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Research Article

Coaching styles and sports motivation in athletes with and without Intellectual Impairments

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Sport Exercise and Rehabilitation, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

• Kandianos Emmanouil Sakalidis, 
• Florentina Johanna Hettinga, 
• Fiona Chun Man Ling

• Published: December 22, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296164
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

The cognitive limitations of athletes with Intellectual Impairments (II) may influence their sport behaviour and lead them to rely on coaches’ support. However, it is still unclear how II may influence sports performance progression and motivation and how coaches perceive their athletes with II and coach them. Thus, this study aims to examine 1) coach’s perceptions of motivation and performance progression in athletes with and without II, 2) coaching style (dis)similarities, and 3) the association between these factors. Coaches of athletes with ( n = 122) and without II ( n = 144) were recruited and completed three online questionnaires, analysed using a series of non-parametric analyses ( p ≤ .05). Results showed that perceived performance progression and controlled motivation were higher of athletes with II while perceived autonomous motivation was higher of athletes without II. No coaching style differences were found between the two groups. Additionally, a need-supportive coaching style negatively predicted amotivation, and a need-thwarting coaching style predicted lower autonomous motivation in athletes with II only. Overall, it seems that the coaches perceived that their athletes with II demonstrate different motivations and react dissimilarly to their coaching styles compared to athletes without II. They may also adopt different standards of sporting success for them. Due to these differences, it is important to offer appropriate training and knowledge to coaches about disability sports and the adaptations needed to effectively coach athletes with II. In summary, this paper gives some insights about the coach-athlete relationship and highlights the necessity to further support the sports development of people with II.

Citation: Sakalidis KE, Hettinga FJ, Ling FCM (2023) Coaching styles and sports motivation in athletes with and without Intellectual Impairments. PLoS ONE 18(12): e0296164. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296164

Editor: Ali B. Mahmoud, St John’s University, UNITED STATES

Received: December 20, 2022; Accepted: December 7, 2023; Published: December 22, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Sakalidis et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: We will store data in the University repository: https://library.northumbria.ac.uk/research-data-management/figshare This is the doi: https://doi.org/10.25398/rd.northumbria.23284472.v1 .

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

According to the convention of the rights of individuals with disabilities, people with Intellectual Impairments (II) have the right to participate in the sports activity of their choice [ 1 ]. Previous studies have highlighted the importance of engagement in sports for people with II [ 2 , 3 ]. Sports participation can improve cardiovascular endurance, muscle strength and motor skills [ 2 ], and it can enhance psychological well-being and cognitive skills improvement of this population [ 2 ], [ 3 ]. It can also facilitate the development of athletes’ transferable skills, like the ability to follow instructions and complete independent tasks [ 4 ]. Physical fitness and sports-related skills improvements serve as mediators for increased motivation in people with II [ 5 ]. However, only a limited number of people with II regularly participate in recreational or competitive sports, compared to people without II [ 6 ]. Due to the insufficient levels of sports participation and the additional health issues, their general fitness is significantly lower compared to the average population [ 7 , 8 ].

Moreover, the intellectual functioning (IQ≤70) and adaptive behaviour deficits in people with II [ 9 ] can negatively impact physical, physiological, psychological, and social aspects of their sports performance [ 10 – 13 ]. For instance, skills like self-regulation, decision-making, and learning by experience, which are important in sports performance and proficiency, are underdeveloped in persons with II [ 10 , 14 ]. Moreover, due to the impaired reasoning and judging abilities, athletes with II could misinterpret the others’ social behaviour (e.g., coaches, teammates and/or opponents) and respond differently to the environmental cues [ 15 ]. In running trials for example, the performance feedback that the social environment offers (e.g., coaches) cannot facilitate the ability of people with II to maintain a steady pace [ 13 ], a critical skill for optimal performance progression [ 16 , 17 ].

A theoretical framework that can explain the influence of coaches’ attitudes on athletes’ motivation, self-regulatory behaviour and sports performance progression, is Self-Determination Theory (SDT) [ 18 , 19 ]. SDT is a macro-theory of human motivation that makes a distinction between autonomous (e.g., individuals identify an activity as valuable or personally meaningful) and controlled motivation (e.g., individuals engage in an activity for external reasons) [ 18 ]. Autonomous motivation includes three types of motivation regulation–intrinsic regulation, integrated regulation and identified regulation. Controlled motivation includes two types of motivation regulation–introject regulation and external regulation. Both autonomous and controlled motivation direct behaviour, unlike amotivation, which refers to a lack of motivation [ 18 ]. According to SDT, motivation orientation depends on the satisfaction of three psychological needs [ 18 ]. Psychological needs refer to the inherent need for competence (e.g., through mastering an activity, positive reinforcement, winning a competition), autonomy (experience of volition) and relatedness (social environment’s support) [ 18 ]. These needs are critical in athletes with II as they guide their sports behaviour and facilitate their long-term engagement in sports [ 20 ]. However, the cognitive impairments (e.g., reasoning and judging), the high anxiety levels, and the low self-esteem of people with II [ 9 , 21 ], could negatively influence their autonomous motivation and in turn, hinder their sports performance progression [ 12 , 19 , 22 ].

In sports settings, coaches create a context through which their coaching style can support (need-supportive) or thwart (need-thwarting) athletes’ fulfilment of psychological needs [ 18 , 23 ]. On the one hand, need-supportive coaches can promote athletes’ autonomous motivation (more self-determined behaviour). This type of motivation has a significant impact on athletes’ long-term sports participation and performance progression, as it is associated with better learning, effort, and persistence [ 19 , 24 ]. On the other hand, need-thwarting coaches can promote athletes’ controlled motivation (externally regulated behaviour), which is considered less optimal as it is related to negative outcomes like burn-out and failure [ 18 , 24 , 25 ]. Due to the cognitive deficits of athletes with II (e.g., self-regulation and decision-making), this population tends to be more reliant on others [ 26 ] and could subsequently lead their coaches to adopt a more need-supportive coaching style. Moreover, these cognitive deficits could lead athletes with II to judge and respond differently to their coaches’ coaching styles compared to athletes without II [ 11 , 15 ].

In an effort to ensure an inclusive and fair sporting system, there has been a growing emphasis on mainstreaming disability sports in recent years [ 27 ]. Mainstreaming aims to integrate disability and non-disability sports organisations and to offer a range of possible and inclusive sports and exercise opportunities to people with disabilities [ 28 ]. Athletes of all abilities and their coaches play a central role in supporting the mainstreaming development. Therefore, to offer appropriate inclusive sports environments to people with II, it is imperative to understand more about their sports performance progression and motivations as well as the coach-athlete relationship. Additionally, a better knowledge about the differences of the aforementioned variables between people with and without II could facilitate a smoother mainstreaming in sports and offer more exercise pathways to people with II [ 27 ]. However, as athletes with II are one of the most understudied populations in sports settings, it is not well-documented how to properly include them in sports and how to guide coaches during this process [ 29 ]. Moreover, even if it is evident that coaches could affect athletes’ motivation and sports performance development, especially for athletes without II [ 23 – 25 ], it is not yet clear the impact of II on sports performance progression and motivation. Moreover, it is still unknown the role of coaches towards athletes with II and how this might differ compared to athletes without II. In this study, we chose to focus on coaches’ reports because by exploring coaches’ perceptions of their athletes’ performance progression and motivation, we can better examine the relationships between these perceptions and their coaching styles. We can also explore how coaches’ perceptions can promote (or restrict) the inclusion of people with II in sports [ 30 , 31 ]. The researchers are aware of the lurking danger of promoting intellectual ableism when a proxy respondent is preferred over a person with II [ 32 ] thus, their future studies aim to ‘give a voice to the voiceless’. For this study however, the exploration of the athletes’ motivation and progression from different perspectives will give us the opportunity to explore the coach-athlete relationship in sports settings more deeply [ 30 ].

Therefore, this study is based on the theoretical framework of SDT, and it aims to examine if: 1) there are differences in sports performance progression and motivation orientations between athletes with and without II as reported and perceived by their coaches, 2) there are differences in coaching styles between coaches of athletes with and without II, and 3) coaching styles are predictors of sports performance progression and motivation orientation in athletes with and without II. We hypothesize that: 1) coaches of athletes with II perceive their athletes to have made less progression in their sports performance and have adopted more controlled types of motivation compared to athletes without II, 2) coaches of athletes with II will adopt a need-supportive coaching style, compared to coaches of athletes without II, and 3) coaching styles are predictors of sports performance progression and motivation orientation in athletes with II and these predictors differ between the two groups (II and non-II).

Materials and methods

Participants and recruitment.

Recruitment of coaches of athletes with and without II was done through sports organisations, recreational centres and sports clubs via phone calls and e-mails (from January until May of 2021). The authors did not have access to information that could identify individual participants during or after data collection. Two hundred and sixty-six coaches with coaching experience in different sports (e.g., athletics, gymnastics, basketball, football etc.) consented to participate (45.9% coaches of athletes with II). Coaches’ average age was 40 ( SD = 16, range 17 to 81 years old) and 58.6% of them were male. The mean coaching experience for coaches working with athletes with II was 11 years ( SD = 10) while coaches of athletes without II had a mean average coaching experience of 15 years ( SD = 12). Both groups of coaches had experience coaching a variety of individual and team sports, like fencing, boccia, archery, athletics, football, and basketball. We included coaches who were fluent in English, had at least one year of coaching experience, and whose athletes were adolescents or adults (aged 12 or above) with or without II. Coaches were asked to act as proxy respondent for a group of persons (athletes with or athletes without II) [ 33 ] and provide their overall view of their athletes’ motivation, similarly to Rocchi [ 34 ]. For comparability purposes, their athletes with or without II were categorized into the ‘participation’ or ‘performance’ stage of sports development (focus on sports skills development with experience in local or regional, recreational competitive events) [ 35 ]. Athletes with II must meet the criteria for diagnosis of II as set by the British Psychological Society [ 9 ]: limitations in intellectual and adaptive functioning with an IQ ≤ 70, limitations in social, practical, and conceptual skills, and manifested before the age of 18 years. The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Ethics Board.

Coaches of athletes with and without II completed questionnaires via an online platform (JISC). All coaches completed the 3 questionnaires overviewed below, which lasted approximately 20 minutes.

Rated performance (coaches’ reports of athletes’ sports performance progression).

This instrument is completed by coaches and is used to investigate the extent to which the athletes had progressed in the (a) physical, (b) tactical, (c) technical, and (d) psychological domain over the past year [ 36 ]. As this is an objective measurement of athletes’ perceived sports performance progression, the rate of progression was based on the sports performance abilities of the group of athletes and how coaches perceived their expected rate of improvement. These items are combined and form an intraindividual athletic performance scale (total performance progression). The scale uses a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (strong regression) to 7 (strong progression) and showed excellent internal consistency [ 36 ]. Due to the lack of exercise and training routine during the COVID-19 outbreak, coaches were instructed to complete the questions retrospectively.

Revised sports motivation scale—perceived player motivation.

This instrument is founded on the SDT [ 18 ] and assesses coaches’ perspectives of athletes’ reasons for participating in sports (e.g., ‘because they feel better about themselves when they do play’; ‘because people around them reward them when they do play’) [ 34 , 37 ]. The scale measures sports motivation according to six types of behavioural regulation—intrinsic regulation, integrated regulation, identified regulation (under the autonomous motivation subscale; 9 items), introjected regulation, external regulation (under the controlled motivation subscale; 6 items), and amotivation (3 items). The scale uses a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (does not correspond at all) to 7 (corresponds completely). This instrument showed a strong factor structure and acceptable internal consistency [ 34 ].

Interpersonal behaviours questionnaire—self (IBQ-self).

This questionnaire is also founded on the SDT [ 18 ] and assesses coaches’ reports of their own interpersonal behaviours (IBQ-self) in sports settings [ 38 ]. The questionnaire consists of 24 items (e.g., ‘when I am with my athletes, I provide valuable feedback’; ‘when I am with my athletes. I pressure them to adopt certain behaviours’) and six subscales—autonomy-supportive, competence-supportive, relatedness-supportive (collectively they form the need-supportive scale), and autonomy-thwarting, competence-thwarting, and relatedness-thwarting (collectively they form the need-thwarting scale). The measure uses a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (do not agree at all) to 7 (completely agree) and showed a strong factor structure, internal consistency, and validity [ 38 ].

Statistical analysis

Perusal of the data using the Shapiro-Wilk test of normality suggests that the assumption of normality is violated. Therefore, we conducted a series of non-parametric analyses. To address aims 1 and 2 (e.g., differences in perceived total performance progression, perceived motivation orientation and coaching styles), we conducted a rank MANOVA to test if there were differences in autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, amotivation, total performance progression, need-supportive, and need-thwarting differences (six dependent variables) between the reports of coaches of athletes with and coaches of athletes without II (group; independent variable).

To address aim 3 (e.g., predictors of total performance progression and motivation orientation), we first performed two Spearman correlation analyses to assess the relationship between the variables for each group. Variables indicating significant correlations with coaching styles were entered into a series of Additive Nonparametric Regressions (Generalized additive model), with need-supportive and need-thwarting coaching styles as independent variables. The statistical analyses were performed using R , version 4.1.1, and the level of significance was set at p ≤ .05.

The rank MANOVA analysis showed that there were no group differences between coaches’ need-supportive ( p = .53) and need-thwarting style ( p = .41) and no group differences between perceived athletes’ amotivation ( p = .63). Furthermore, perceived autonomous motivation was significantly lower ( p < .001) and perceived controlled motivation was significantly higher in athletes with II compared to athletes without II ( p < .001). Finally, perceived total performance progression of athletes with II was significantly higher compared to athletes without II ( p = .01) (see Table 1 for the descriptive data, and Fig 1 for the univariate post-hoc comparisons between the variables).

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

Univariate post-hoc comparisons of Need-Supportive, Need-Thwarting, Total Performance Progression, Autonomous Motivation, Controlled Motivation and Amotivation for athletes with and without II. T = T Value, P = P Value (* shows the mean differences are significant at the .05 level; ** shows the mean differences are significant at the .01 level; *** shows the mean differences are significant at the .001 level).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296164.g001

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296164.t001

Results of the Spearman Correlation analyses indicated that both coaching styles (need-supportive and need-thwarting) were significantly correlated with autonomous motivation and amotivation in II and non-II group ( p < .001). Additionally, both coaching styles were significantly correlated with the total performance progression in non-II group ( p < .001) (see Table 2 ). Therefore, only these variables were entered into the series of Additive Nonparametric Regression analyses.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296164.t002

A series of Additive Nonparametric Regressions were run to examine if need-supportive and need-thwarting were predictors of autonomous motivation and amotivation in the II group. A second series of Additive Nonparametric Regressions were run to examine if need-supportive and need-thwarting were predictors of autonomous motivation, amotivation and total performance progression in non-II group. Results showed that a need-supportive coaching style positively predicted autonomous motivation in athletes with and without II ( p < .001, adj . R 2 = .28 and p = .00, adj . R 2 = .47 respectively). It also negatively predicted amotivation in athletes with II ( p = .00, adj . R 2 = .25). Additionally, a need-thwarting coaching style positively predicted amotivation in athletes with and without II ( p = .02, adj . R 2 = .25 and p < .001, adj . R 2 = .37 respectively), and negatively predicted autonomous motivation in athletes without II ( p = .00, adj . R 2 = .47). Fig 2 presents the partial effects plots with the approximate significance of smooth terms for predictors of autonomous motivation and amotivation in athletes with and without II. Neither coaching style significantly predicted total performance progression in both groups.

Edf = effective degrees of freedom, P = P Value (* shows the mean differences are significant at the .05 level; ** shows the mean differences are significant at the .01 level; *** shows the mean differences are significant at the .001 level).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296164.g002

This study aimed to shed light on athletes’ sports performance progression, athletes’ motivation orientations and coaching styles differences, as well as the relationships between these factors, as reported and perceived by coaches of athletes with and without II. The results did not fully support our first hypothesis that coaches of athletes with II perceive their athletes to have made less progress in their sports performance and have adopted more controlled types of motivation compared to athletes without II. More specifically, coaches’ reports indicated that athletes with II were perceived to progress more in their sports performance (total performance progression) compared to athletes without II. However, as we hypothesised, coaches reported and perceived that athletes with II adopt more controlled types of motivation than athletes without II, and less autonomous types of motivation, than athletes without II.

A reason that total performance progression of athletes with II is perceived to be higher could be due to lower long-term engagement in sports and the lower levels of physical fitness and muscle strength of this population compared to athletes without II that previous studies reported [ 39 , 40 ]. However, due to the nature of the Rated Performance questionnaire (was based on the perceived physical, tactical, technical, and psychological progression of the athletes) and the plethora of different sports that coaches were coaching, we approach this argument with caution. More research based on objective measurements is needed to explore the relationships between training age and physical fitness (e.g., fitness assessments that test the strength and muscle mass alternations of athletes) with the sports performance progression of athletes with II [ 41 , 42 ].

