A study on the occupational challenges and coping strategies of the student athlete coaches

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Purpose The purpose of this study was to understand student athletes coaches’ occupational challenges from the dual perspectives(social relationship-political system), to analyze the nature of the coping strategies for the challenges, and to provide implications for building a human rights-friendly student athletes club culture. Methods Five coaches(n=5, average career length= 19.2 years) were selected through purposeful sampling. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews with participants. The collected data were inductively analyzed(Patton, 2015). Results First, participants struggled with informal roles demanded by the interested parties(principals, athletic directors, parents, and university coaches). Second, the system for protecting student athletes’ learning rights, the 52-hour work system and the human rights system added difficulties to the coaches’ work environment. Third, the disharmony between interested parties’ demands and government agencies’ institutional ideals pushed participants to choose anti-institutional, un-ethical, un-educational coping strategies. Conclusion The findings suggest that the government, academia and the community should empower coaches as ‘the subject of reform’ who can solve the problem together rather than regarding them as ‘the object of reform.’ Furthermore, this conclusion is expected to provide implications to alleviate disharmony between interest parties’ demands and government agencies’ systems.’