“How Do I Juggle Sport and School?”: Demands and Issues Voiced by Current and Former Australian School-age Athletes

Abstract

This paper reports on the findings from, and considers the implications of, research into high performance school-age Australian athletes who balance dual commitments of sport and school. These young people struggle to lead two lives; that of a full-time school student and that of a full-time athlete. Theoretically they could be considered as being a “hyphenated” individual, someone struggling with more than one life (Fine and Sirin, 2007). A comparison of these young peoples’ perspectives in balancing sport and study was established by in-depth interviewing nine current and ten former Australian school-age athletes across a range of sports and located across the Eastern states of Australia. Participants attended government, non-government and sport schools mostly on sport scholarships and excellence programs. Nvivo 10 matrix and compound coding queries were used to analyse the most acute demands and issues athletes had to juggle between dual endeavours of sport and study. Such issues of mindset (current athletes), unequal treatment and economic constraints (former athletes) were accentuated. Interestingly, athletes collectively identified the extreme demands placed upon them in balancing by the acute issues of: physical and psychological fatigue such as tiredness and soreness, lack of nutritional awareness, procrastination, bullying and social sacrifices.; Videorecording of presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHxHwdDu4eI