However, as this study was based on coaches’ perceptions, a more appropriate explanation for these findings could be the disability stereotype where achievements by people with disabilities are rated more positively from the able-bodied society [ 43 ]. Thus, coaches of athletes with II might unconsciously adopt different standards for sporting success and overestimate their total performance progression [ 44 ]. For instance, coaches may have relatively low expectations from their athletes with II, while a great physical, tactical, technical, and/or psychological progression of them could be perceived by the coaches as paradoxical [ 38 ]. Additionally, coaches of athletes with II tend to adopt a mentorship role, focus less on their athletes’ sports performance development, and potentially underestimate the importance of nurturing the athletic identity that athletes with II may wish to develop [ 45 ]. These attitudes may be well-intentioned however, when athletes with II accomplishments are portrayed as surprising and/or inspirational it can perpetuate ableism [ 38 , 44 ]. If these unintentional (but still ableist) attitudes occur, this could make the mainstreaming of disability sports more challenging for this population. Thus, there is a necessity to reshape coaches’ assumptions of what athletes with II can and cannot do and help them set realistic sports performance goals for their athletes. Moreover, even if we tried to recruit coaches who are working with athletes with a similar stage of sports development, we recognise that disability and non-disability sports organisations are not fully integrated [ 27 ]. As a result, the training sessions, the opportunities for sports performance development, and participation in competitive events may vary for athletes with and without II [ 27 ]. Consequently, the coaches’ expectations regarding their athletes’ improvement may also differ between the two groups and could partially explain the findings observed in this study.

The results also indicated that athletes with II adopt more controlled types of motivation compared to athletes without II and less autonomous types of motivation (as perceived by their coaches). Previous research has shown that athletes with II exhibit higher ego orientation and lower self-regulation compared to athletes without II [ 10 , 46 ]. This could partly explain the lower levels of long-term participation in sports of athletes with II compared to athletes without II [ 47 , 48 ], as autonomous motivation functions in a dyadic relationship with self-regulation and facilitates athletes’ long-term exercise engagement and persistent sports behaviour compared to athletes who adopt more controlled forms of motivation [ 18 , 24 , 25 ]. The higher level of perceived controlled motivation could be a result of the high levels of anxiety, decreased confidence and social phobia experienced by people with II and may influence their sports motivation [ 49 , 50 ]. In addition, the lack of awareness and societal support that athletes with II reported [ 51 ], could hinder the fulfilment of their relatedness’ needs [ 18 ] which could, in turn, fuel more controlled types of motivation compared to athletes without II. However, the motivational differences between athletes with and without II could have occurred due to the difficulties of proxies (such as coaches) to recognise that people with II can have a good, personally meaningful life [ 32 , 43 , 44 ] and accept the role of people with II in their own autonomous decision-making [ 32 ]. Coaches in sports settings tend to prioritise their own aspirations and perspectives regarding the needs of people with II, potentially overshadowing their athletes’ sports motivations [ 45 ]. In addition, coaches may observe that the social environment (e.g., parents) hinders the decision-making of people with II and consequently adopt an overprotective stance towards them [ 45 ]. Thus, coaches may perceive that the sports participation of athletes with II depends more on external and less on internal motivations compared to athletes without II, but further research is needed to explore the level of intellectual ableism in coaching settings and give equal attention to both athletes with II and their coaches [ 32 ].

The results of our study did not support our second hypothesis, indicating that the coaching style between the two groups is similar. Given the coaching experience of the participants, with both groups having an average coaching experience of over 10 years, it is unlikely that the observed similarities in coaching styles can be attributed to a lack of experience or their experience differences. A possible explanation for the coaching style similarities could be that most of the coaches of athletes with II come from mainstream sports and have a traditional coaching education background [ 52 ]. Previous studies in sports for people without II showed that coaching behaviour is influenced by athletes’ motivation [ 53 , 54 ]. However, the different motivation orientations of athletes with and without II and the similar coaching styles of their coaches, indicate that coaching behaviour towards athletes with II seems less adapted to athletes’ motivation. Moreover, these findings could indicate that coaches may have difficulties in adapting their approach to the needs of athletes with II; thus, more effort is needed to enhance the autonomous motivation of this population. Due to the reciprocal relationship between coaching behaviour and athletes’ motivation [ 54 ], future qualitative research should further investigate the coach-athlete relationship in II sports, coaches’ practices, how and why they implement them, and how beneficial this could be for their athletes’ long-term sports participation and development.

The series of additive nonparametric regression analyses partially supported our third hypothesis, indicating that coaching styles are predictors of motivation orientation in athletes with II and that these predictors differ between the two groups (II and non-II). Specifically, the results show that the coaches’ need-supportive style is a predictor of the autonomous motivation (positive) and amotivation (negative) of athletes with II. At the same time, coaches’ need-thwarting style positively predicts amotivation in this population ( Fig 2 ). These findings indicate the importance of the coach-athlete relationship in II sports and suggest that athletes with II may have the capability to respond accordingly to different coaching styles contrary to common beliefs [ 15 ]. For example, athletes with II may feel a sense of ownership and enjoyment as well as reduced feelings of disinterest when their coaches take time to understand their feelings and needs and provide them with choices and encouragement (need-supportive coaching style) [ 23 , 25 ]. Additionally, they may feel disengaged, demotivated, and uninterested in participating in sports when their coaches tend to be controlling or neglectful of their needs (need-thwarting coaching style) [ 23 ].

The findings also highlight the necessity of coaches to nurture the basic psychological needs of athletes with II. Coaches of athletes with II may wish to provide their athletes with choices and meaningful rationales for the assigned exercises and show trust in their capabilities regardless of their cognitive limitations. They could also consider giving them clear and simplified instructions and providing them the opportunity to express their needs and anxieties in a socially safe and supportive sports environment [ 24 ]. These attitudes may be essential for athletes with II, a population dealing with increased anxiety, social phobia, and decreased confidence [ 49 ] and tending to adopt more controlled types of motivation. Coaches’ need-supportive style may increase athletes’ chances to adopt more autonomous motivation regulations, avoid amotivation, increase their positive affect [ 23 ], facilitate their self-regulatory development and inspire their long-term engagement in sports [ 24 ]. Contrariwise, coaches who thwart athletes’ basic psychological needs could engender feelings of pressure, failure, and loneliness [ 23 ], demotivate them from continued sports participation (amotivation), and increase their chances of depression and burnout [ 23 ]. Thus, it is optimistic that coaches of athletes with II are trying to connect with their athletes, promote the social interaction, and focus on their athletes’ positive emotions in sports settings. However, more research is needed to assess the efficiency of their approach and how they can promote a fertile ground for their athletes’ long-term engagement in sports [ 45 ].

It is also important to explore the different role that the coaching styles have in athletes with and without II. It seems that the need-supportive style predicts autonomous motivation only in athletes with II. On the other hand, the need-thwarting style predicts amotivation only in athletes without II. The impaired cognitive abilities of athletes with II could lead them to respond differently to environmental cues (e.g., coaches’ attitude) and react dissimilarly to coaching styles compared to athletes without II [ 9 , 11 , 13 ]. These differences, along with the different motivation orientations between athletes with and without II, should be taken into consideration in future sports disability education programs. It is thus crucial to educate coaches of athletes with II on how to effectively deal with the cognitive deficits of this population, interact with them appropriately, and provide effective support for their basic psychological needs [ 52 , 55 ]. Nonetheless, education for coaches regarding disabilities will be beneficial and will facilitate the mainstreaming development in sports only if the coaches acknowledge that each athlete (II and non-II) has a unique personality, and that they should adapt their behaviour to each athlete’s needs in order to foster meaningful athlete-coach relationships [ 56 , 57 ]. Currently, coaching education opportunities within disability sports are still lacking, which makes it even more challenging for coaches to gain any advanced learning about the most progressive and effective ways to coach athletes with II and offer them inclusive sports opportunities [ 52 ].

This study presented some limitations that need to be addressed. First, due to the lack of validated self-report instruments that measure motivation orientations in athletes with II, this study was based on coaches’ perception of athletes’ motivation orientations. However, the communication difficulties that athletes with II experience could lead their coaches to misinterpret their needs, behaviours, and motives [ 58 ]. Future studies should investigate the role of significant others (e.g., coaches, carers, parents, peers) in fostering different motivation orientations. Future research should also aim to develop appropriate and valid instruments that measure motivational regulations among athletes with II. Another limitation of the study is the absence of qualitative feedback in the survey data. Qualitative approaches, like interviews with coaches and athletes with II, could provide a deeper understanding of the coach-athlete relationship in disability sports and capture nuanced information that our quantitative approach alone may not revealed [ 59 ]. Thus, future studies could use a mixed-methods approach (combining qualitative and quantitative methods) to obtain a more comprehensive picture of the problem [ 59 ]. Future studies should also ensure the active involvement of participants with II and their contribution to the research process. Additionally, it is crucial for these studies to also consider other relevant stakeholders (e.g., family members, support staff, policy makers) in examining the coach-athlete relationship in disability sports and the inclusive practices towards athletes with II [ 45 ]. Another limitation is also the lack of device-based measurements that investigate the sports performance progression of athletes. A criticism of self-report measurements of sports performance development is that they could be affected by coaches’ bias towards athletes who have specific roles within the team [ 60 ]. However, due to COVID-19 restrictions during the data collection process, it was not feasible to include device-based measurements of sports performance. Future work could integrate both device-based and self-report performance assessments to gain a better understanding of athletes’ progression and better support their long-term development in sports performance settings [ 60 ].

In summary, this paper gives some insights about the significance of the coach-athlete relationship in sports and the importance of a need-supportive coaching style to enhance autonomous motivation and prevent the amotivation of athletes with II. While self-reported coaching styles were similar between coaches of athletes with and coaches of athletes without II, their perceptions of their athletes’ performance progression and motivation orientations seemed to differ. This might have occurred due to the differences in sports opportunities and experiences between athletes with and without II and/or due to the different sports standards that their coaches adopt. Thus, it is important to offer appropriate training and knowledge to coaches about disability sports and the adaptations needed to effectively coach athletes with II and to appropriately offer them inclusive sports activities.

Supporting information

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296164.s001

S2 Checklist. PLOS ONE clinical studies checklist.

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Impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the mental health in sports: a review

• Published: 20 April 2023
• Volume 19 , pages 1043–1057, ( 2023 )

Cite this article

• Akash Shukla 1 ,
• Deepak Kumar Dogra 1 ,
• Debraj Bhattacharya 1 ,
• Satish Gulia 2 &
• Rekha Sharma 3  

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Global pandemic, lockdown restrictions, and COVID-19 compulsory social isolation guidelines have raised unprecedented mental health in the sports community. The COVID-19 pandemic is found to affect the mental health of the population. In critical situations, health authorities and sports communities must identify their priorities and make plans to maintain athletes’ health and athletic activities. Several aspects play an important role in prioritization and strategic planning, e.g., physical and mental health, distribution of resources, and short to long-term environmental considerations. To identify the psychological health of sportspeople and athletes due to the outbreak of COVID-19 has been reviewed in this research. This review article also analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on health mental in databases. The COVID-19 outbreak and quarantine would have a serious negative impact on the mental health of athletes. From the accessible sources, 80 research articles were selected and examined for this purpose such as Research Gate, PubMed, Google Scholar, Springer, Scopus, and Web of Science and based on the involvement for this study 14 research articles were accessed. This research has an intention on mental health issues in athletes due to the Pandemic. This report outlines the mental, emotional and behavioural consequences of COVID-19 home confinement. Further, research literature reported that due to the lack of required training, physical activity, practice sessions, and collaboration with teammates and coaching staff are the prime causes of mental health issues in athletes. The discussions also reviewed several pieces of literature which examined the impacts on sports and athletes, impacts on various countries, fundamental issues of mental health and the diagnosis for the sports person and athletes, and the afterlife of the COVID-19 pandemic for them. Because of the compulsory restrictions and guidelines of this COVID-19 eruption, the athletes of different sports and geographical regions are suffering from fewer psychological issues which were identified in this paper. Accordingly, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to negatively affect the mental health of the athletes with the prevalence and levels of anxiety and stress increasing, and depression symptoms remaining unaltered. Addressing and mitigating the negative effect of COVID-19 on the mental health of this population identified from this review.

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Introduction

COVID-19 is an arising irresistible illness brought about by the newfound Extreme Intense Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first patient with COVID-19 was identified in Wuhan, Hubei territory as per the research of WHO [World Health Organization] in 2020. In addition, contamination has spread quickly all over the world which resulted in numerous extreme and lethal clinical cases [ 1 ]. It is identified as a highly transmitted disease which can transmit from one person to another person through the droplets of respiration, hands, nose, mouth etc. and also a high infectiousness disease [ 2 ]. The number of mortalities and grimness around the world due to COVID-19 have raised critical general health and well-being concerns. Additionally, identifying, diagnosing, and treating those who were infected, as well as developing medicines, antibodies, and treatments was focused on by all countries and the World Health Organization to decrease the effect of this pandemic [ 3 ]. Finally, governments were constraining nearly a worldwide quarantine [ 4 ]. As a result, all the people maintained social distancing to overcome this issue. Other countries announced several conditions like no contact between people and also lockdown had been declared [ 5 ]. The refugee crisis has also affected the world of sports affairs.

Due to this pandemic, several individuals get affected which leads to disruption, anxiety, stress, stigma, and xenophobia. In a society or community, the act of an individual affects the agitation of the pandemic which contains the level of severity, degree of flow, and aftereffects [ 6 ]. The complete information about the virus and its effects must be known prevent it. To control the spreading of the virus, regional lockdowns were implemented due to the people-to-people transmission of the SARS-CoV-2. The transmission chain has been broken by employing isolation, social distancing, and closing of educational institutes, workplaces, and entertainment venues by which people stay in their homes [ 7 ]. The social and mental health of people gets greatly affected because of these strict actions throughout the board [ 8 ]. The WHO recommends people stay active and available at home to reduce social relationships during the initial wave of COVID-19 and to prevent the spread of the virus. Throughout the world, after the decrease in the count of COVID-19 cases [ 9 , 10 ], and due to the limit of outbreaks in the initial stage, a survey shows that there is a rise in the COVID-19 cases in the second wave in many regions of the world [ 11 ]. Zhao et al . [ 12 ] say that the second wave of infections will be indicated by the control measures and social distance carried out during the first wave of COVID-19 transmission. Due to this, the athletes faced challenges in doing their regular activities with the supervision of their coach and scientific experts, during the placement period.

Several efforts were carried out to prevent the pandemic situation, but there is no clear information about what will be the next steps followed in the upcoming days. The long-lasting effects of Coronavirus have given great worry to the global environment such as declined economy, venture surety, worldwide market stocks, human well-being, daily groceries supply and medical emergency services. To control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, strict actions were followed by the governments like severe lockdowns, restriction of social groups, and organisations like sports events and also unnecessary travel has also been prohibited which greatly affects the sports industry and athletes [ 13 ]. For this reason, the athletes were incapable to regulate their regular training sessions as well not participate in any sports events due to suspensions. Further, Turgut et al. [ 14 ] reported the cancellations and postponements of various global sporting events to follow the global health recommendations and to restrict the spread of the infection.

By considering the risk of transmission and the health problems for both the spectators and the field players, several nations have postponed the local professional football leagues [ 15 ]. Severe economic issues and lack of income were the results of COVID-19 and the elite football clubs also face several problems due to this pandemic [ 16 ]. The final match of the UEFA Champions League and other fewer games were postponed by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to March 2020, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the government of Japan also postponed the Tokyo Olympics of 2020 to July 2021 in which there is no change in the name as 2020 Tokyo Olympics [ 17 ]. Totally of about 57% of the 11,000 athletes who have registered for the postponed Olympic games have already met the requirements, following the International Olympic Committee (IOC) However, the majority of these athletes are now confined as a result of the COVID-19 restriction, which was extended till 2021. Therefore, because of the pandemic these big decisions of cancellation and delaying the tournaments were taken due to which many athletes confronted tight limitations to proceed with their normal preparations or practices. Health authorities prescribe these constraints to avoid the public gathering during matches and events that might work to a quick spread of Coronavirus, bringing about extra tension in the medical services framework [ 18 , 19 , 20 ].

To evade the COVID-19 infection during the lockdown self-isolation, limitations, social disconnection arrangements and an environment of uncertainty created an adverse effect on the populace's mental health [ 21 ] and already available evidence appears to affirm these forecasts [ 22 ]. During the first month of internment, nearly 15.8% and 21.6% of the total population of Sain faced depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic symptoms as per the report of González-Sanguino et al . [ 23 ]. Further, WHO [ 18 , 19 , 20 ] is also concerned about these mental health and psycho-social issues due to this pandemic.

However, to understand these outcomes, there is a need to study the results of the coronavirus pandemic in the sports setting. In that context, Trabelsi et al. [ 24 ] also reported that few coaches, sports psychologists and even psychiatrists found some mental issues in athletes, that may cause adverse consequences in their life. Furthermore, Reardon et al. [ 25 ] identified in a narrative review that elite athletes were suffering from various psychological issues at rates identical to or surpassing the common population due to COVID-19. Moreover, the field specialists cautiously screened and observed the athletes during the Coronavirus pandemic and expressed those athletes needed a mental advisory for adjustments. Similarly, Turgut stated that the new measures of self-segregation from others and quarantine affects exercise, practice routine as well as lifestyle resulting in prompt physical and mental challenges for athletes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, elite athletes encountered a lot of stressors during their career, the COVID-19 restrictions seem to have amplified all the stressors with negative consequences on the mental health of athletes. Unfortunately, the present literature does not seem to clarify the possible causes and effects of COVID-19 restrictions on athletes. Subsequently, the present narrative review aims to describe the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown influenced the mental health of elite athletes. Specifically, the primary objective of this review is to identify the common psychological distress and stress responses in elite athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, this study aims to identify factors, either positive or negative, related to psychological distress in elite athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic from various research articles.

