This is the fifth part of #WeRideTogether’s series on boundaries. In previous articles, we’ve discussed the basics of boundary work and covered some tools anyone can use to work on setting boundaries in their sporting environment. This part delves into the rationale behind implementing boundaries in sport. It does this by discussing a common relationship structure seen in elite sporting contexts – the “family structure” – that has no boundaries between coach and athlete, as well as the consequences of this structure. It also provides a healthier relationship type to emulate – the “mentor model” – and actionable steps you can take in your sporting environment to develop healthy relationships.
When examining boundary work, it’s important to recognize specific nuances to sport. As athletes increase their involvement in sport, they consequently spend less time with peers and family and spend more time with their sporting community. By the time an athlete enters the elite space, they have likely built close relationships with their coaches, teammates, and others involved in their sporting environment.
This makes sense – an elite athlete who is aiming to become a professional would be spending more time training and competing than someone who is playing a sport recreationally. This also isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In many sports, such as gymnastics and figure skating, trusting a coach is imperative as they help “spot” you. A positive relationship between a coach and athlete – one built on care and support – can positively impact performance, boost athlete autonomy and motivation, and foster positive team dynamics.
A critical piece of this positive relationship is having boundaries. As sport involvement (and time spent together as coach and athlete) increases, there is an increased need for boundaries with defined best practices for behavior. This fosters a relationship based on care, support, and trust, where athletes have the right to say no when they feel uncomfortable, and coaches can promote safety by holding boundaries as to what athletes can safely try and what behaviors are acceptable.
Elite Sport Environments and Unique Vulnerabilities
However, in elite settings, boundaries between coach and athlete are often not adequate. This may be because of a lack of education on boundaries or a lack of knowledge on what behaviors are appropriate (which may be reinforced by not having a code of conduct), but it could also be a part of misconduct within the sport setting. To be clear, a lack of education or knowledge on best practices and boundaries does not excuse inappropriate behavior.
Additional factors in the elite setting lower perceived boundaries between coach and athlete, and compound the opportunity for abuse. Elite athletes face significant pressure to perform well from a variety of sources. This might be direct pressure from their sporting environment or from their non-sporting environment (such as their family), internal pressure to perform well for themselves or for the team, and pressure to achieve and move forward in the sport. Additionally, by the time an athlete reaches an elite level, they have invested significant amounts of time, money, and physical energy into this specific sport. This may create internal and external pressure to provide a return on investment through athletic achievement and through obtaining scholarships.
As a result, many athletes look to their coach as a source of psychological comfort or as an “edge” over their competition. Similarly, coaches feel pressure to coach athletes to success, as their future careers, financial wellbeing, and reputation rely on it. This level of emotional reliance for potential success greatly blurs the line between coach and athlete and can result in emotional abuse.
Travel is common for elite athletes as they compete on the national and international level, and coaches often act as chaperones (especially for youth athletes). This amount of time spent in close quarters can lead to inappropriate and unobservable interactions if there are no policies in place to prevent abuse, such as prohibiting adults from sharing rooms with minor athletes.
If misconduct in sport has gone unchecked for a long period of time – especially if there is no safeguarding body or structure in place – behaviors that may typically be immediately considered unacceptable in other environments (such as in an academic or work setting) may become normalized. Even though the behavior may make an athlete uncomfortable, they may have no other frame of reference for what appropriate conduct should be, labelling the behavior as “weird but not unusual”.
The “Family Structure”
When boundaries between coaches and athletes are not in place, especially as sport involvement increases and the coach-athlete relationship becomes closer, sometimes the relationship can veer into codependence.
This often takes the form of the “family structure”, as developed by Celia Brackenridge. Some key tenets of the “family structure” is a sporting environment where athletes have little to no autonomy or room to self-advocate as the coach goes completely unquestioned. This leadership style is very authoritarian. There’s typically a strong loyalty culture as well, which is where the “family” element comes into play – the coach-athlete pair might become so emotionally codependent that it resembles more of a parent-child relationship, or the coach may act as a parent for the entire team. You may actually see the verbiage of “family” used outright, for example: “I see my athletes like my own children”, or “we’re all like one big happy family here!”. This is likely due to the structure of elite sports – since athletes spend extensive amounts of time away from their family and non-sport structures, a strong identity as an “athlete” as a predominant and defining characteristic develops. Sport essentially becomes the athletes’ entire world, which only gets reinforced over time as involvement increases.
