13 Transitioning into the Culture of Professional Sport

Abstract

By the age of 12 the participants in this study had laid the foundations for expertise in Australian football and rugby league through a process that involved the embodiment of culture and Aboriginal approaches to play. However, as they approached the AFL (Australian Football League) and NRL (National Rugby League) they were increasingly faced with the task of adapting this approach to the structures and constraints of non-Indigenous, professional sport that can be seen as a process of athlete cultural transition (see, Ryba et al. 2016), developed from a body of research on transitioning (see, Schlossberg 1981).