Sketching the Identity Negotiations of Male Athletes and their Coaches: A Case Study of a CIS Men’s Basketball Team

Abstract

More than simply passive members of a hard masculine cult, male athletes and their coaches take up complex and contradictory identities within the larger athletic structures in which they operate. In this study, I explore the relations of power shaping identity and subjectivity for male athletes and their coaches. Interviews were conducted with eight key informants, six student-athletes and two coaches, of a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) men’s basketball team and focused on sketching their experiences, perceptions, and performances of masculinities in the sport arena. The detailed stories shared by the two coaches led me to focus two analysis chapters on their narratives. My third analysis chapter broadens to include the narratives told by the larger group of participants. Drawing on the work of Foucault and feminist post-structuralist analysis, I problematize the ethical subjectivities of coaches and players and consider the implications of these findings for both critical sport researchers and anti-violence activists.