Another troubling prevailing notion in these structures is that pain is a natural part of athletics, and that pushing through pain (regardless of whether it’s minor discomfort or outright injury) is the key to success. This is reflective of a broader “win-at-all-costs” philosophy present in abusive structures and elite environments, where athletic achievement and coaching success becomes prioritized over athlete wellbeing or following best practices. These notions are harmful and ill-informed, as it is the coach’s utmost responsibility to monitor athletes’ physical and mental health and train them appropriately. Athletes deserve environments free of pain that prioritize their holistic wellbeing and healthy development.
In this ‘family structure’, there are little to no boundaries between coach and athlete. Because the coach is seen as both a key to athletic success and as a surrogate parent, the ability for the athlete to say “no” to inappropriate or uncomfortable behavior is greatly diminished, given the power imbalance at play and types of power the coach has over the athlete. A compounding factor is the fact that these coach-athlete relationships often begin when the athlete is very young. Especially as early sport specialization becomes more commonplace, it’s not uncommon to see children fully dedicated to or “specialized” in one sport by the time they reach adolescence. Athletes grow up in this environment where saying “no” is inherently stigmatized. For many athletes, the fear of retaliation is present. If an athlete refuses to comply with potentially abusive behavior, they may lose their play time, their spot on the team, or face other negative consequences for reporting. When the athlete’s entire identity has developed around their sport – which is common in elite contexts – they may feel that these consequences might outweigh the impacts caused by the abuse. Athletes unfortunately may not have or been offered education or awareness on healthy versus unhealthy relationships in sport or boundary-setting, which further compounds abuse risk.
Coaches also have almost unlimited access to monitor and critique athletes on the most intimate details of their lives. This information might include nutrition, weight, sleep, menstrual cycle data, mental health, and potential disclosures of abuse or misconduct. Coaches also have a high level of control over an athletes’ downtime for recovery. Some of this may be compounded by the context of the sport and seen therefore as necessary – for example, aesthetic and combat sports often have weight as a factor directly impacting athletic success – but it reflects a deeper issue where boundaries between coach and athlete can get blurred.
The ‘family structure’ is linked to increased risk of all types of abuse. The family structure often lends itself to grooming and relies on many of the same principles. Both grooming and the family structure often rely on the development of a close relationship, secrecy, and leveraging athletics to gain compliance with inappropriate behaviors. Athletes have a hard time saying no when they entirely depend on the coach for athletic success and as a stand-in parent. The culture of loyalty, where the coach is lauded for their athletes’ achievements and bonds with athletes, also isolates athletes from the non-sport world and discourages them from seeking external support. Not only does abuse become more likely, but also the barriers to reporting grow as athletes feel that they are “betraying their family” by reporting misconduct. Passive permission for this behavior given by the adults in the athletic environment (i.e. parents, athletic staff, and institutions) who don’t intervene or safeguard further feeds these dynamics.
Because of this – despite being a vulnerable population to abuse – athletes are not offered the opportunity to practice boundary work with the people they likely interact with the most and are developing some of the first non-familial long-term relationships they’ve had. The average age of the first incident of abuse in sport is 13-15, and 90% of victims know their abuser - in sport, this is typically someone the athlete interacts with often, such as a coach or a peer. Preventative education and awareness is critical to preventing abuse and fostering healthy emotional development.
A famous example of this would be Bela and Marta Karolyis, the former national team coordinators for USA Gymnastics. The Karolyis were considered extremely strict coaches – with their behaviors being labeled as potentially abusive even as far back as the 1990s – but their achievements in propelling USA Gymnastics to success and global stardom allowed for this abuse to be excused as “part of the method”. The Karolyis developed such a high level of control over their athletes by physically isolating them, imposing restrictions on basic needs like food, and by leveraging their power as national team coordinators. This level of control was even reflected when examining the case of Larry Nassar, as hundreds of gymnasts reflected on being abused by him while under the care of the Karolyis and being discouraged from reporting the abuse. Despite the numerous allegations of physical abuse, verbal abuse, and neglect, they were allowed to continue coaching, and athletes continue to reflect fondly on their bonds with the Karolyis, referring to them as surrogate parents.