Impact of COVID-19 on mental health

Several reasons were identified for this. The people who combat the public health factors (like vaccination) and how they deal with the risk of infections and following losses which was mainly due to the psychological measures. The treatment of any infectious disease like COVID-19 is one of the main problems. The maladaptive behaviours, emotional distress and defensive responses were the results due to the Psychological effects of the pandemic [ 26 ]. The people who were affected psychologically will be harsher. We need to accept that, there will be a low lifespan for the people who were affected mentally and this results in poor physical health in normal cases rather than in other populations [ 27 ]. People who already have mental health or use drug problems are more likely to contract COVID-19, and they may face difficulties getting tested or treated and suffer unfavourable medical or mental impacts as a result of the pandemic.

Secondly, from this study, it is predicted that an increase in anxiety and depression symptoms, with some individuals, eventually developing post-traumatic stress disorder, among those who do not already have these diseases. From the evidence, a suggestion is made that throughout the current pandemic, this risk was not fully recognized in China [ 28 ].

Third, an assumption is made that, the people who work in public health, primary care, emergency services, emergency departments and intensive or critical care may face several psychological disorders. While this risk to healthcare workers has been formally identified by the World Health Organization, more needs to be done to manage anxiety and stress in this population and, in the long run, to help prevent burnout, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder [ 29 ]. However, physical exercise training generally has health benefits and assists in the prevention of several chronic diseases. Moreover, physical activity improves mental health by reducing anxiety, depression, and negative mood and improving self-esteem. Therefore, the beneficial effects of adapted physical activity, based on personalized and tailor-made exercise, in preventing, treating, and counteracting the consequences of COVID-19 are analysed [ 30 ].

Consequently, it is important to identify some of the unique challenges this population currently faces, and understand where our student-athletes are mentally and physically. This is to ensure their needs are addressed, and the health and well-being of this population are protected. [ 31 ] assessed the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian high-performance secondary school student-athletes. Student-athletes should be provided additional mental health support during this maelstrom of changes. In particular, additional mental health support for student-athletes should be anticipated in this maelstrom of changes; specific in-home virtual training during the COVID-19 outbreak should be further strengthened and improved to protect the mental and physical health of the athletes, especially to reduce the risk of anxiety and depression.

Impact of COVID-19 on sports

Throughout the world, the COVID-19 virus has been spread virtually, and to stop the spread of this disease, companies, schools, and colleges have been locked down, and general social life like sports and physical activities has also been hindered. The challenges faced by the athletic industry have been mentioned in the COVID-19 lockdown policy. As a result of the fast transmission of this coronavirus, millions of people have lost their lives, the largest indoor and outdoor sports events have been affected, and without the view of competitions the national and international level sports have been postponed or cancelled or rescheduled or location changes happened [ 32 ]. Sports events have been greatly affected by the COVID-19 virus and there are rescheduled international events like the Olympics which have been discussed earlier.

In overall history, this is the first time the cancellation of Olympic Games due to a medical issue [ 33 ]. The financial loss is not only faced by the country Japan but also the 11,000 Olympic athletes and 4400 Paralympians who participated in several sports events of the Olympics also faced this problem. The Olympics is one of the rare and great opportunities for athletes to establish their talents through participation in competitions in front of the total world. Every participant had worked hard and undergo much training for this. During March and April 2020, football clubs would not be required to release players for national teams, according to a FIFA announcement made on March 13, 2020. Without any response, the players have the opportunity to decline. As per the suggestion of FIFA, all international matches must take place outside of the slots, however, the final choice is based upon the administrators of the competition member associations for friendly matches [ 34 ]. Other sporting events, including the Wimbledon championship, the basketball and football tournaments, the athletics championship, handball and ice hockey, cricket, rugby, skiing, weightlifting, and wrestling were able to modify their schedules or can cancel their competitions altogether. For the top athletes, their professional career gets affected greatly due to this rescheduling of the Olympics and several National and International sports events. Along with the discussion about the performance of the athletes, the effects of COVID-19 on sports events must also be considered. Based on factors like location, opposition, score, number of recovery days, and tactical system, the performance of athletes relies [ 35 ].

Because of this lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, throughout the world, there are millions of jobs at risk. Rather than the sports person, the people who were engaged in retail and other services, sports industries along with the sports events and leagues that contain transportation, infrastructure facility, travel, tourism, catering, and media broadcasting in the field of sports were also get affected [ 36 ]. A lot of pressure arises among the athletes and professional players because of this postponement of the competitions. Initially, there is no support from the sponsors if they decide to make them fit in the home itself.

Several educational institutions along with sports education are also get affected because of the COVID-19 lockdown, and those stakeholders the local and national ministries, public and private educational institutions, sports organizations, NGOs and the business community, teachers, scholars, coaches, athletes, parents and some young people were also involved.

Impact of COVID-19 on physical activity

Due to the cancellation of sports events during the COVID-19 lockdown, all the other outdoor activities were also restricted. Furthermore, gyms, stadiums, pools, dance and fitness studios, physiotherapy clinics, and parks were forced to close. These factors encouraged athletes to alter their fitness routine and train at home, where they are frequently not observed by qualified health workers or trained coaches. Several athletes have their gym at home or other pieces of exercise equipment which they can use to practise regularly during a lockdown. Their current level of physical fitness should be maintained, or at the very least not decreased, during the home activity period [ 37 ]. However, most people are unfortunately unable to be actively involved in their regular outside individual or group sporting or physical activities. A high level of physical fitness is required by elite athletes irrespective of the specific type of sport. Generally speaking, elite athletes avoid long periods of rest during and at the end of the competitive season [ 38 ].

The immune system and the anti-viral defences were greatly affected because of continuous exercise every day [ 39 ]. A low regulate exercise is resulted due to the order of stay-at-home by the government and closures of parks, gyms, stadiums, and fitness centres to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Since regular exercise can boost the immune system of a sportsperson and can able to treat several co-morbidities like obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and severe heart diseases that make athletes more prone to infections like COVID-19 so it is considered an unacceptable instruction [ 40 ].

Since they affect several sports damage processes and have the potential to improve repeat intervention and prevention, psychological elements underlying the various stages of sports injury are becoming more and more essential [ 41 ]. Rather than the new concept in history, the confinement scenario resulting from COVID-19 shares several issues with the various stages of sports injury encountered by athletes. The sports activity can be reduced due to some inference, reduction in autonomy, alterations in the sports environment, as a single or group there is a lot of chances to increase their records in the sports field, prohibition of activities that are not related with it, personal and family life changes like earlier retirement because of the alterations in the schedule of sports events. Now there is the existence of deeper problems like abuse of substances, social distance, depressive or anxiety episodes, suicidal thoughts, self-esteem problems, and poor sleep quality. Because a poor perception of the quality of sleep can harm the health of a sportsperson, along with the life of the sportsperson the latter factor is also included [ 42 ]. Long periods of isolation may lead to personal growth and development of the psychological processes of sports exercise, which is under the discussion with the writers. There are many adjustments made by sportspersons because of the existence of restrictions throughout the world since they lack the equipment or appropriate areas to develop their training routines effectively [ 43 ]. Because of the prohibition or postponement of all the local, national, and worldwide contests, this fact has prompted us to investigate how the athletes face this complex situation and their issues. Consequently, during this complicated scenario, particular emphasis should be dedicated to specific exercise interventions tailored for subjects and athletes recovering from COVID-19 [ 44 ]. Studying the psychological effects both good and bad that this situation may have a great interest in the individuals.

For the athletes, both the physical and mental issues get increased due to this continuous COVID-19 lockdown. There arises an unstable life for sports players due to the prohibition and rescheduling of sports events. Professional players or athletes feel stressed because they are pushed to the situation to handle all the problems behind them. The level of worry, stress and anxiety may get increased due to the unstable future [ 45 ].

However, to the researcher’s awareness, how far the mental health of the athletes and professionals get affected due to this pandemic has been examined through several researches and surveys. During the continuous lockdown of COVID-19, athletes and sportspeople have faced a lot of issues like difficulties in sleep, sadness and depression rather than an increase in their physical activities [ 46 ]. To address these mental issues and information and illuminate the sports fraternity as well as the general society about the mental challenges an athlete is facing during this COVID-19 outbreak, this review article's impact of a COVID-19 outbreak on the mental health in sports was taken. To examine the current status of the professional athletes who went for a break during the pandemic period and to measure their mental health several surveys have been carried out. An investigation was also carried out to identify the physical and mental activity of the athletes while they stay at the home.

Methodology

The scoping review was carried out for the criteria and procedures outlined in the available systematic literature data factors and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) with the Scoping Reviews extension.

The available literature on aerobic exercise intervention on body composition in obese females was considered for the present study. Figure  1 shows the PRISMA flowchart. From the sources like Research Gate, Pub Med, Google Scholar, Springer, Scopus, and Web of Science, a total of 80 research articles were gathered for the study and among that 14 sample papers were selected by making use of keywords like COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and athletes. Initially, the selected papers were examined whether they are related to the effect of the pandemic on the sportsperson and to confirm this, their respective reference papers were also examined for the full-text articles. The reviews of the particular research papers were also considered. Some of the measures developed to confirm the eligibility were (1) Population: sports person, professional athletes, players, (2) Intervention: COVID-19 pandemic, (3) Types of Study: a comparative study, randomly controlled trials, clinical trials, review papers, systemic review, and meta-analysis, and (4) Outcomes: an establishment of good and fine result related to the psychological health. Age, injury form, or research design will not be avoided. Studies which are not in English, not publishing results, and are not relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic were removed.

Flow chart of PRISMA

Scope of PRISMA

To provide guidelines for the creation of protocols and for scientific reviews and meta-analyses that evaluate the efficacy of treatments, the PRISMA has been developed. Without the examination of efficacy, the PRISMA undergoes several reviews because of the fewer protocol instructions, writers are recommended to adopt. A protocol has been demonstrated by the research as a document that defines the reasoning, intended purpose, and intended methodology approach of a systematic review before it begins.

The authors who are involved in the development of systematic review procedures for publication, general consumption, or other purposes should PRISMA initially. To identify whether the protocol contains crucial information, it will be useful for the candidates who write review procedures and as a tool for the reviewers. To get a conclusion about a review, the journalists and reviewers make use of PRISMA to identify the correct protocol.

The structure of this document is the same as the previously established journalistic standards, such as the PRISMA Explanation and Elaboration document; it provides thorough justifications and evidence-based justifications for each checklist item. Examples of effective reporting for each checklist item have been discovered which use systematic review and meta-analysis techniques and are provided throughout this document to help the readers to identify in a better way.

During the development of an efficient review protocol, a particular list of items must be taken into account to focus on the PRISMA, and to get a clear view of the planned review process an extra detail will be more helpful in this process. Rather than the customary of the author, there is a need for more words or space in the PRISMA. Transparency and reproducibility will be available by giving more detailed information about that, and hence in the generated systematic report, the details mentioned must be limited by the authors, and if needed the summary of the report will be given and the finished protocol was referred by the readers or PROSPERO record. Following new journal rules aimed at encouraging reproducibility, this review proposes that full explanations of planned scientific details for systematic reviews are acceptable. There are several checklist elements to match how we picture them appearing in a procedure; publishing them in this order may help readers understand what's going on. If the authors feel that changing the order in which the checklist items appear is necessary, they should do so. In their protocol, authors must describe every PRISMA element.

Discussions

These discussions made use of selected articles as described in the above section. After duplicates were removed from the 80 titles and database citations loaded, just 68 remained. After evaluating the titles and abstracts, 54 were found to be appropriate for full-text examination. Of the 54 papers considered eligible, 40 were eliminated because they were unrelated, lacked full texts, or were abstract-only articles. As a result, 14 publications out of 80 were found to meet the meta-analysis’ inclusion criteria.

Original research articles were cross-sectional studies like comparative studies, random controlled trials, clinical trials, review papers, systemic reviews, and meta-analyses. Table 1 represents the effects of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Psychological Health in Sports. The table illustrates the sample of respondents, variables used for the evaluation and outcomes achieved for the respective studies.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a worldwide challenge. Meier et al . [ 61 ] reported administrations of countries and public health organizations take action most effective commendation to restrict contamination is social distancing. Further, various countries opted for mandatory lockdowns and the closing of public areas for maintaining social distancing. A greater level of mental distress was discovered as a result of changing to new protective measures, according to [ 62 ]'s research on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on public health. Further, due to this outbreak there are severe mental health disorders like increases in fear, anxiety and depression, gambling problems, sleep and eating disorders, psychological rigidity, obsessive–compulsive disorder, family conflicts, fitness concerns, sedentary lifestyle and negative habits, low mood, large intake of alcohol and drugs, self-harm attempts or suicidal behaviour, and rumination [ 13 , 51 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 ] respectively.

Due to the new standards of a pandemic, the athletes have gone through huge changes in their style of living and daily activities, communal relationships, financial-related issues, and loss of goals and satisfaction. In line with these challenges, psychological well-being cannot be isolated from both the physical and mental problems manifestations and related fundamental issues in which the outer injury and recovery may take a long time. Peluso et al . [ 71 ] stated that physical activity has valuable impacts on the control and treatment of various diseases and mental illnesses like depression and anxiety. Further, stress and physical activity effectively affect the factors which influence cardiovascular status [ 72 ]. According to De Matos et al . [ 73 ] the normal problems faced by athletes are physical training, heart diseases, and risk factors. Similarly, during the Coronavirus lockdown, athletes trained less frequently and for shorter periods, which can cause higher depression, anxiety, and stress scores. In addition, [ 74 ] reported that excessively low training load may affect psycho-social engagement among athletes by inducing training-induced physiological and physiological adaptation to aversive preparedness.

Further, McGuine et al . [ 52 ] reported less physical activity and lower quality of life due to school closures and sports cancellations during a pandemic in the USA, and for women players and team sports players’ fewer symptoms like anxiety and depression were faced. Similarly, [ 54 ] also stated that a survey before and after one month of school closure due to the pandemic reported less dissolution of their athletic identity and there is more support from the social environment and the communication between the team members is also increased. Moreover, due to the low quality of sleep and long periods of sleep, they were reported in Spanish handball players due to the decreased training intensity and volume during the pandemic period. Additionally, [ 75 ] mentioned that the numerous physical performance tests of soccer players were get affected in Brazil due to 63 days of quarantine which they conduct during their normal off-season. Furthermore, Haan et al . [ 76 ] reported in their study that Sweden athletes (elite football, ice hockey, and handball players) are concerned about their sport and their careers during this COVID crisis, along with the negative psychological impact of the pandemic.

Furthermore, during this pandemic situation, some players feel lonely and their psychological health gets affected [ 77 ]. Additional factors that have contributed to players' mental suffering include their exclusion from the athletic community, decreased training and activity, a lack of formal coaching, and a lack of social support from fans and the media [ 53 ]. Furthermore, depression, anxiety, and higher athletic identity symptoms were reported in individual and team sports athletes of Turkey and Italy during the lockdown period [ 47 , 73 ] and Uroh and Adewunmi . [ 60 ] also found that single players were more distressed rather than team players during the coronavirus pandemic. Similarly, [ 56 ] stated the negative effect of lockdown on the psychological health and life spheres among youth athletes in Spain. Likewise, individual athletes are more prone to psychological distress than team sports athletes [ 46 , 78 , 79 ]. Individual athletes are at a greater risk because in individual sports athletes are the only responsible person for their success or failure, they cannot get any support from anyone during the competition so they need to work accordingly. Thus, the present circumstance makes individual players more prone to psychological distress in compression to team sports athletes [ 80 , 81 , 82 ]. Additionally, a group of elite and semi-elite athletes from 15 different sports namely soccer, hockey, rugby, cricket, athletics, netball, basketball, endurance running, cycling, track and field, swimming, squash, golf, tennis, and karate in South Africa were examined by Pillay et al. in [ 55 ] to determine the psychological effects of the disease outbreak on their physical, nutritional, and mental health.

Although the outcomes in this study are from various sports, and geographical regions but results were reported the same from every region Athletes are suffering from mental health as well as physical challenges due to the compulsory restrictions and guidelines of this COVID-19 pandemic and during the COVID-19 outbreaks the athletes needed psychosocial services.

COVID-19 impacts on sports and athletes

Several influences were faced by the athletes and players who have long been preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. For some people, no chance is given because of immediate retirement and due to the announcement of a postponement. For instance, British rowing squad member and two-time Olympic medalist Tom Ransley announced his retirement. Eddie Dawkins, who won the silver medal in the Olympics in Rio, recently declared his retirement from the game of track cycling. However, this opportunity is used by others to continue their performance or heal from any injuries they may have experienced the temporal shift in time and rapid modification to optimise their peak. As a consequence, enthusiastic and good attitudes were maintained by the sports players [ 83 ].

