"Good Athletes Have Fun": a Foucauldian reading of university coaches' uses of fun

Fun is deeply ingrained in the ways we talk about and understand sport: Having fun is what makes sport positive and healthy. Drawing on a Foucauldian perspective, we problematize how fun, a psychological construct, informs coaches` practices. Interviews with 10 varsity coaches from a Canadian university indicated that the coaches used fun to overcome the `grind` of physical skill training. In addition, fun was used to develop and naturalize a need for athletes` positive psychological traits and skills. In their training contexts, thus, the coaches clearly employed fun to reinforce their use of a number of dominant disciplinary training practices. As a result, instead of operating as a positive force for athlete engagement, the incorporation of fun further legitimized and perpetuated coaches` `normal` training practices.
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Bibliographic Details
Subjects:
Notations:academic training and research
Published in:Sports Coaching Review
Language:English
Published: 2019
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1080/21640629.2017.1400757
Volume:8
Issue:1
Pages:43-61
Document types:article
Level:advanced