Considering Workforce Support on the Field, Court, Mat, or Pitch: How Stress and Burnout Influence Coaches and Youth Development

Background/Purpose: Youth need access to caring adults during school and out-of-school time to support positive youth development (PYD) and identify risks for mental health concerns. Behavioral health supports are critical to supporting PYD, yet states like Ohio are struggling to find and retain behavioral health professionals (The Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Services Providers, 2022). This leaves many youth at risk of lacking access the supports they may need, providing an opportunity to think creatively about equipping other adults working in PYD to support youth mental health needs. Adults in out-of-school settings, such as coaches, spend over 10 hours each week in practices alone and are connected to the over 7.8 million youth who participate in school-based sports in the United States (National Federation of High Schools, 2023). Immense opportunity exists to leverage coaches as a workforce for promoting resilience through sport participation. Yet, high levels of dropout and challenges with retention of quality coaches leads us to believe coaches might be at risk for stress and burnout that therein influence their ability to promote PYD (The Aspen Institute, 2022). Using Self-Determination Theory, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among stress, burnout, and coaching behaviors that promote healthy development by meeting youths’ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Method: Cross sectional survey data was gathered from school-based coaches (N = 353) from across the United States. The sample was comprised mostly as coaches who identified as White (90.9%), male (66.3%), and coaching a team sport (82.7%). An indicator variable for burnout was created based on sum scores on the Coach Burnout Questionnaire (Harris & Ostrow, 2008), and stress was indicated by sum scores on the Perceived Stress Scale-10 (Cohen & Janicki-Deverts, 2012). Two indicator variables for need-supportive and need-thwarting coaching behaviors were created based on sum scores from the Interpersonal-Behaviors Questionnaire-Self (Rocchi & Pelletier, 2017). Structural equation modeling was then used to test a model where burnout and stress had a direct effect on need-supportive and need-thwarting coaching behaviors.

Results: Results indicated adequate model fit (Χ²(1161) =2204.05, p<.01; RMSEA = .05; CFI = .95). Higher levels of coach burnout predicted significantly lower levels of need-supportive coaching behaviors (β=-.58; p<.01) and higher levels of need-thwarting behaviors (β=.78; p<.01). Interestingly, higher levels of stress predicted lower levels of need-thwarting coaching behaviors (β =-.42; p<.01) and higher levels of need-supportive coaching behaviors (β=.12), but this relationship was not significant (p = .32). The model accounted for 25% of the variance in need-supportive and 30% in need-thwarting coaching behaviors.

Conclusions/Implications: Findings suggest a need to provide policy, practice, and training supports to coaches. Specifically, results from this study imply that burnout may be an important factor to consider. Further implications from this study include examinations of how structural, administrative, policy, practice, and educational supports may mitigate risks for coaches to suffer from burnout and therein engage in PYD. By addressing coach needs, researchers and practitioners could help prepare this workforce to support healthy development among youth.