Due to the loss of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly routines, the mental and outer health of the players gets affected. Many athletes lost their normal training routines when the terrible disaster struck in 2011, but the damage was still limited. Athletes carried out their training since many areas of Japan were sufficiently separated from the Fukushima prefecture without the unidentifiable effects of nuclear power plant accidents. The outbreak of COVID-19 has prompted players to stay at home in addition to forcing practically the training centre to be closed. In the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games along with other games, the qualified tournaments get cancelled which was impacted by social distancing measures implemented to prevent the spread of COVID-19. To make it more difficult to achieve a specific goal, these changes have enhanced feelings of doubt, perplexity, and frustration. The athletes work out for a long period due to the impact of practice sessions because there is no way to leave the house and engage in deep and systematic training. Due to this, there may increase in injuries, which in turn could make players feel even more doubt and frustration. Athletes may have increased anxiety due to less communication with their teammates, coaches, and other people.

On the other hand, there is information about athletes who push themselves to a limit as it hurts them and they sometimes feel it necessary to stop [ 84 ]. This type of athlete develops an "exercise dependence prevalence," according to Numanović et al.[ 85 ]research.

The individual athletes felt more stress rather than other team athletes due to this compulsive trend, which is defined by extreme exercise [ 86 ]. Athletes in individual sports are rigorous in their training and intensely focused on their competitive outcomes. The interruption of their preparation due to the limitation in training leads to stress. The roles and responsibilities were divided for the team sports. In comparison with the athletes of individual sports, the team sports participants have more confidence and they can tackle and manage stress easily. As per the frequent discussions with their teammates, the effects of the home lockdown and the confusion around them were seen as less threatening. This condition is acknowledged as a protective factor. As stated earlier, the fitness participants displayed perfection and enjoyment and performs a lot of work. By frequent behaviours like avoiding the issue (avoidance), or acting out of anger and fear they were reacted [ 87 ]. However, the team players may face low stress.

Rather than other types of athletes, the fitness performers show higher values throughout all subscale ratings.

Impacts and actions from various countries

The Health Professionals Council of South Africa has loosened its restrictions on the employment of telehealth to make it more accessible according to the review of Pillay et al. [ 55 ]. This is due to the lockdown and the dangers of COVID-19. Because of travel and financial limitations, just one in four people may contact a sports physician. To know more information about COVID-19, the athletes make use of social media and get knowledge about how effective these channels are at getting important public health messages through to a broad audience. As the healthcare professionals failed to reach the athlete community, there is a need for physicians or other evidence-based channels which were misused for this purpose.

The sports were prohibited at all levels due to COVID-19 outbreaks and the associated quarantine. Because of this situation, the Italian sports community has been subjected to unfavourable psychological pressure, which affects over a long time. Additionally, the Italian sports community is in danger for psychological health due to the psychological effects of COVID-19 outcomes, according to [ 88 ], The players from the youth and amateur levels generated a way for Olympians and professionals who were included in this, along with the supporting staffs, coaches, physical trainers, and managers.

According to [ 89 ], the medical guidelines for COVID-19 treatment in Brazil during the national soccer tournament required RT-qPCR testing of players and coaching staff preceding games and indicated that only asymptomatic players who tested negative be allowed to play.

Even though some teams and players may have less opportunity for testing because of financial inequality. Following this, athletes had a 2.5-fold higher probability of acquiring the disease if a teammate had COVID-19 and were double as likely to be tested for the illness themselves. If the test was conducted by the athlete's team, their chances of being tested will be increased (15-fold).

According to Lundquvist et al. [ 90 ], in France, the quarantine prohibits training in their place, and most of the regional, national, and international tournaments have been cancelled or delayed until further notice. Because of this the anxiety of players increased and their enthusiasm is decreased to return to sports competitions. During the lockdown, athletes had varying options for training depending on their accommodation and the amount of interaction they had with their coaches. To keep the players, motivated, the coaches of various teams scheduled daily workouts using digital tools. In other teams, the athlete's and coaches’ interaction was very rare. A few players questioned the connections and trust with their coaches and their feelings also increased. With the infection of COVID-19, some players and coaches struggled with their symptoms and felt uneasy about their isolation during the crisis. During these times, telephone-based psychological help was also provided.

Because of this lockdown, there is an increase in the negative impact on the physical and mental health of people in India since it reduces physical activity in daily life, as indicated by Jadhav et al. [ 91 ] and the continuous development of COVID-19. The ICC Men's T-20 World Cup editions for 2020 and 2021 were both postponed by one year because of the pandemics during July 2020 declaration by the International Cricket Council. The event was postponed to November 2021 and October 2022, respectively. As per the ICC's declaration on August 8th, the right to host the competition was guaranteed for India in the year 2021 and Australia in the year 2020. The 2021 Women's Cricket World Cup and its semi-final event rescheduled by 1 year as a result of the pandemic.

Based upon the estimation, to improve the country's economy, health, and education Australian sport is funded by $83 billion yearly. A priority on life skills training, ideal social climates, and increased positive results spanning social, personal, and physical sectors have all been recognised as youth sports environments' contributions to children's positive youth development on a worldwide scale. Therefore, [ 92 ] examined how COVID-19 was evaluated by various stakeholders in South Australia's youth sports, including athletes (ages 15 to 18), parents, coaches, and sports administrators.

As the English Football Association (FA) has repeatedly postponed elite men's and women's football matches, the pandemic has put new strains on them. A concern about how much it will be passed out on to elite women's clubs, as more people were already economically insecure. The financial effects of postponed games and reduced television income will be significant in men's football. To put a spotlight on the danger and uncertainty the sport was facing, [ 93 ] examined how the pandemic might affect the development of elite women's football.

The cognitive, affective, and behavioural features of athletes are greatly influenced by perfectionism, which is a significant psychological factor. Through the patterns, it is described as having expectations, perceptions, and evaluations of events, such as "setting excessively high standards, followed by overcritical self-assessment." Perfectionism is associated with a focus on higher goals and more effective performance. Because of this, Lancheva et al. 2022 examined the dominating psychic conditions and perfectionism and their connection to the preferred coping mechanisms during the COVID-19 pandemic among sports students who arrived from Bulgaria and Russia and revealed their specialization based on gender, type of sport, level of qualification, and nationality.

Fundamentals of mental health interviewing and diagnosis of athletes

Without a thorough biopsychosocial clinical assessment, it is impossible to design a management strategy for mental health illnesses and symptoms. In this overview, important details on mental health issues and illnesses in sports that are relevant to this pandemic are addressed. Due to this pandemic, worse mental health conditions and symptoms like anxiety, obsessive–compulsive disorder, PTSD, depression and even suicide attempts among the players [ 94 ], who are frequently young and thus developmental less prepared to deal with the uncertainty that the pandemic has wreaked. The athletes were usually physically active, and due to sudden quit from sports and the migration of much academic education online, some athletes have seen a sudden and significant decrease in physical activity [ 95 ]. The rapid changes might affect mental health because exercise is considered to have both anxiolytic and antidepressant properties [ 96 , 97 ]. Social isolation cancelled events and games and the ensuing uncertainty over how to adjust training schedules, loss of income, loss of training facilities and access to trainers, teammates, and coaches, family infection risks, disruption of daily routines and self-care, anxiety about contracting COVID-19 at sporting events or otherwise, and persistent community distress and additional relevant factors in the mental deterioration health symptoms and disorders in athletes. Because of the changes in sports, professional players get affected mentally (such as those who had planned to retire after 2020 or those who were in their final season of collegiate competition), the pandemic-related sport suspension could mean sport retirement, which could be a particularly difficult transition. Without any willingness, ness if a person gets retired, then there is no plan for this retirement, no support from others and there was a higher level of athlete identity, their mental health may suffer [ 98 ]. Numerous of those unfavourable prognostic variables are probably linked to COVID-19-related retirement from sports.

If a person decides to restart the sport, he may face a lot of stress and anxiety. Due to the return of pandemic training levels, there is an increase in the risk of injury and the play procedures for athletes were returned who previously had COVID-19 that contain a cardiovascular assessment, which has been reported to cause anxiety in certain athletes [ 99 ]. Trust and collaboration during sporting events [ 100 ] get affected because of the tactile communication such as giving high fives or pats on the back which has historically been crucial among teammates, but the athletes must need to get back in later days.

Healthcare professionals may identify new mental health conditions among the players at this time because of the contextual stresses [ 101 ], but they should be careful not to assign pathologies to normal and not to combat the stress which results in distress or dysfunction. Virtual appointments may be used for a variety of purposes. The diagnosis of a fresh case of ADHD, however, is more difficult to determine without a physical examination. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) states that certain symptoms for such a diagnosis must have been present before the age of 12 [ 102 ], even though were not aware of the player. Stimulants are not authorized when certain diagnostic requirements are met, according to the NCAA, WADA, and some professional sports leagues. According to the NCAA, the usage of ADHD rating scales is one of the major needs for the use of medications [ 103 ] But according to WADA, "there should ideally be a reference in the diagnostic assessment to use allowed diagnostic instruments." There is a challenging test conducted digitally because it can be time-consuming and complex. The athletes should be informed if any changes are happening in the timescales for the identification of disease, and virtual solutions should be investigated if possible.

In the time of the pandemic, the evaluation for suicidal behaviour is essential, and the linked crisis planning influences the management of a cure for the player, particularly for the degree of care advised. Although definitive data are not yet available, some people worry that the pandemic may raise the probability of suicide [ 104 ]. Social isolation, financial struggles, and difficulties to gain standard mental health care during the pandemic are a few factors which will enhance the risk which must be investigated. Firearms sales were used in large numbers in recent days in several countries and providers who are worried about the safety of players in mental health should investigate access to firearms. Guns are linked to an increased risk of suicide even if they are not bought to kill one [ 105 ]. To control the other suicide methods (e.g., excessive medication, and access to high buildings), a suicide risk analysis should be carried out. There is a large number of suicide attempts during the late spring in the Northern Hemisphere and during the effects of COVID-19, it is relatively high, especially during spring and summer sports.

Psychological aspects of return to sport after COVID-19

During the final events of athletes, individual and team training has been hindered which harms the mental health of players during the quarantine and come to a mindset to play again. Athletes are currently dealing with issues like social isolation, career disruption, and restricted access to training environments and instructors, which can harm their general well-being and result in a terrible performance, according to a Simons et al. editorial [ 106 ]. The debate has emerged about the potential that some athletes may have the benefits of training or disadvantage depending on the region due to variations in the degree of confinement around the world. If the athlete is not aware of when to complete the training and competition then he may face tension, anxiety, and sadness. Several surveys say that popular athletes have overcome depression in the baseline similar to the general population. [ 107 ] found that group training greatly increased pain tolerance and may have boosted the types of activity in comparison with taking training alone. During the period of outbreak, the National Alliance on Mental Illness has generated several recommendations namely [ 108 ] (1) a structured work environment, (2) attire and structured breaks which is a normal routine, (3) continuous physical workout with “mindfulness” along with quiet time and deep breathing, (4) safe of self-talk, conversation with other people, nutrition, creating a daily routine for the normal day, (5) available among the friends, family, and colleagues, (6) making use of video tools to connect manually, (7) referring the National Alliance on Mental Health Illness.

During the period of isolation and less exercise among the team, the ideas and guidelines were used which were provided by National Alliance on Mental Health organization and it was taken as a reference.

Throughout the world, there are more effects raised due to this COVID-19 outbreak in the field of sports as well as it also affects the physical activity of sportspersons and other players. Enormous effects of COVID-19 were realized not only in the world of athletics, but also in society, as a result of which businesses, workplaces, social engagements, universities, and educational institutions had to close down quickly. Globally, few longitudinal studies compared mental health before and during COVID-19 and found an increase in anxiety and depression symptoms. However, the majority of significant outdoor and indoor athletic events at the world, regional, and national levels have been cancelled or postponed as a result of COVID-19. The health of all the people around the world gets affected by COVID-19. The present situation requires raising awareness in public, which can be helpful to deal with this calamity. This perspective article provides a detailed overview of the effects of the COVID‐19 outbreak on the mental health of people. An effective plan to safeguard the mental health of this already vulnerable population of athletes is crucial. As sportspeople and athletes are significantly affected by mental disease, this study focuses on mental health, psychological responses, and suffering among them. This study's review includes a selection of articles based on PRISMA meta-analysis. Out of 80 papers found using Research Gate, PubMed, Google Scholar, Springer, Scopus, and Web of Science, 14 articles relevant to the literature were chosen. Furthermore, these selected papers are used in the discussions.

Several risk factors have been identified such as mental and cardiovascular disease in athletes which results in stresses like isolation, a lack of exercise, a low income, and fear of losing their jobs. The stress leads to COVID-19 exposure. To fight the coronavirus outbreak, organizations for occupational therapy and psychosocial stressors and their health will get affected. Many millions of jobs are at stake worldwide as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown, not just for sports professionals but also for individuals in allied retail and athletic services businesses associated with leagues and tournaments. Essentially, the evidence presented in this study supports the hypothesis that the pandemic affects mental health problems in sportsmen. Athletes' mental health concerns are exacerbated by a lack of training, needed physical activity, practise sessions, and teamwork with teammates and coaching staff. The beneficial effects of physical exercise in improving quality of life and well-being have been extensively documented. An adapted physical activity program may represent an important factor to prevent COVID-19 infection, as well as a useful complementary tool to improve the physical and psychological outcomes of COVID-19-affected patients. A suitable exercise program may strengthen the athletes, providing immune protection in the long term and reducing treatment costs. The influence on sports and athletes, the impact on various nations, basic concerns of mental health and diagnosis for sportspeople and athletes, and the COVID-19 pandemic's afterlife for them were all explored in the review. The findings showed that COVID-19 has an impact on elite athletes’ mental health and was linked with stress, anxiety and psychological distress. The magnitude of the impact was associated with athletes’ mood state profile, personality and resilience capacity. Therefore, strongly believe that the findings from this review would help athletes in addressing and mitigating the rise in mental health disorders, which could prove worse than the current pandemic itself. Based on the findings of this study, it was concluded that the athletes of different sports and geographical regions are suffering from mental health issues due to the compulsory restrictions and guidelines of this COVID-19 outbreak.

Future application

Pandemic isolation has created immense pressure on athletes to regulate their training, execute their specific plans, maintain their social networks, to participate in targeted sports events and tournaments, respectively. Further, a finding of this study will support the professionals to prepare or establish specific psychological programmes to motivate and enables athletes to regulate their normal practices during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Relevance for clinical practice

This study was to review the shreds of evidence for the effect of a COVID-19 outbreak on mental health in sports. The findings of the study concluded that the athletes of different sports and geographical regions are suffering from mental health issues due to the compulsory restrictions and guidelines of this COVID-19 outbreak.

Data availability

Data sharing does not apply to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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Shukla, A., Dogra, D.K., Bhattacharya, D. et al. Impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the mental health in sports: a review. Sport Sci Health 19 , 1043–1057 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-023-01063-x

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The Kim Mulkey way

The lsu coach holds grudges, battles everyone — and keeps winning. but at what cost.

TICKFAW, La. — In the two sisters’ minds, the old house remains as it was: a one-story brick ranch a hundred yards off the road, white fence under two ancient oaks, tin roof long before it all caved in.

Their father built on the farmland he had inherited. Dug a swimming pool, poured the concrete for a basketball court, carved two softball fields into pasture. His two girls, born less than a year apart, would grow up running and hiding and disappearing among the pines.

“I just miss the memories,” Tammy, the 60-year-old younger sister, says.

They’re in the backyard in her favorite, shooting baskets with Daddy by starlight. It feels so real, she says. So precious and warm.

“I wish I could have it all back,” she says.

FIFTY MILES SOUTH AND WEST , a massive crowd is here to watch the older sister, to wear sequins like her, to cheer on her team. Five decades have passed since Kim Mulkey’s father first bounced a basketball to his daughters, explaining the keys to victory.

Speed. Stamina. Grit.

The game itself hasn’t changed much, but everything else around Mulkey has. It’s a Sunday in early March, the same day Pete Maravich’s 54-year-old career scoring record will fall. More than 13,000 people are packed into the LSU arena named for Maravich, and Tigers alumnus and former NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal is in the tunnel. He’s wearing a T-shirt with a picture of star LSU forward Angel Reese on the front and her nickname, “Bayou Barbie,” in hot pink letters on the back.

Reese strolls onto the floor. Fans chant “One more year!” pleading with her to stay in college. And because the value of her name, image and likeness (NIL) rights is estimated to be worth multiples more than the $240,000 WNBA maximum salary, she just might.

“Times are different,” Mulkey will say in a news conference following the game. “You can be beautiful. You can be talented. You can be tough. You can be you.”

Few live that last part more than Mulkey, who wears feathers almost as dramatically as she ruffles them. Her outfits during games are legendary, and during last year’s NCAA tournament , fans wanted to see Reese and her teammates tear through the bracket, sure. But they also wanted to see what their coach might wear, say or do next.

She explodes at officials and is suspicious of reporters. Mulkey declined repeated interview requests for this story, and after LSU received an email from The Washington Post seeking comment on various elements of this story, she used two NCAA tournament news conferences to take aim at The Post’s reporting , threatening legal action in the event of “a false story.” LSU declined to comment.

“Not many people are in a position to hold these kinds of journalists accountable,” she said. “But I am, and I’ll do it.”

It’s by no means her first or most high-profile controversy. In 2013, the NCAA suspended Mulkey for a tournament game after she criticized referees. She later publicly defended Baylor, her former employer, amid a sexual assault scandal in its football program. In November, she told reporters after a road game that they could blame her if they were sick at Thanksgiving.

