athletics.
not at all somewhat very
important important important
achievement/status (feeling important, 1 2 3 4 5
gaining recognition, popularity, winning)
team atmosphere 1 2 3 4 5
(teamwork, being on a team)
excitement/challenge
(the challenge, the action, the I 2 3 4 5
excitement)
ﬁtness (staying in shape, physically ﬁt) 1 2 3 4 5
energy release
(releasing tension, having something to 1 2 3 4 5
do)
skill development
. . . . . l 2 3 4 5
(Improvmg SkIIIS, learning new SklllS)
friendship (spending time with friends, 1 2 3 4 5

 

meeting new people)

 

 

Relative to college athletics, to what degree have you been able to find these
same factors in your current occupation and/or daily activities?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

meeti_ng new people)

 

not at all somewhat very
much so

achievement/status (feeling important, 1 2 3 4 5
gaining recognition, popularity, winning)
team atmosphere 1 2 3 4 5
(teamwork, being on a team)
excitement/challenge

(the challenge, the action, the l 2 3 4 5
excitement)
ﬁtness (staying in shape, physically ﬁt) I 2 3 4 5
energy release

(releasing tension, having something to l 2 3 4 5
do)
skill development

. . . . . l 2 3 4 5
(Improvmg skills, learning new skills)
friendship (spending time with friends, 1 2 3 4 5

 

135

 

 

APPENDIX I

MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALE OF PERCEIVED SOCIAL SUPPORT

136

Mark the answer on the line to indicate the extent to which each statement was true for
you at the end of your college career.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Strongly Neutral Very Strongly
Disagree Agree

1. There was a special person who 1 2 3 4 5 3 7

was around when l was in need

 

2. There was a special person with

 

 

whom I could share my joys and 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
sorrows.

3. My family really tried to help me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4. I got the emotional help and 1 2 3 4 5 3 7

support I needed from my family.

 

5. lhad a specral person who was a 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
real source of comfort to me.

 

6. My friends reallytried to help me. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

 

7.. lcould count on myfnends when 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
things went wrong.

 

8. I could talk about my problems
with myfamily. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

 

9. I had friends with whom I could
share myjoys and sorrows. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

 

10. There was a special person in my
life who cared about my feelings. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

 

11.Myfami.lywas willing to help me 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
make decrsrons.

 

12. I could talk about problems with
myfriends. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

 

 

 

 

137

APPENDIX J

CONSENT FORM

138

CONSENT FORM
Student-Athlete Alumni Study: Predictors of Retirement Distress among Male Former Intercollegiate
Athletes in Revenue-Producing Sports

You are being asked to participate in a research study that explores the unique experiences of college
student-athletes after leaving college.

What you will be asked to do: Should you agree to participate, you will be given a series of questions
(taking approximately 35 minutes to complete). Please complete these questions as thoroughly and honestly
as possible- there are no right or wrong answers. To compensate participants for their time, all participants
will receive $10 and be entered into a random drawing for a $100 gift certiﬁcate (from Ticketmaster,
Footlocker, Wal-Mart, Target, or a gas card). Odds of winning will depend upon the total number of
participants.

Benefits: We believe that the research study results will have practical applications for university
administrators and athletic departments working with current and former student-athletes. Study ﬁndings
may also help enhance services provided to student-athletes transitioning out of college. Additionally, the
information gained from this study will increase our understanding of the unique experiences of student-
athlete alumni.

Risks: There are no known physical, legal, or economic risks associated with this research study. There is a
risk that you may become fatigued or feel uncomfortable answering some questions about sensitive issues
regarding personal beliefs, behaviors, experiences and attitudes. You have the right to skip any questions
that you do not feel comfortable answering and are allowed to stop at any point in the survey. Some of the
questions ask whether you are feeling distressed or unhappy. We strongly urge you to consult a
professional if these feelings are interfering with your well-being. Many measures will be used to protect
the conﬁdentiality of your answers. However, in the interest of your well-being, if at any point your
responses indicate that you are feeling exceedingly distressed, the secondary investigator will contact you
and provide referral information.

Voluntary participation: You may choose not to participate at all or decline to participate in certain
sections or answer certain questions. At any time during your participation, you have the right to
discontinue your participation without penalty. Group-based ﬁndings from the study will be distributed to
participants requesting such material.

Confidentiality: Your participation in this research study will remain private and conﬁdential; no one
except the principal investigators will have access to your responses and participation records. All
information from completed questionnaires will be stored in a secure location. You will not be identiﬁable
in any report of research ﬁndings; research reports will provide group (rather than individual) ﬁndings.
Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law.

Whom to contact with questions: The research study is conducted by a graduate student, Mercedes
Carswell, under the supervision of Deborah Feltz, Ph.D. from Michigan State University. If you have any
questions or concerns about this study, please contact the investigators, Mercedes Carswell by phone: (517)
974-8901 or e-mail: carswe12@msu.edu, or Dr. Deborah Feltz, by phone: (517) 355-4732 or e-mail:
dfeltz@msu.edu. If you have any questions or concern about your rights as a study participants, or are
dissatisﬁed at any time with any aspect of this study, you may contact — anonymously, if you wish - Peter
Vasilenko, Ph.D., Director of Human Research Protections by phone: (517) 355-2180, fax: (517) 432-4503,
e-mail: irb@msu.edu, or regular mail: 202 Olds Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-
1047.

Agreement: You indicate your voluntary agreement to participate by beginning the online questionnaire.

Please print a copy of this page for your records. You may also request a copy of this consent form by
contacting Mercedes Carswell by phone: (517) 974—8901 or e-mail: carswe12@msu.edu.

139

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140

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