Athletes training under the Karolyis had no autonomy or ability to say no when uncomfortable, mostly because the Karolyis were so authoritative that the athletes feared punishment or the denial of opportunities if they “complained”. Larry Nassar was allowed to prey on these vulnerable athletes because boundaries regarding acceptable behavior were not set in place by the adults who were supposed to protect them.
The “Mentor Model”
So what should we be emulating instead? The coach-athlete relationship should lean on a “mentor model”, where the goal is to support athletes in their athletic endeavors in a safe and healthy way while promoting their emotional development (including boundary work). Rather than coaches knowing everything about athletes' private lives, athletes can choose to disclose or not disclose personal information, and the boundary is respected. Emotional support exists within the standards of appropriate behavior and encourages seeking out external emotional support if necessary.
A culture of accountability should be fostered, where coaches are held accountable for behavior and following best practices, rather than encouraging blind loyalty to “the family”. Safety should always be paramount, with athlete safety being first and foremost and athlete concern being addressed swiftly. Sporting organizations should provide education on best practices and should promote proactive prevention measures. Parents whose children are on or considering competing on an elite level should be monitoring the relationships between coach and athlete. This means parents should be researching the organizations you’re involved with to ensure safeguarding measures are in place. Parents of all kids involved in sport should also consider the expectations placed on their child athlete, and should reflect on whether these expectations are prioritizing the well-being of the athlete.
If you are an adult working with elite athletes, education on best practices regarding one-on-one interaction, travel, lodging, and other relevant issues should be mandatory and routinely kept up with. It’s also important to establish a system of checks and balances within your sporting organization, as oversight and supervision are some of the most powerful tools we have to prevent abuse in sports.
Closing Thoughts
Boundaries keep athletes safe. As adults involved in sport, there is a responsibility to manufacture sporting environments that function in athletes’ best interests. The “family structure” is one example of what can happen if we aren’t engaging in boundary work between coach and athlete. It’s critical that we are educated on boundaries and are actively setting them in our sporting environments. We need to engage with young athletes and keep an eye out for concerning behaviors related to a lack of boundaries.
The best way to proactively address expectations of behavior in athletics is to create a code of conduct, in which behaviors are standardized and accountability is established.
Take a moment to reflect. Does your sports environment mirror the “mentor model”, or does it resemble the “family structure”? If you observe or experience some of the features or dynamics that characterize the family structure, what are some action steps you can take to advocate for healthier sport?
Here are some examples of small action steps anyone can take to increase safety and enact boundaries in their sporting environment:
- You can gut-check behaviors and dynamics in sport by using C.A.R.D. Diagrams to see if your relationship is based on care and support or power and control.
- You can use the Coach Athlete Pledge for simple best practices you can enact that can increase safety and boundaries in your sporting environment.
- You can utilize indirect techniques referenced in our Safe Active Bystander Intervention toolkit to mitigate misconduct from occurring in your sport environment without potentially jeopardizing your safety.
- You can assess and visualize your personal boundaries enacted in your sporting environment by using the Boundary Circles activity, discussed in part 3 of our Boundaries Series.
A simple but often overlooked action step that combats abuse is checking on your friends. In abusive environments, athletes are often pitted against each other to isolate and prime them for abuse. Even if you aren’t directly experiencing abuse, checking on your teammates or others in your sporting environment builds emotional connections, fosters positive team dynamics, and can provide athletes with the opportunity to discuss potential misconduct they’re experiencing. A simple “How are you doing?” can go a long way.
If someone discloses abuse to you, it can be difficult to know what to say. Referring to our blog posts centered on supporting survivors and what to say in response to disclosure can be helpful if you need a place to start.
Stay tuned for the final post in #WeRideTogether’s Boundaries series for recommended boundaries in sport!
If you or someone you know needs support, please visit our crisis resources or resources for assistance.
Annelise Ware, MHS
Program Manager at #WeRideTogether