“I ain’t a sissy,” she said , holding a tissue and choking back sniffles. “I’ve got some kind of cold. It might be covid, but I ain’t testing.”

She is also known to hold grudges and clash with players, including about their appearances and displays of their sexuality, according to interviews with former players and news reports . Mulkey and Brittney Griner, the coach’s biggest star at Baylor, have feuded for more than a decade. And while Griner’s 294-day detainment in a Russian prison eventually required White House intervention, it wasn’t enough to ease tension long after Griner first said Mulkey encouraged gay players to hide their sexuality and “keep your business behind closed doors,” Griner wrote in her memoir.

“Kim Mulkey is an amazing coach; the reason I went to Baylor is because of her,” says Kelli Griffin, who played for Mulkey from 2007 to 2010. But, Griffin says, “She made my life hell” by drawing attention to Griffin’s clothes and issuing a suspension that ultimately ended the player’s career. And she believes it started after Mulkey found out she was gay.

Mulkey’s attorneys, in letters to The Post, denied that Mulkey treated gay players “more harshly or differently.” They provided an affidavit from former Baylor player Morghan Medlock, who said that she was in a relationship with Griffin and that she never witnessed Mulkey mistreat Griffin or other gay athletes. Former Baylor and LSU player Alexis Morris put it more bluntly to ESPN: “Coach Mulkey is not homophobic.”

Mulkey, in a 2013 interview with OutSports , insisted that she didn’t care about players’ sexuality and wouldn’t ask them about it.

“I don’t think it’s anybody’s business,” she said then. “Whoever you are. I don’t care to know that.”

Her conflicts with star players are over other issues too, though, and they have continued at LSU, even as players’ leverage and celebrity swell. She benched Reese for four games this season for reasons the coach refused to explain, weeks after appearing to call out Reese for a poor shooting performance. (Reese did not respond to messages from The Post seeking comment.) Mulkey told a supporter last year that Reese had been left off an awards list because of her GPA, according to email obtained via public records request by The Post. In another email, Mulkey complained that Reese was one of several players who “stay on that social media crap.”

Mulkey is many things, among them a 5-foot-4 hoops whisperer, an exceptional teacher , a coach willing to dive deeply into players’ emotions to push them past their preconceived limits. She is also one of college basketball’s most colorful personalities, viewed by some as an almost cartoonishly ornery supervillain. Regardless, as the women’s game finally takes center stage, she is an essential part of the show. In last year’s national championship game, she wore a sequined, technicolor ensemble and unfurled the best game plan of her life.

LSU forced Iowa star Caitlin Clark to battle for every shot, every touch, every step. The Tigers shut off access to the lane, allowing Clark to be predictably lethal from long range but otherwise one-dimensional, enough for LSU’s blowout win and one achievement that eluded even Shaq and “Pistol Pete”: a national title.

It was Mulkey’s seventh as a player or coach, and even in victory she was sarcastic and prickly.

“Coaches are hollering, ‘Get off the court,’ ” Mulkey snapped after winning the 2023 tournament, her fourth title as a head coach. “And I said: ‘Don’t tell me what to do; I’m fixing to win another championship.’ ”

Coaches don’t win 723 games, reach five Final Fours and hang around this long by being cuddly. Mulkey isn’t your grandmother or your mascot, and while everyone else is fighting for women’s basketball, she’s fighting against something because it’s the fight that drives her. Even if you played for her, won for her, loved her.

“I’ll just say she doesn’t care about winning the popularity contest among coaches,” longtime Texas A&M coach Gary Blair says. “She wouldn’t want to.”

So, yes, all of this — the sold-out arenas, television ratings, attention — is well and good. A fire is finally rising in the women’s game.

Where have you been?

Because Mulkey is the fire, and she has been burning for 40 years, too busy laying waste to everything and everyone in her path to be impressed by Clark, Shaq or anyone else trying to soak in this storybook moment.

BACK WHEN THE FOOTAGE was grainy, if it existed at all, she was poetry in pigtails: whirling passes behind her back, between her legs, past opponents. Sonja Hogg knew Louisiana Tech would be getting speed and grit when she recruited Mulkey, but was it too much to hope for more?

“I thought maybe she’d grow a little bit,” Hogg says now.

No such luck, but in the early 1980s, women’s basketball teams took what they could get. There was no money for private jets or elaborate team dinners, so the Lady Techsters dined on fast food on bus rides to Texas and Oklahoma. And not even the nice bus. That one was reserved for the men’s team, leaving only the “Blue Goose,” such a rattletrap that the travel itinerary built in extra time for breakdowns.

Home games were social affairs, and everyone wanted to see the newest member of Hogg’s quintet. A point guard raining down 30 shots per game, as Clark sometimes does, would have been unseemly anywhere in 1982. But at Louisiana Tech, coaches just wouldn’t have allowed it. Mulkey’s job was to run the offense, distribute the ball, do things precisely Hogg’s way.

The right way.

Hogg (rhymes with “rogue”) was the visionary, the strategist, the program’s good cop. Assistant coach Leon Barmore was the hard-ass. Fit in, do right or go see the enforcer for a profanity-laced rant or a date with the arena stairs.

“Back in the day,” former Louisiana Tech player Mickie DeMoss says, “they didn’t have to explain why. You get there, or you’re going to run.”

Louisianans drove hours to watch the Lady Techsters, so named because the men’s mascot was the Bulldogs and, as Hogg once pointed out, “a lady dog is a bitch.” Hogg required her players to be ladylike, and little girls wore their hair braided like Mulkey’s as they squeezed into Memorial Gym. The arena could fit 5,200, but Hogg says if she greased the Ruston fire marshal with tickets, he would allow in a thousand more.

Because Hogg put on a show . Tennessee’s Pat Summitt wore pantsuits. Ohio State’s Tara VanDerveer donned sweaters. Cheyney’s C. Vivian Stringer occasionally wore a skirt. Hogg drove a white Cadillac, wore beaver skin or mink, styled her platinum hair into a towering meringue.

“I couldn’t be dragging around in some sweatsuit,” she says now. “I mean, I wore warmups during practice and tennis shoes and whatever, but gah -lee , you don’t do that on the sideline .”

Louisiana Tech smoked Tennessee in the 1982 Final Four , stirring whispers that Summitt was a fine coach but a choker in big games, and met Cheyney in the final. Hogg directed traffic in a dusty rose and light pink blouse, shell necklace and wool crepe pants as Stringer’s press initially put Louisiana Tech in a sleeper hold.

But Mulkey had the speed to break the press, crash the lane, lay it in. The smarts to recognize when a defender dropped into a zone before pulling up to drain one from deep. Hogg and Barmore freed Mulkey up to riff because she had the conditioning to let her ignore fatigue and continue punishing her opponents, choking them out, stomping the court and beaming as time expired. Tech won by 14, and Mulkey got hooked on winning NCAA championships after one taste.

“She looked like a cheerleader jumping,” Hogg recalls of Mulkey, who went 130-6 as a college player and reached the Final Four every year. “She wants perfection. That’s what she was always seeking.”

AS SOON AS LES MULKEY got out of the Marine Corps in 1963, he started clearing: strawberry vines, bushes, weeds and juvenile pines, even dairy cows from the playing surfaces he had been imagining for six years.

His father had given his two sons 25 acres to share off a highway in Tangipahoa Parish. Les’s younger brother planned to raise horses on his half. Les liked competition, one way to channel his overflowing energy, and if all went right, he would soon be hosting weekend softball tournaments and pickup basketball games.

Les signed Kim up to play youth baseball, then took the league to court when it refused to admit a girl, she later wrote. She made all-stars the next year. He took his daughters with him to play weeknight hoops, and if his team was a man down, he would draft Kim.

“ Her ?” an opponent once asked.

“You scared?” Les said.

A lifelong LSU fan, he hoped Kim would play college basketball for the Ben-Gals, as they were initially known. But when she picked Tech, he made the four-hour trip to Ruston for home games, slipping into the gym and fading into the crowd to watch his little girl.

“He was so proud of me,” Kim wrote, “and I was so proud that he was my dad.”

Some nights, though, there were no games. Les and Dru, Kim’s mom, went dancing sometimes. Other nights he would go drinking as he used to in the Corps, he says, ending up in another woman’s bed. With his daughters in college, Les left Dru and married another woman. She wasn’t much older than Tammy and Kim.

In 1987, the WNBA was a decade away. After playing at Tech, Mulkey moved down the bench as an assistant coach. And a few years after that, she wrote, her boyfriend and a colleague in the athletic department, Randy Robertson, presented her a jack-in-the-box with an engagement ring inside. He was popular and gregarious. She hated parties and crowds, had never taken a sip of alcohol. She said yes anyway, planning to toast with 7 Up at the wedding.

Les packed his tuxedo and made the familiar drive to Ruston. His new wife could attend, Kim advised, but only if she sat in the rear, away from the family. The way Kim saw it, sister Tammy says, her dad hadn’t just walked out on his family. He had quit on the people who depended on him, the worst thing a person can do.

Through her attorneys, Mulkey derided The Post for contacting family members, saying they did not “relate in any way to her career.” But Mulkey herself wrote about her dad’s infidelity and their estrangement in her 2007 autobiography, “Won’t Back Down.”

“His unfaithfulness to my mother devastated our entire family,” she wrote.

Still, Les figured, if he talked to her in person, Kim would come to her senses. But she wouldn’t budge. Neither would Les. His daughter walked down the aisle alone.

They haven’t spoken since.

CAN YOU IMAGINE KIM MULKEY begging? For anything? She says it happened in 2000, when she dropped to her knees before Louisiana Tech President Daniel Reneau.

Hogg was gone, but Barmore and Mulkey kept the Techsters machine humming: seven more Final Fours and the 1988 championship. Barmore was an unrelenting competitor, and by the end of the 1999-2000 season, he and Mulkey were butting heads more often. After he called her out in front of the team, she later wrote, Mulkey reached a breaking point. She requested a transfer to a different department as she searched for a new coaching job, and Barmore apologized and stepped down. He lobbied for Mulkey to get a shot.

Reneau was willing to consider it, but he offered only a three-year contract. Mulkey, then 37, wanted five. When they met in the president’s office, Mulkey wrote: “I got out of my chair, onto my knees, and begged that man for a five-year contract. Tears were flying everywhere.” (Reneau did not return calls and messages seeking comment.)

Few things are more important to Mulkey than loyalty, codified during the 1984 Olympics . Mulkey had broken her foot and expected to be sent home, but Summitt, the Tennessee legend, declared that Mulkey had earned her spot. Team USA won the gold medal, and Mulkey forever saw Summitt as a mentor and friend.

Reneau showed no such commitment.

“I just wanted Dan Reneau to say, ‘Hey, Kim, you know we’ll take care of you, you’re one of us,’ ” Mulkey wrote. “But the man was so cold.”

She took the job at Baylor, replacing Hogg, of all people. Mulkey said later that she never spoke to Reneau again.

AT BAYLOR’S FIRST CONDITIONING SESSION under its new coach, in the spring of 2000, forward Danielle Crockrom says, Mulkey approached and collected a fistful of the exhausted player’s jersey.

“Push past this point,” she says Mulkey told her, “and you’ll be an all-American.”

But team captain? Not now, maybe not ever, Crockrom recalls being told. Because, according to Crockrom’s telling, Mulkey knew the player had gotten burned out the previous season and stepped away for two weeks. She had quit. On her teammates, her coaches, herself. Then she had gone to Baylor’s athletic director to complain about Hogg and the team’s direction, Crockrom says now, leading to the staff shake-up.

Mulkey blew the whistle, ordering more sprints, reminding everyone, Crockrom says, that she had set the wheels of agony in motion by complaining.

“Be careful what you ask for,” Crockrom says. She wouldn’t fully understand the purpose until later. “This is what you need to be disrupted, to pull out the potential in you. I had potential in me that I hadn’t even begun to scratch.”

That season, Baylor won 21 games and reached the NCAA tournament for the first time. Crockrom was indeed named an all-American. The Bears lost in the first round, though, and Mulkey told players this was only the beginning. “We might have raised the bar too early,” Mulkey said with a chuckle after the loss.

There was more work to do, even if that meant Mulkey’s process wasn’t for everyone.

“The weeding-out process,” Crockrom says.

Mulkey handed out playbooks, Crockrom says, then yanked them away. She made the team run her plays again and again until calls resulted in a Pavlovian, muscle-memory response. Crockrom says Mulkey made post players keep pace with guards, using structured failure to push beyond physical and emotional barriers. She scheduled more and more conditioning sessions, one starting earlier than the last.

Because know who else was up and grinding? VanDerveer at Stanford. Geno Auriemma at Connecticut. Summitt at Tennessee. All were building perennial championship contenders as the women’s game competed for eyeballs on the increasingly crowded sports landscape. Lisa Leslie could dunk; Candace Parker could throw down against boys; Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi anchored a U-Conn. team that couldn’t lose.

Mulkey paid special attention to Summitt, whom coaching peers praised not just for doing things the proverbial right way but her way, establishing a standard and a recruiting pipeline and a juggernaut, all while raising a son.

Back when she was still an assistant, Mulkey had leaned on Summitt when she and Randy learned, in 1991, they were expecting a baby girl. She was running Louisiana Tech’s summer camp at the time, plus overseeing academics and acting as recruiting coordinator. She was “in a depression,” she would tell the Dallas Morning News in 2012 , and thought it would be impossible to add a daughter to the mix, especially when —

Summitt interjected.

You can , she told her. It’s possible to be a great coach and a great mother .

Mulkey believed Summitt, always her North Star, and took Makenzie on a recruiting trip when she was two weeks old. She breastfed Kramer, the couple’s infant son, before and after practices and games. Mulkey wrote that, by the time they moved to Waco, the kids had learned to give their mom space, especially after losses, and stop asking why she cussed so much.

She leaned into the things that made her at Louisiana Tech because those things won. Only she sometimes played the roles of Hogg and Barmore: approachable emissary while handing out stuffed bears at Waco bingo halls and nursing homes, a former Baylor colleague says, and ruthless taskmaster who, according to multiple former players, might single out anyone who seemed distracted or was having a tough day.

“If you’re having a hard time with something or you’re not performing at the level that she would like you to be, then get ready,” says Emily Niemann, a swing player who joined the team in 2003. “Because there’s no holding back.”

Niemann’s vertical jump was a mere 13 inches, and she says Mulkey brought it up constantly, instructing the team not to throw Niemann a lob pass because she wouldn’t catch it. Sometimes Mulkey’s comments felt like a joke, Niemann says; other times she felt humiliated.

In the 2004 NCAA tournament, fourth-seeded Baylor ran into Tennessee in the Sweet 16. The teams were tied as time expired, but officials huddled and determined that Baylor’s Jessika Stratton had fouled Tasha Butts. After Butts made two free throws, Summitt’s team advanced.

Mulkey never mentioned the loss again. The team nonetheless remembered, and the next season, Baylor crushed NCAA tournament opponents by an average of 15 points. Niemann made five three-pointers in a title-game beatdown of Michigan State.

“She’s so locked in and intense that it trickles down to everybody,” Niemann says. “And when you have a whole team of people where every loose ball matters, every deflection matters, every block-out, every trip down the floor — everything matters.

“It’s emotionally draining. On the other hand, it gets results.”

THREE MONTHS LATER, Niemann says, Mulkey summoned her to the coach’s office. The player had been seen around Waco with a woman, and people had begun murmuring about her sexuality.

“It’s not a good look,” Niemann says Mulkey told her. Baylor is the world’s largest Baptist university, and its policy still prohibits premarital sex and defines marriage as between a man and woman. Mulkey advised Niemann to be careful because the program would be watching.

For months, Niemann had struggled with questions about her identity, slowly coming to grips with being queer, she says. The product of a conservative home in Houston, a graduate of a Christian school and now a player at Baylor, she found many of her feelings were in conflict with her surroundings.

“I can’t talk to anyone,” she says now. “I couldn’t find a way to make things feel right.”

She was thinking of transferring, Niemann says, and met with Mulkey and her parents about it. Mulkey was flabbergasted, the coach wrote in her memoir, adding that among Niemann’s reasons for wanting to leave Baylor was that Mulkey was sometimes too hard on players.

“This is how I do what I do,” Niemann recalls the coach saying. “And if you can’t take it, maybe you should leave.”

Niemann left. Later, she wrote that she “did not leave Baylor because coach Mulkey is homophobic.” The coach, Niemann wrote, was only expressing opinions that were the “dominant belief system” on campus.

Mulkey wrote about Niemann in her memoir, suggesting that “unhappiness comes from within one’s soul” and that Niemann’s experience was an isolated case.

Other players point out that hard coaching is a key driver of Mulkey’s success, even as her peers go softer amid the shifting power dynamics of college sports. For Mulkey, players say, that often extends to comments about players’ hairstyles, tattoos and makeup.

“She hates my different hair colors,” former Bears guard DiDi Richards says. “ ‘Why is your hair purple?’ ‘Are you going to wear them two ponytails?’ If you would change the color, she’d go, ‘You and these damn colors.’ ” The comments came from a place of affection, Richards believes. They could get personal, too, though Richards says they show how Mulkey pushes players, physically and emotionally, in pursuit of wins.

Mulkey’s attorneys described the comments as “good-natured banter, as often happens on and around the court.”

