The Rhythms and Disruptions of a Maltreatment Report: A coach's autoethnography in a community sport organization

Abstract

This study uses critical autoethnography (Adams et al., 2015) to explore my experiences as a coach and member of a community sport organization (CSO). Specifically, I documented the cultural experience of Safe Sport practices before, during, and after a significant maltreatment report was made toward another coach in the CSO, conveying and critiquing this experience to address current Safe Sport systems and practices (Adams et al., 2015). Data collection consisted of journal entries recorded over one year following the news of the maltreatment report. Findings were presented in two forms to create an accessible autoethnographic account along with analytic themes. For the account, journal entries were transformed into an accessible story following utilitarian and aspirational ethics principles (Graham & Blackett, 2022), meaning the stories are based on actions, avoided blame onto others, and protected others by refraining from naming places, people, and dates. The analytic themes used Ellis’s (2004) thematic analysis of narrative, drawing from my autoethnographic account as data to follow Emerson et al.’s (2011) Analytic Coding to develop themes inductively and inspired by grounded theory. Following the autoethnographic account, the theme (The Disruption of) the Rhythm of Sport was generated to describe the the repetitive nature of coaching and the impact a maltreatment report had on that experience. Connections were made to the power of daily sport rhythms’ ability to influence maltreatment, as well as to the institutional betrayal (Smith & Freyd, 2014) I felt after losing a coaching mentor— a moment that led me to reflect on my own coaching practice. These findings add to literature on Safe Sport and Safeguarding in CSOs, describing strategies and suggestions for managing future cases of maltreatment. Specifically, how reactive approaches associated with Safe Sport could be better managed through preventative approaches associated with Safeguarding.