Memorable Messages of Social Support That Former High School Athletes Received From Their Head Coaches

Abstract

Social support is an important resource that coaches provide to athletes. However, the specific messages that coaches utilize to support athletes have remained overlooked. This study examines the memorable messages (i.e., enduring and influential messages) of informational, esteem, and emotional support that former high school athletes recall receiving from their head coaches. To accomplish this purpose, messages were inductively derived from 102 former high school athletes via open-ended questionnaires. These data were subjected to open and axial coding. Results indicate that athletes recall informational support messages that tell them how to play, be successful, and relate to others; esteem support messages that emphasize their abilities to succeed, encourage intangible qualities, and reinforce relationships with others; and emotional support messages that improve their well-being, praise them, help improve their performances, and deal with their poor performances. This study ultimately reinforces the use of message-based approaches for understanding athlete–coach interactions as well as highlights the specific types of prosocial messages that coaches can utilize to support athletes and improve their coaching effectiveness.