A few months after Baylor’s first championship, Mulkey’s husband told her he felt neglected. They attended couples counseling, Mulkey would write, and she offered to leave coaching. Robertson nonetheless wanted to end their marriage. “I told Randy … that he better be sure,” Mulkey wrote, “because there was no turning back.” (Robertson did not respond to an email.)

By this point, those in Mulkey’s orbit had learned that disloyalty could result in harsh consequences. Les Mulkey sent notes to his daughter, pleading for reconciliation, but Mulkey wrote that she returned them unread. After Reneau, the former Louisiana Tech president, sent Mulkey a message congratulating her on the national championship, Mulkey would say later, it sat unopened on her desk for years.

“Talk to that man?” she told the Dallas Morning News in 2012. “That’s not who I am.”

AT BAYLOR, MULKEY IMPORTED a layer of trust by surrounding herself with past allies: Barmore, who came out of retirement to be an assistant coach; a longtime Louisiana Tech booster to oversee Baylor’s budget and travel; and a former Techsters team manager to handle recruiting.

Everything Mulkey did, at least as it related to basketball, worked: two Sweet 16s in five years and, in 2010, another Final Four. Texas kids dreamed of wearing the green and gold, and when Kelli Griffin was in seventh grade, she wrote a paper about someday leaving Houston to play for Kim Mulkey.

Griffin had come out in high school, but though she and Mulkey never explicitly discussed her sexuality while she was being recruited, Griffin says now that it was “obvious” and that she assumed Mulkey knew. She promised Griffin’s mother, Madine, that Baylor was a “family” and that she would protect Kelli.

Not long after Griffin arrived on campus, she says, Mulkey began asking why she dressed like a boy: baggy jeans, basketball shorts, sweats. A lady, Griffin says the coach told her, wears a dress. “Okay, this lady might not like gay people,” Griffin recalls thinking.

She considered transferring, but in 2008, one of Griffin’s friends and former AAU teammates committed to Baylor. Brittney Griner was a 6-foot-8 phenom and YouTube dunking sensation who, not long after reporting to campus, grabbed a rebound, glided the length of the court with the ball, then dunked it.

“Dang, Kim,” Barmore said in an interview. “I think we’ve got something here.”

Griner is gay, but she didn’t come out publicly until 2013, after her final game at Baylor. Still, whenever Mulkey sensed Griner was distracted or stressed, Mulkey blamed “girlfriend problems,” Griner later wrote, even if Griner wasn’t dating anyone. “She sounded like she was speaking a foreign language,” Griner wrote.

“Maybe she would have understood me better,” Griner wrote, “if I had shared more with her, but there was always a little bit of a disconnect with us, because I never really knew if Kim fully accepted me for who I am.”

Mulkey also called out players if they gained weight, instructing the team’s strength coach to conduct weigh-ins in front of the team, according to Griffin and another player. Players weren’t to bring non-basketball matters to Mulkey, they say, encouraged to confide in assistant coaches instead. And Niemann and multiple other former players say shame was a frequent tool in Mulkey’s coaching arsenal, whether during practice drills or in addresses to the team. Some of these former players spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fears of retaliation in the close-knit women’s basketball community.

Mulkey’s attorneys said the former players’ allegations were too vague to respond to.

Mulkey didn’t like the stars tattooed on Griner’s shoulders because, the player later wrote, they sent the “wrong message.” Griner pacified her coach by wearing a T-shirt under her jersey.

“It seemed like all she cared about was the image of the program as seen through the eyes of a very specific segment of the population,” Griner wrote. “Just once, I wanted her to stop worrying about what everyone else thought and stand by my side.”

In 2010, Griffin was the second-ranked Bears’ starting point guard. One night, Griffin says, an ex-girlfriend and Bears teammate showed up at Griffin’s home, and a fight broke out.

Griffin says she called Mulkey to report the incident, and the next morning, Mulkey announced that Griffin would be suspended indefinitely. The teammate, whom Griffin wouldn’t identify to The Post because, she said, the teammate had not come out as gay, wasn’t punished, according to Griffin. In a separate interview, Griffin’s mom, Madine, also recalled that the other player wasn’t suspended.

Griffin says she confronted Mulkey to ask why she was being penalized and that Mulkey told her she was owed no explanation.

“I thought I did everything I was supposed to,” she says.

After The Post asked Mulkey’s representatives about these events, they provided a statement from the former player, Morghan Medlock, who was in a relationship with Griffin at the time. Medlock claimed Griffin was actually suspended for using marijuana.

In a phone interview the next day, Medlock reiterated that Mulkey “never knew” there had been an altercation between Griffin and Medlock. Griffin just stopped coming to practice, Medlock said. Medlock said she did not remember how she learned the reason Griffin was suspended.

Medlock said she decided to give the statement after receiving a call this week from an individual who falsely claimed Griffin had identified Medlock to The Post.

“If my name never came up, I wouldn’t be on the phone with you right now,” she said. Medlock would not reveal who had contacted her and refused to say when she had last spoken with Mulkey.

“What difference does it make?” she said. “How I got the information, who I got it from, where I got it, that doesn’t matter.”

She then ended the call.

Griffin maintains that she was not suspended for drugs and that she didn’t use marijuana in college. The Baylor women’s basketball spokeswoman from 2010, who’s now retired, told The Post in a text message Wednesday that she was “not privy” to the reason for Griffin’s suspension. Baylor’s current spokesman declined to comment on this and other elements of this article.

Griffin says she told assistant coach Damion McKinney that she intended to transfer because, Griffin says, “I couldn’t play for Kim anymore.” (McKinney did not respond to messages seeking comment.)

But transferring wouldn’t be easy. Long before the NCAA, in 2021, introduced the transfer portal, allowing players to come and go among schools without penalty, players generally needed to be released by one school before pursuing a transfer to another.

Four days after appearing in an exhibition game, the Baylor program released a statement to the media. It didn’t say Griffin intended to transfer.

It said she “quit.”

YEARS PASSED, AND WITH KIM and Tammy grown and gone and their dad starting over, pine seedlings took root on the softball fields. The walls of the pool collapsed and got filled in. The basketball goal was cut down and hauled away. Trash collected on the concrete slab, once the site of late-night competitions; cans rusted; and discarded shoes became waterlogged, becoming moldy and deformed. Someone spray-painted KEEP OUT on a sheet of corrugated metal that replaced a wall, wood beams rotted, pipes sunk into the earth.

The pines matured and swallowed the fields, grass grew, and weeds sprouted, flowered and spread. After nearly four decades, the overgrowth had narrowed the property’s walking paths and obscured the driveway.

The woods had retaken their land, and any evidence that a family had ever been here was gone.

IN SPRING 2016, MULKEY’S SON , who’s now 29, convinced her it was time to go see Summitt . The legendary Tennessee coach, perhaps Mulkey’s dearest friend in coaching, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease five years earlier.

Summitt was in a senior living facility in Knoxville, and Mulkey knew what visiting her meant. Kim kept saying “I love ya,” she would tell reporters later, and Pat kept saying it back. Four weeks later, Summitt was gone.

This was the same year that Baylor fired football coach Art Briles after a damning investigation of the football program’s coverup of at least 17 acts of sexual or domestic assault by 19 players. Mulkey went on the attack. She snapped at reporters who brought up the scandal, saying she was “tired of hearing” about it, then turned a postgame speech after her 500th career win into a pulpit.

“If somebody is around you and they ever say, ‘I will never send my daughter to Baylor,’ you knock them right in the face,” she said. Mulkey later apologized.

The school’s leaders, many of whom had been brought in to restore the school’s reputation, found themselves dealing with new headaches involving Mulkey. Even before Baylor announced plans to replace the old Ferrell Center with a new arena, Mulkey told peers that she expected the court to be named for her.

Baylor declined The Post’s requests to interview Athletic Director Mack Rhoades and school president Linda Livingstone.

Mulkey distanced herself further from players whose time at Baylor had ended abruptly or unexpectedly. When Niemann returned to campus for a celebration of Baylor’s 2005 championship, it was an important step in her process of healing, she says.

“I wanted to go back to the place,” Niemann says, “and step back into that gym and re-engage with that community and not have my head held down in shame. That’s what I needed to do: This is me; this is who I am. I did some awesome things, I made some poor decisions, and this is still a part of my life.”

Niemann found Mulkey and approached her. Niemann says she thanked her former coach for the impact she had made on her life and said she was sorry for the way things ended.

Niemann said Mulkey said nothing and walked away.

“There was just nothing there,” she says. “There was no warmth. There was no nothing.”

Three months after Mulkey contracted the coronavirus in 2021, forcing the cancellation of a home game against U-Conn., she urged the NCAA to “dump” testing for the virus . A few weeks later, Mulkey approached Baylor administrators to let them know she had an offer from LSU. She planned to accept unless Baylor gave her a better deal.

In a decision that rocked the industry, the school made no counteroffer.

ONE MONDAY MORNING IN 2022 , LSU players arrived at the basketball facility and were greeted with an unusual directive: Turn off your phones and put them in the other room.

Mulkey went ballistic. Days earlier, two LSU players had gotten into a fight. Teammates got between them, but the two kept at it, with spit flying and glass thrown. The scene had unfolded in front of a group of visiting recruits.

“My regret in this life,” one of the people present says, “I didn’t record this meeting.”

That was impossible, though, because at Baylor and now at LSU, former players say, staffers sometimes mitigated the risk of Mulkey’s tirades being recorded by barring phones from the room. (Mulkey’s attorneys did not address this incident in their responses to The Post.)

It had been a tense year already. Earlier in 2022, Griner, now starring for the Phoenix Mercury, was detained at an airport in Russia , where, like many WNBA players, she supplemented her earnings by playing overseas. Officials claimed she had vape cartridges containing hashish oil in her luggage.

WNBA players wore Griner’s No. 42 during the All-Star Game, and Seattle Storm player Sue Bird pleaded for Griner to be released. NBA star Stephen Curry spoke out in support of Griner, and President Biden signed an executive order threatening sanctions on any government that wrongfully detained Americans.

It was as if everyone was discussing Griner’s plight. Everyone, that is, except Griner’s college coach.

“And you won’t,” Mulkey shot back at a reporter who said he hadn’t seen her comment on the situation.

Whatever the root of their beef, it had intensified enough that Mulkey would rarely say Griner’s name. She made an exception in June 2022, when Mulkey appeared on the “Tiger Rag” radio show.

“I pray for Brittney,” Mulkey said. “I want her home safely. I think there’s lots of people speaking out on her behalf, and those of us who don’t necessarily speak publicly about it certainly are praying for her.”

Still, former LSU players say, those within the program had learned to avoid mentioning Griner or interacting with social media posts that supported the detained player.

Even in the tightknit coaching community, a frequent discussion topic was Mulkey’s unwillingness to look beyond a grudge.

“I really was hoping that Kim would make a statement. Really hoping she would,” says DeMoss, the former Louisiana Tech player and longtime coach who adds that she considers Mulkey a friend. “You’ve got a kid that’s stuck in Russia; I mean, that’s bigger than any feud that y’all had. No one knew how long they were going to detain her over there.

“We were all hoping [Mulkey] could just rise above it for that moment. Just get her back home. But she didn’t.”

Through her attorneys, Mulkey rebutted any suggestion that she failed to support Griner.

In December 2022, after nearly a year in prison, Griner was released and returned to the United States in a prisoner exchange. The basketball community expressed relief and joy, and reactions — not all supportive, considering the exchange freed a notorious Russian arms dealer — poured out from both sides of the political aisle. Mulkey issued a brief statement to ESPN: “God is good. Prayers are powerful. Brittney is on the way home where she belongs. Our prayers remain with her and her family as they recover and heal together.”

Three months later, after Mulkey reached her fifth Final Four, a reporter asked whether Mulkey had spoken with Griner. She hadn’t. Four days later, Mulkey, in a pink- and gold-sequined jacket, cut down the net and held up a newspaper with Reese pictured and CHAMPS! in massive letters.

Even among some of Mulkey’s ex-players, the enthusiasm was muted.

“As a head coach, you’re responsible for so many people; you’re taking on a role that leaves a very lasting impression,” a former Baylor player says. “You might be able to win us a championship, but are people going to want to come back and see you?”

EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE , Les Mulkey climbs into his work truck, drives past the old property, makes his way 50 miles south and west to Baton Rouge. He hasn’t spoken with his older daughter in 37 years, but same as he used to, he can slip into a gym, fade into the crowd and watch his little girl.

“I love my babies,” he says. “I ain’t ashamed.”

Kim has her daddy’s eyes, the same skeptical eyebrows, the same pride. “They’re just alike,” younger daughter Tammy says. Tammy said in early March that she doesn’t speak to her sister, either. There was some disagreement five or six years ago, Tammy says, but she won’t say what caused it. She believes they will reconnect eventually. “I’m sure we will,” she says. “One day. I hope.”

Les has no such delusions. Isn’t it odd, he says, to love a child so much that you leave them be? It’s how Kim wants it, he says, but he prays every night that, tomorrow, she will want something new. He is 86 now and lives alone, in a dilapidated trailer way out past the pines. It’s where he retreats after his drives to Baton Rouge. He has dozens of pictures, newspaper cutouts, mementos from Kim’s basketball career. Tammy calls it a shrine.

It’s all he has left of her, and with many of Les’s friends dying recently, he thinks about what’s next. He was cocky, he says. Stubborn. A little too proud, he says, so when his time comes, Les figures it will be when he’s alone, surrounded by achievements but not people, wasting away like the things he once built.

LONG AFTER ANOTHER LSU WIN , Mulkey takes a photo with a woman in a wheelchair. Then she points at a crowd assembled beyond the tunnel, lamenting that she’s about to walk into that .

“Kim!” a young fan yells.

“You’ve got to say Coach Mulkey,” an adult corrects.

Mulkey heads that way, drawing cheers, and encourages patience. She will get to everyone, she promises. As the arena empties, the coach signs autographs, raises her eyebrows at the Kim Mulkey bobblehead the school gave out, poses for selfies not far from the banner LSU hung for last year’s championship.

As afternoon turns to evening in Baton Rouge, Mulkey is still signing and chatting with fans. She’s an icon and a winner, one of the best motivators and teachers any sport has seen. But Mulkey is right: Times are different. Long after Summitt’s Tennessee teams slept on gymnasium floors because her program couldn’t afford hotel rooms, Mulkey now makes $3.26 million per year, most in the women’s game. Meanwhile, Louisiana Tech, once a women’s basketball dynasty, hasn’t made the NCAA tournament in a dozen years. Baylor is no longer among the sport’s upper tier, another structure abandoned and left to wither.

Along the LSU baseline, families wait for Mulkey to reach them. When they’ve gotten whatever they’ve been waiting for, they head toward the steps and a row of glass doors. As they walk, fathers tell their kids that was Kim Mulkey they just met, the coach who won all those championships, told it like it is, did it all her way.

Reporters fold their tripods and unplug their microphones from press row. Athletics staffers head toward the Pete Maravich Assembly Center exits. The crowd thins, and workers use a leaf blower to remove trash from empty rows.

“Miss Kim!” a voice calls, and it echoes through the arena. Mulkey walks across the hardwood, sequins glinting and heels clicking, to snap another picture. Then, when they all have what they wanted, the last of the friends, families and groups leave together, beneath a banner marking Mulkey’s latest achievement, and the coach heads back toward the tunnel, off into the evening alone.

Molly Hensley-Clancy in Washington contributed to this report.

Kim Mulkey's controversial coaching style addressed in much-anticipated profile

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Right-hander Carlos Carrasco hopes he hasn't forgotten his winning ways with the Cleveland Guardians when he begins his second stint with the club Sunday afternoon against the host Oakland Athletics.

The Vancouver Canucks can't take anything for granted the rest of the regular season. Not even against teams at the bottom of the standings.

Starting the season for the second consecutive time in Kansas City, the Minnesota Twins again are 2-0 to begin the year and will look for a series sweep in Sunday's finale with the Royals.

The New York Yankees have received a bit more clarity regarding veteran third baseman DJ LeMahieu, who was diagnosed with a non-displaced fracture in his right foot following an MRI taken on Friday.

How Phillip Fulmer can rejoin Tennessee football coaching staff | Toppmeyer

• Phillip Fulmer won a national championship as Tennessee's coach. He still could be an asset to the Vols working with fourth-string left tackles.
• As Tennessee's AD, Phillip Fulmer juggled running the Vols' 20-sport athletic department with coaching up Jeremy Pruitt's offensive linemen.
• A college football rule proposal would allow a program to employ a weightlifting analyst who doubles as an assistant to the assistant offensive line coach. Cue Phillip Fulmer?

Phillip Fulmer , grab your hat and your whistle. Perhaps your coaching career isn't finished after all.

A new proposal from the NCAA Football Oversight Committee ought to pique the interest of the former Tennessee football coach. (And former Vols athletics director . And former special adviser to UT's president. And former wingman to John Currie's failed coaching search. And ... well, you get the idea.)

This proposal, according to Yahoo Sports , would allow college football programs to employ an unlimited number of assistant coaches during practices and games.

Under current rules, programs can hire an unlimited number of analysts, recruiting coordinators, aides, secretaries, gofers, interns, smoothie makers, film compilers, espresso artists, assistants to the regional manager, sleep technicians and bench-press buffs.

But, rules dictate that only the head coach and 10 assistants are allowed to coach and provide instruction during practices and games.

Do programs break this rule all the time?

