Skip to main content

The Sports Monograph

  I have been lucky enough to be able to collaborate in the writing of a chapter in this book, due for publication on the 31st July and available for order on Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0956627064/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE.

My chapter is entitled 'Understanding parental influence on child athletes : from fanatical to disinterested parents'.  The chapter considers the relative power relationship of the coach, athlete and parent, and how it can affect the athlete's development.  It draws on some examples from gymnastics, both in Russia and America, as well as from other sports, and considers some of the guidelines developed by sports governing bodies to try to encourage best practice.

My co-authors (Butler, Hedge and Cunliffe) are all students on the sports management programme at the University of Central Lancashire, and the book is edited by Dr Clive Palmer.  Regular readers of this blog will recognise him as the author of the PhD thesis on gymnastics judging.  It is an eclectic collection of work that will be of interest to students of sports studies, management and coaching,  and anyone with an interest in sport.

Clive's description is as follows:

'With over 120 contributors across 60 chapters, their ages ranging from 6 months to 60 years, the Sports Monograph represents a compendium of voices; telling experiences and rich perspectives, all stimulated by personal involvement in sport, Physical Education and sports culture. Consequently, the volume has a broad remit but a common theme. This has permitted a refreshing degree of freedom for people across a wide spectrum of education to register their thoughts and feelings about physical culture as they may have experienced it. Chapters are generally of two styles; first, academic essays of sporting interest with critical and factual discussion, and second, creative stories, poems and other biographical reflections which bring to the fore the realities of sport and PE. The latter conspicuously holding up a mirror to those theorised experiences, revealing quite vividly the primacy, sensuality and emotional importance of being physically educated, but through the medium of literature.'

'

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Viktoria Komova - back pain has forced me to step down

I awoke this morning to a very simple statement from Viktoria Komova, on her vk.com site, which Papa Liukin has translated (via the IG forum): 'Dear friends, fans, and gymnastics lovers. Unfortunately back pain isn't allowing me to train to my full potential and get ready for competitions. I've made the very difficult decision to stop training and take care of my health. I want to thank everyone for their support! Without your love and warmth it would've been more difficult to go all the way. Thanks everyone and see you soon! Love and kisses.' Well, first of all, good wishes and best of luck to Viktoria, who has struggled since 2012 to re-establish herself fully as a competitive gymnast, whose talent was so great that she secured gold on bars at two different World Championships, four years apart, whose career was littered with controversy, who must be allowed to live her life as she wishes.   I know that the 'gymternet' will now be overflowing...

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...

Valentina Rodionenko - Mustafina said she would try for Tokyo 2020

Valentina Rodionenko has reported that Aliya Mustafina yesterday said she would take a two year break, then begin to train again for the Tokyo Olympics. I'm unsure what to make of this ... I can see Aliya of all people being the one who pulls this off, but it seems quite a bit too soon for her to make such a decision with any certainty, and of course only today Aliya was telling journalists 'let my dreams stay with me'.  Aliya is a young woman and all sorts of adventures are ahead of her.  Not sure what authority Rodionenko had to make such a far reaching announcement on behalf of another.  Let's wait and see. http://tass.ru/sport/3537359

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more