Anyway, it's a rule that programs are supposed to at least pretend to follow.

If this proposal is approved, though, no more pretending. Programs can load up practices and Saturday sidelines with assistants to the assistant who specialize in teaching linemen the three-point stance.

Quick, get Fulmer a clipboard and the duties of weightlifting analyst and assistant to the assistant offensive line coach.

[ This column was featured in our SEC Unfiltered newsletter , emailed free to your inbox five days a week. Want more commentary like this? Sign up here the USA TODAY Network's newsletter on SEC sports. It's free. We invite you to join the conversation. ]

If you think such a role would be beneath Fulmer, you must have forgotten his undying quest to help improve Tennessee's offensive line during the Jeremy Pruitt era .

Ostensibly, Fulmer was Tennessee's AD during that time, but that was about as genuine as a mafioso's olive oil business. Fulmer is a football guy through and through, and he became a fixture at Pruitt's practices – although, apparently, he missed the sweeping NCAA malfeasance carried out by Pruitt and his minions .

Nothing slipped past Fulmer's sharp eye during offensive line drills, though. When Fulmer simply couldn't help himself and offered multiple linemen some pointed instruction during a practice – a scene captured on video – the SEC issued sanctions banning him from attending Vols practices for a week .

Have they no mercy?

NCAA rules can be awfully heavy-handed. Why shouldn't an athletic director – or a gofer – be allowed to coach line drills?

The Football Oversight Committee apparently has had enough of this oppression that restricts gofers to gofering and smoothie makers to smoothie making.

One rule adaptation is all that separates gofers from inhaling the intoxicating power of coaching a shuttle drill.

Fulmer is no gofer. He's a versatile veteran who once juggled running the Vols' 20-sport athletic depart and its nine-figure budget with coaching up Pruitt's offensive guards.

Sure, Fulmer's already been fired as Tennessee's coach and allowed to "retire" as its AD, but a man with a national championship on his résumé qualifies to instruct Tennessee's fourth-string left tackle.

Fulmer's coaching renaissance is a mere rule change away.

Blake Toppmeyer  is the USA TODAY Network's SEC Columnist. Email him at  [email protected]  and follow him on Twitter  @btoppmeyer .

A digital subscription  will allow you access to all of his coverage. Also, check out his podcast,  SEC Football Unfiltered , or access exclusive columns via the  SEC Unfilter ed newsletter.

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Effects of leadership style on coach-athlete relationship, athletes’ motivations, and athlete satisfaction

1 FIBA China, Beijing, China

Seungmo Kim

2 Department of Sport and Physical Education, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China

3 Department of Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport Studies, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Knoxville, TN, United States

4 College of Physical Education, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China

Associated Data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Introduction

The current study investigated the impacts of autocratic and democratic leadership styles on the coach-athlete relationship, athletes’ motivations, and athlete satisfaction.

Survey data were collected from 298 student-athletes (male = 157; 52.7%, female = 141; 47.3%) from 20 different Chinese collegiate sports. The Structural Equation Model was used to test the hypothesized model.

The results indicated democratic leadership had a direct positive influence on the coach-athlete relationship, while autocratic leadership had no direct effect. Both leadership styles did not influence autonomous motivation. The coach-athlete relationship, meanwhile, had a full mediation effect between democratic leadership and athletes’ motivation and satisfaction. In addition, autonomous motivation had a partial mediation effect between the coach-athlete relationship and athlete satisfaction.

Ultimately, the findings of the current study underscore the need for coaches and administrators to understand the impact of different leadership styles and highlight the importance of democratic leadership in improving athletes’ psychological outcomes.

A variety of different leadership styles are widely used among leaders in business, sports, and politics ( Farh and Cheng, 2000 ). Leading a team of athletes entails unique complexities compared to other business and organizational contexts, and there has been an increased interest in research about the effectiveness of coaching leadership styles in recent years ( Castillo and Espinosa, 2014 ; Jowett, 2017 ). A successful sports team will need coaches to properly guide their athletes to maintain healthy relationships with fellow team members while also fostering a high level of performance ( Mallett, 2005 ). Numerous studies have found that coaches’ leadership behaviors can play a crucial role in athletes’ psychological development and satisfaction ( Weiss and Friedrichs, 1986 ), training efficiency and game outcomes ( Becker and Wrisberg, 2008 ), and team cohesion ( Jowett and Chaundy, 2004 ; Vincer and Loughead, 2010 ).

The Multidimensional Model of Leadership in Sport (MML) developed by Chelladurai and Saleh (1980) based on the unique demands of sport is a pioneering model of sports leadership. The model has been frequently discussed and explored by sport scholars ( Hampson and Jowett, 2014 ; Chia et al., 2015 ). The MML delineates three states of leadership behavior—required, actual, and preferred. Behaviors related to adhering to government regulations, conference compliance, and institutional structure are defined as required . Behavior based on the coach’s ability and philosophy, as well as other situational factors, reflect the actual leadership state. Last, preferred leadership behavior refers to meeting the goals and needs of athletes ( Dupuis et al., 2006 ). The degree of consistency of the three leadership behavior states is an indicator of team performance and athlete satisfaction, which is associated with coaching effectiveness ( Chia et al., 2015 ). According to the MML, to become an effective coach, one most adapt and adopt appropriate coaching styles in different situations. For instance, a coach who leads high school level teams may need to employ different coaching styles depending on the team’s goals (e.g., league championship or individual skill development), the familiarity and maturity of the players, and the schedule of a weekly training regimen.

Although the autocratic leadership style may achieve successful results in some cases, athletes’ ability level (e.g., mental development) and team conditions must be considered when coaches employ different leadership styles. Because autocratic leadership reduces the opportunity for athletes’ internal decision-making, it should be matched with a level of development from athletes to follow coaches’ commands and instructions. In other words, to achieve the functional purpose of different leadership styles (i.e., autocratic or democratic) an appropriate level of ability by athletes to follow leadership is crucial to avoid conflicts ( Yang and Jowett, 2010 ). For instance, if a coach seeks to exert assertive control over athletes, those who prefer a higher level of autonomy may feel and tense or strained relationship with the coach. On the other hand, imbalance may also occur when the coach tends to be democratic, yet some athletes prefer clear guidance from coaches and want instructions that create a highly structured setting with specific plans and goals. Such disparity can lead to dissatisfaction and poor performance among athletes on a team. As a result, different leadership styles may have an important impact in sports teams, and coaches must think carefully in selecting and implementing leadership behaviors.

A “centralized sports governance” system has been used in China to organize elite sports, including recruiting youth athletes and hosting major events ( Yang et al., 2015 ). Unlike the primarily free-market system of the US, the Chinese government maintains control of funding, training, and operations for the sport performance sector. Under this government-led system, leadership studies in China have largely focused on the relationships between leadership behavior and team performance and cohesion ( Cui, 2010 ; Li et al., 2017 ) rather than athletes’ psychological well-being. China’s centralized sports institutions and cultural background may encourage the adoption of autocratic leadership styles, as performance is valued above and beyond other interests, such as social development and health. For example, paternalistic leadership based on the cultural roots of confucianism tends to emphasize strict discipline and authority. The three components of paternalistic leadership are authoritarianism, benevolence, and moral leadership ( Farh and Cheng, 2000 ). In fact, some studies have focused on paternalistic leadership to analyze the leadership style of Chinese coaches given the cultural background factors ( Li and Li, 2021 ; Li et al., 2021 ).

Overall, there is a lack of coaching leadership research that explores the unique sport culture in China, which has a strong focus on performance and elite sport. Many young Chinese athletes may spend more time with their coaches than with their parents, making it particularly important to understand the impact of coaches, not only with respect to advancing athletes’ sports skills, but also influencing their education and holistic development ( Zhu et al., 2017 ). Hence, the current study was designed to investigate the influence of leadership behaviors, including both autocratic and democratic leadership, to enrich the theoretical framework and increase the range of understanding about coaching in Chinese universities. The current study can help practitioners better understand effective teaching methods in practice by examining the impact of coaches’ leadership. Most significantly, the study may assist coaches in choosing appropriate leadership styles to interact with their athletes throughout training and competition to improve their performance and holistic development. Therefore, the main purpose of the current study was to investigate the impacts of autocratic and democratic leadership styles on the coach-athlete relationship, athletes’ motivations, and athlete satisfaction in Chinese collegiate athletics.

Theoretical foundations

As shown in Figure 1 , the conceptual model of the current study includes four constructs: (a) leadership style (i.e., autocratic leadership and democratic leadership), (b) coach-athlete relationship (CAR), (c) autonomous motivation, and (d) athlete satisfaction.

Proposed research model.

Leadership in sport

The success of a sports team can depend on a coach’s leadership style, and research has identified several theories to determine the most effective coaching approaches ( Jowett, 2017 ). In particular, the comparative effectiveness of democratic and autocratic coaching styles has been a frequent topic of investigation ( Case, 1984 ). Many theories of situational leadership were developed in the 1960s and 1970s, which include contingency theory ( Fiedler, 1967 ), path-goal theory ( House, 1971 ), and the situational leadership model ( Hersey and Blanchard, 1982 ). A key principle of situational leadership in sport is the leader’s ability to adapt to the needs and situations of athletes ( Kim et al., 2021 ). Since athletes may experience ups and downs in their skill development and psychological growth, coaches need to think carefully about the overall dynamic relationship and find the most effective patterns with the athletes they mentor. Given that situational leadership does not involve only a single skill or approach, it can be difficult for coaches to master a diverse set of coaching behaviors for a variety of situations.

One of the most influential leadership frameworks in sport has been Chelladurai and Saleh’s (1980) MML, which was established based on the interactive behaviors of sports group members. To measure leadership styles within the MML, Chelladurai and Sarah developed the Leadership Scale for Sports (LSS). The LSS organized athletes’ perceived leadership style into five major categories: training and instruction, democratic behavior, autocratic behavior, social support, and positive feedback. Training and instruction referred to the essential roles of a coach in improving the performance level of athletes. Democratic behavior, meanwhile, reflected the extent to which the coach allows participation by athletes in the decision-making process. The third factor, autocratic behavior, indicated that “a coach keeps apart from the athletes and stresses his or her authority in dealing with them” ( Chelladurai and Saleh, 1980 , p. 41). Social support is evident when the coach is involved in satisfying the interpersonal needs of athletes. Last, positive feedback refers to the coach expressing appreciation and complimenting the athletes for their performance and contributions.

As oppositional decision-making styles, autocratic and democratic leadership approaches each have distinct advantages and limitations ( Chelladurai and Saleh, 1980 ). Autocratic behavior, one of the most demanding leadership styles, emphasizes the coach’s authority over athletes in sports environments. With autocratic leadership, the dominance of the coach’s decision-making and personal power may limit athletes’ freedom of action but also facilitates quick problem-solving, which is often necessary for competitive sport environments. Autocratic leadership behaviors may increase athletes’ focus, which could increase practice effectiveness in some situations ( Yang and Jowett, 2010 ). For example, Castillo and Espinosa (2014) found that individuals who were in the process of learning to master a dance skill were significantly impacted by autocratic teaching techniques. They discovered that, despite the limitations of the authoritarian approach, it set clear goals for achievement to lessen students’ loss of concentration during the learning process, which in turn led to a more efficient improvement in performance. However, due to the lack of encouragement associated with autocratic coaching behavior, autocratic leaders often impede athlete’s motivation from the psychological level, which may negatively impact the coach-athlete relationship ( Mallett, 2005 ). Autocratic coaching style may also have a negative impact on athletes’ intrinsic motivation and feelings of relatedness ( Hollembeak and Amorose, 2005 ). A higher level of autocratic behavior by coaches is associated with athletes who report higher levels of anxiety and burnout with lower levels of enjoyment and perceived competence ( Price and Weiss, 2000 ). Overall, while autocratic leadership styles may have positive effects with respect to skill acquisition and performance in some situations, they also tend to negatively impact athletes in important ways.

In a contrast with an autocratic approach, Gastil (1994) made an important distinction between leadership and authority. In particular, he defined democratic leadership as performing three functions: distributing responsibility, empowering, and aiding deliberation ( Gastil, 1994 ). In sports, implementing democratic leadership behaviors may entail the head coach sharing authority with a team captain or position group leader, allowing them to take some responsibility for the team’s progress and skill development. Under democratic leadership styles, athletes have more power to decide how they train and compete ( Cruz and Kim, 2017 ). Higher levels of democratic leadership have been linked to more positive and less negative psychological outcomes for athletes ( Price and Weiss, 2000 ). However, highly democratic approaches may also engender conflicts with athletes as well as disrespect and disobedience ( Foels et al., 2000 ). A coach’s choices about the extent to which to employ democratic or autocratic leadership behavior may be influenced by factors such as gender ( Wałach-Biśta, 2019 ), competition level, and sports type (e.g., team sports or individual sports). For instance, Terry and Howe (1984) discovered that coaching effectiveness was highly correlated with task dependence in the sport, and team sports that require a high level of teamwork and interaction (e.g., basketball) favored more authoritarian leadership styles.

Literature regarding situational leadership theory generally supports the idea that the coach should be flexible and adopt different leadership styles dependent upon the context. The adaptability of leaders is a critical principle in situational leadership in sports and has been identified as a key component of coaching mastery ( Kim et al., 2021 ). Coaches in a setting such as collegiate sport must work with players who have varied levels of understanding due to their distinct educational backgrounds, athletic ambitions, and training experiences. Such factors make it challenging for coaches to maintain positive coach-athlete relationships and athlete satisfaction. Given the complexity involved in situational leadership, further research is required to understand the relationship between various leadership styles and important outcomes in sport, such as the coach-athlete relationship and athlete satisfaction.

Outcomes of leadership style

Coach-athlete relationship.

Athletes have interpersonal relationships with a variety of people in sport, including teammates, parents, coaches, and staff members. Given the fact that young athletes may spend more time with coaches than their parents in some elite sport contexts, the relationship quality with the coach is highly important, directly affecting the athletes’ skill development and competitive performance ( Jowett, 2017 ). Jowett and Poczwardowski (2007) defined the coach-athlete relationship as “a situation in which a coach’s and an athlete’s cognitions, feelings, and behaviors are mutually and causally interconnected” (p. 4).

Examining behavioral, affective, and cognitive elements involved in leadership are important to understanding social behavior, such as the coach-athlete relationship ( Jowett and Ntoumanis, 2004 ). Investigating the dynamic nature of CAR is essential for strengthening coaching effectiveness and fostering optimal physical and psychological performance of athletes ( Jowett, 2017 ). Research regarding the influence of relationship quality indicates that CAR can impact important outcomes, such as moral disengagement ( Chen et al., 2016 ) and social environment ( Jowett, 2007 ). In fact, athletes’ relationships with coaches may have a significant impact on psychological outcomes and long-term stability, effecting not only their sport performance, but also their holistic development ( Kim et al., 2020 ).

Given the important influence of a coach, it is essential to understand how different leadership styles may affect the relationships between coaches and athletes. In the context of sports in China, Zhu et al. (2017) found that the authoritarian behavior of coaches was the factor that athletes perceived as most detrimental to team effectiveness. Gao et al. (2021) similarly discovered that autocratic behavior appeared to have substantial detrimental impacts on athlete engagement and CAR. Relatively few studies, however, have investigated the connection between different leadership styles and the coach-athlete relationship ( Jowett and Chaundy, 2004 ; Hampson and Jowett, 2014 ), particularly in the context of East Asia.

Motivation has been extensively studied as a crucial factor influencing athletic success ( Vallerand, 2007 ). Understanding and promoting athlete motivation has been demonstrated to have a significant influence on athletes’ performance ( Mallett, 2005 ), cognition ( Ryan and Deci, 2000 ), and behaviors ( Li et al., 2021 ). Due to the importance of motivation in sports performance, much research has investigated the ways in which coaches’ behaviors, such as decision-making style, reward distribution, and feedback methods, are essential factors affecting athletes’ motivation ( Mageau and Vallerand, 2003 ).

The two most well-known theories of motivation in sports psychology are self-determination theory (SDT; Deci and Ryan, 1985 ; Ryan and Deci, 2000 ) and achievement goal theory (AGT; Nicholls, 1989 ). SDT focuses on intrinsically motivated psychological behavior based on three basic needs—competence, relatedness, and autonomy ( Deci and Ryan, 1985 ). On the other hand, AGT places more emphasis on goal orientations, particularly task and ego orientation ( Nicholls, 1989 ). The principles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are important areas of focus within SDT. The model expands on the three fundamental requirements (i.e., competence, relatedness, and autonomy) to form a continuous and unified structure that can locate and illuminate various factors impacting athletes’ motivation ( Spray et al., 2006 ).

Deci and Ryan (1985) developed a motivation continuum that segmented motivation into six components. From highest to lowest, the levels of self-determination were labeled intrinsic, integrated, identified, introjected, external, and amotivation. The term intrinsic motivation (IM) referred to instances in which an activity is done for inherent reasons. Extrinsic motivation (EM), meanwhile, included a group of motivations with varying degrees of autonomy—integrated, identified, introjected, and external. Last, amotivation (AM) indicated a lack of autonomy. In sports, an athlete’s actions may reveal their motivation. For instance, athletes who feel satisfaction in the sport or find their value by participating in sport are more likely to be motivated by internal factors. In contrast, engaging in sport to escape punishment and guilt or seek praise and approval from others tends to be influenced by extrinsic motivations, which reflect non-autonomous intentions ( Amorose and Anderson-Butcher, 2007 ).

Existing research evaluating IM and EM to determine the quality of motivational orientations has identified the differentiation between autonomous and controlled motivation as being important ( Ratelle et al., 2007 ). Whereas autonomous behavior is typically self-initiated, controlled motivation occurs when an action results from external influence. To calculate controlled motivation, researchers have often used the mean score of external and introjected motivation ( Sheldon and Elliot, 1998 ). Conversely, investigators have identified autonomous motivation as a mix of intrinsic and identified motivation ( Fenton et al., 2014 ). Koestner et al. (2008) found that increasing autonomous motivation was more successful than decreasing controlled motivation when examining the relative role of the two in the achievement of personal goals.

Coaches’ decision-making styles, autocratic or democratic, can have substantial implications with respect to athletes’ motivations. Creating an autonomy-supportive motivational climate has been found to serve an essential role in supporting athletes to develop strong commitment and interest in sports ( Mallett, 2005 ). Hollembeak and Amorose (2005) established that autocratic and democratic styles were the two behaviors that had a substantial indirect effect on autonomy in all five categories of leadership styles under the LSS ( Chelladurai and Saleh, 1980 ). Democratic leader behavior has received positive feedback from athletes at all levels, including elementary ( Fenton et al., 2014 ), secondary ( Spray et al., 2006 ), high school ( Amorose and Anderson-Butcher, 2007 ), club teams ( Vincer and Loughead, 2010 ), and college. Autonomy supportive coaching behaviors, such as encouragement, may have significant benefits in boosting intrinsic motivation and engagement of athletes ( Hollembeak and Amorose, 2005 ). In contrast, autocratic behavior has been found to hinder athletes’ initiative ( Hollembeak and Amorose, 2005 ).

The motivational model of the coach-athlete relationship, presented by Mageau and Vallerand (2003) , illustrated the positive effect of coaches’ autonomy supportive behavior on CAR and motivation of athletes. Wu et al. (2014) found that authoritarian behavior was negatively related to autonomy, relatedness, and intrinsic motivation, whereas democratic behavior had the opposite impact on these outcomes in Chinese collegiate sports. Consequently, to improve coaching effectiveness in China, it may be useful to advance the autonomous motivation of athletes as a key to developing effective coaching behavior and healthy coach-athlete relationships.

Athlete satisfaction

Athletes’ satisfaction has been observed as a key reflection of many coaching characteristics, including coaches’ personality ( Yang et al., 2015 ), physical behaviors ( Davis et al., 2019 ), and leadership style ( Kim et al., 2020 ). Therefore, considering athletes’ satisfaction is an important practice for coaches to achieve successful performance and training efficiency by valuing the effect of different leadership styles. Riemer and Toon (2001) revealed that an athlete’s ability level affected their preference for types of leadership behavior and level of satisfaction. Weiss and Friedrichs (1986) , meanwhile, found that the democratic leadership style positively impacted satisfaction among college athletes. Many studies on the coach-athlete relationship have found associations among CAR, motivation, and satisfaction ( Lorimer and Jowett, 2009 ). Multiple studies ( Koestner et al., 2008 ; Grant and Berg, 2011 ) have shown that autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and satisfaction interacted with each other. Jowett (2017) , meanwhile, asserted that CAR was central to coaching effectiveness, and its quality greatly impacted athletes’ levels of satisfaction, pleasure, and wellbeing. Davis et al. (2019) similarly found relationships between the quality of CAR and athletes’ experiences of sport satisfaction.

In the past decade, research on coaches’ leadership styles in China has concentrated on the connection between team cohesion and team effectiveness for college athletes ( Cui, 2010 ; Chen et al., 2016 ; Li et al., 2017 ; Zhu et al., 2017 ; Gao et al., 2021 ). Thus, the current study attempted to fill a gap in Chinese coaches’ research on the impact of autocratic and democratic leadership styles among Chinese coaches on athletes’ satisfaction levels and enhancing coaching efficiency through CAR and motivation. Specifically, it was hypothesized that CAR and motivation would mediate the association between coaching style and satisfaction. Overall, the following hypotheses were proposed based on the aforementioned research background:

Hypothesis 1: Leadership style (H1a: autocratic leadership, H1b: democratic leadership) will influence coach-athlete relationship.

Hypothesis 2: Leadership style (H2a: autocratic leadership, H2b: democratic leadership) will influence autonomous motivation.

Hypothesis 3: Coach-athlete relationship will mediate the relationship between leadership style (H3a: autocratic leadership, H3b: democratic leadership) and autonomous motivation.

Hypothesis 4: Coach-athlete relationship will mediate the relationship between leadership style (H4a: autocratic leadership, H4b: democratic leadership) and athlete satisfaction.

Hypothesis 5: Autonomous motivation will mediate the relationship between leadership style (H5a: autocratic leadership, H5b: democratic leadership) and athlete satisfaction.

Hypothesis 6: Autonomous motivation will mediate the relationship between coach-athlete relationship and athlete satisfaction.

Materials and methods

Participation and survey procedure.

The population of the current study was composed of current college athletes in China. An online survey with a convenience sampling method was used to collect data. The researchers sent an initial WeChat message with a link to the survey to athletes from a variety of sports at the collegiate level in China to recruit participants. The data collection period was from April 22 to May 1, 2022. In addition to inviting them to complete the questionnaire, recipients were also asked to forward the link to other student-athletes in their networks. Two follow-up e-mail reminders were sent to encourage participation. A total of 157 male (52.7%) and 141 female (47.3%) athletes from 20 different sports, including volleyball ( n = 109; 36.6%), basketball ( n = 54; 18.1%), track and field ( n = 39; 13.1%), football ( n = 33; 11.1%), table tennis ( n = 13; 4.4%), and other sports completed the questionnaire. The majority of participants were first-class athletes ( n = 138; 46.3%) and second-class athletes ( n = 138; 46.3%) according to the Chinese Athletes Technical Classification Standard ( General Administration of Sport of China, 2010 ). Participants were primarily between 16 and 24 years old ( n = 276; 92.6%), and the majority ( n = 207; 69.5%) had trained for between 5 and 10 years in their sport. More demographic information is shown in Table 1 .

Demographic profile of participants ( n = 298).

Instruments

Forty-one items from previously validated scales were used to measure autocratic coaching style (five items), democratic coaching style (five items), coach-athlete relationship (eleven items), motivation (nine items), athlete satisfaction (five items) and demographic information. The 10 items measuring autocratic and democratic coaching behaviors were adopted from the LSS ( Chelladurai and Saleh, 1980 ). Each item began with the statement “my coach…” and included items such as “refuses to compromise on a point” and “speaks in a manner not to be questioned” for autocratic behavior and “let his/her athletes share in decision making” and “encourages athletes to make suggestions on conducting practices” for democratic behavior. These items were scored using 7-point Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). To measure an athlete’s perception regarding the relationship with his/her coach, Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q; Jowett and Ntoumanis, 2004 ) was used. The scale included 11 items, such as “I appreciate the sacrifices my coach has experienced in order to improve performance,” “I am committed to my coach,” and “I am ready to do my best.” The items were also scored using a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Nine items from the Sport Motivation Scale (SMS-II), developed by Pelletier et al. (2013) were utilized to examine autonomous motivation. The items included “Because it gives me pleasure to learn more about my sport” and “Because participating in sport is an integral part of my life.” Athlete satisfaction was measured using job satisfaction scales developed by Judge et al. (1998) , modified to be used in the context of sports. The items included “I feel fairly satisfied with my team” and “Each day at practice seems like it will never end (reversed coded).”

In developing the questionnaire, the survey was initially written in English because the scales of the four concepts that the current research adopted were originally developed in English. The English version was then translated into Chinese, as all the participants in the current study were native Chinese speakers. The translation was conducted by two individuals with a graduate degree in business and communication data science who were familiar with organizational behavior literature and fluent in English and Mandarin. The Chinese version was then back-translated into English by another individual, who was a Ph.D. candidate in sports psychology with similar language qualifications to the previous translators. Finally, 10 athletes in China were recruited for a pilot study to assess the survey’s ease of use and clarity.

Data analyses

The current study sequentially conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to evaluate the measurement model and structural equation model (SEM) analysis to examine the research model based on Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) two-step approach using AMOS 27. For both the CFA and SEM, the present study used indexes [i.e., chi-square, the Steiger-Lind Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual (SRMR), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Tucker-Lewis fit index (TLI)] to assess an overall fit of structure since the indexes are often recommended to evaluate structural equation models ( Browne and Cudeck, 1992 ; Hu and Bentler, 1999 ; Kline, 2015 ). In addition, Cronbach’s α coefficients were calculated to verify the internal consistency of each measurement scale’s components. Descriptive statistics were compiled to provide relevant demographic information about the sample as well as the means and standard deviations of each construct. Next, SEM was used to test the proposed model. The bootstrapping method was used to test the mediating effects of the proposed model, which may provide additional implications for leadership style, CAR, autonomous motivation, and athlete satisfaction. The research model also was assessed by the same indexes previously used for the CFA.

Measurement model

The results of an initial CFA showed unacceptable model fit [Chi-square statistic = 2,089.045, df = 550, CFI = 0.863, TLI = 0.852, RMSEA = 0.097, and SRMR = 0.068] since TLI and CFI should be equal to or greater than 0.9 ( Hair et al., 2010 ) and RMSEA and SRMR should be equal to or less than 0.08 ( Tabachnick et al., 2007 ) to be acceptable. Further, Parsimonious Fit Indices (PNFI and PCFI) were 0.761 and 0.798, respectively. Thus, the investigators removed four items (two for autocratic coaching style and two for athletic satisfaction) due to low factor loadings (below 0.4). The removed items were “My coach works relatively independent of the athletes” and “My coach does not explain his/her action” for autocratic leadership, as well as “Each day at practice seems like it will never end (Reversed Code)” and “I consider my team and my sport rather unpleasant (Reversed Code)” for athlete satisfaction. Since negatively phrased items may be associated with respondent errors ( Sonderen et al., 2013 ), reversed codes may have contributed to the low factor loadings in. After dropping those items, the results of the CFA indicated an acceptable fit for the measurement model [Chi-square statistic = 1,199.304, df = 414, CFI = 0.927, TLI = 0.918, RMSEA = 0.080, and SRMR = 0.060] with Parsimonious Fit Indices (PNFI and PCFI) of 0.796 and 0.826, respectively. Convergent validity of the measures was established because construct reliability (CR) and average variance extracted (AVE) were greater than 0.7 and 0.5, respectively ( Ahmad et al., 2016 ). Discriminant validity was also established since correlation coefficients among latent variables were smaller than the square roots of AVEs. The results of convergent and discriminant validity along with the results of the correlation analysis are shown in Tables 2 , ​ ,3. 3 . In terms of internal consistency, Cronbach’s α for autocratic leadership, democratic leadership, coaching-athlete relationship, motivation, and athlete satisfaction were 0.715, 0.818, 0.864, 0.882, and 0.904, respectively ( Lance et al., 2006 ).

Measurement model.

Discriminant validity.

Values on the diagonal denote square root of the AVEs. CAR, coach-athlete relationship; AM, autonomous motivation; AS, athlete satisfaction.

*** p < 0.001; ** p < 0.01; * p < 0.05.

Descriptive statistics

Table 4 shows the means and standard deviations of each construct in terms of the gender of the sport and the sample as a whole. These data revealed that male and female athletes showed similar outcomes. For example, all the means for each construct were above the mid-point of the scale (4.00), with the exception of autocratic leadership. The means from both men and women were below the midpoint of the scale for autocratic leadership. Regarding the outcomes of coach leadership style, the means for the outcome variables ranged from 5.94 (athlete satisfaction) to 6.65 (coach-athlete relationship). The levels of all outcomes approached or exceeded 6 out of 7, which indicates athletes perceive a good relationship with their coaches and are satisfied with their current athletic careers overall.

Descriptive statistics.

Structural model

The structural model consisting of autocratic leadership, democratic leadership, CAR, and athlete satisfaction was tested using the maximum likelihood estimation method. The model fits of the revised structural model were acceptable [Chi-square statistic = 1,242.421, df = 446, CFI = 0.927, TLI = 0.919, RMSEA = 0.079, and SRMR = 0.059] with Parsimonious Fit Indices (PNFI and PCFI) of 0.801 and 0.834, respectively. Figure 2 shows the results of the revised structural model. The results indicated that autocratic leadership had no direct effect on the coach-athlete relationship, which rejected hypothesis 1a, whereas democratic leadership had a direct positive influence on coach-athlete relationship (β = 0.651, SE = 0.073, p < 0.001), which supported Hypothesis 1b. However, both leadership styles did not influence autonomous motivation, which rejected Hypothesis 2a and 2b.

Proposed structured research model with path coefficients.

The mediating effects to examine the internal mechanism among the variables in the proposed model were tested using the bootstrapping method; 5,000 bootstrap samples were generated using random sampling with replacement from actual data. Although the proposed model consisted of seven indirect paths to test the hypotheses, we tested only three direct paths because several direct paths to the proposed mediators were not supported. With respect to the mediation effects of ç between democratic leadership and outcomes (autonomous motivation and athlete satisfaction), the mediation effects were significant (Democratic leadership → CAR → autonomous motivation (β = 0.505, SE = 0.064, p < 0.001), Democratic leadership → CAR → athlete satisfaction (β = 0.558, SE = 0.054, p < 0.001). Therefore, the coach-athlete relationship had a full mediation effect between only democratic leadership and the outcome variables, which supported Hypothesis 3b and 4b but rejected Hypotheses 3a, 4a, 5a, and 5b. In addition, the mediation effects of autonomous motivation between CAR and athlete satisfaction showed a partial mediation effect with the indirect effect (CAR → autonomous motivation → athlete satisfaction: β = 0.327, SE = 0.075, p < 0.001) and the direct effect (CAR → athlete satisfaction: β = 0.490, SE = 0.097, p < 0.001). Therefore, Hypothesis 6 was rejected. Table 5 provides detailed results with respect to the direct and indirect effects.

Direct and indirect effects using bootstrapping method.

CAR, coach-athlete relationship; AM, autonomous motivation; AS, athlete satisfaction.

This study aimed to discover the impacts of autocratic and democratic leadership style along with democratic leadership on coach-athlete relationships, autonomous motivation, and athletes’ satisfaction in Chinese collegiate athletics. A total of eleven hypotheses were developed based on the MML ( Chelladurai and Saleh, 1980 ) and associated research on the relationships between coaches and athletes. Among the proposed hypotheses, three hypotheses were supported. The findings of this study help provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of coaching style on the coach-athlete relationship and athletes’ motivation and satisfaction in Chinese collegiate athletics.

The descriptive statistics of this study illustrated that collegiate athletes in China reported average mean scores of 3.82 for autocratic leadership, 5.57 for democratic leadership, 6.65 for coach-athlete relationships, 6.03 for autonomous motivation, and 5.94 for athlete satisfaction (on a 7-point scale). The average mean scores of male and female athletes were comparable, implying that gender has less influence on the perception of coaching leadership style in this context. A trend had been apparent in prior research in that athletes in Western countries perceived low levels of autocratic leadership among their coaches ( Jowett and Chaundy, 2004 ; Hampson and Jowett, 2014 ), whereas studies in East Asian countries, such as China ( Cui, 2010 ) and Korea ( Cruz and Kim, 2017 ), found higher levels of authoritarian leadership among coaches. The results of the current study, however, revealed that athletes’ perceived levels of autocratic leadership among coaches to be below the midpoint of the scale. Due to selections for Chinese national teams being typically made from among athletes in the professional team system, coaches in collegiate sports may be under less pressure to perform and utilize less authoritarianism compared to those at the professional and elite levels. On the other hand, the average score for democratic leadership was 5.57, higher than that found in other studies in East Asia, suggesting that democratic leadership may be becoming more regularly applied in the Chinese university context. Given the high scores of CAR (6.65), autonomous motivation (6.03), and satisfaction (5.94), the findings highlight important relationships between different coaching styles and these three variables.

Academic implications

There are three key findings to highlight from the SEM analysis in this study. First, with respect to hypothesis 1a and 2a, the effects of autocratic leadership on CAR and autonomous motivation were found to be insignificant in this study. These results are notable because prior research has frequently found autonomous motivation to have a direct or indirect relationship with autocratic coaching styles. Hollembeak and Amorose (2005) , for example, found that authoritarian and democratic styles had significant indirect effects on autonomy, while Wu et al. (2014) study on the motivation of Chinese college athletes determined that authoritarian behavior had a significant negative relationship with autonomy and intrinsic motivation. However, the results of the current study showed that the autocratic leadership style did not have a significant relationship with autonomous motivation. Grant and Berg (2011) suggested that since the two motivations, autonomous and controlled, often coexist, examining the simultaneous action of both motivations is worthwhile. The fact that autocratic leadership only had a minimal effect on autonomous motivation might be explained by the coexistence and ambivalence of different types of motivation. For example, the nature of the coach-athlete relationship varies depending on different cultural norms in different countries ( Yang et al., 2015 ), and respect for those in positions of authority (i.e., coaches) is considered a traditional norm in Chinese culture. However, athletes’ respect for a coach may develop differently and be affected by varying factors in different (e.g., Western) cultural contexts. Culture norms for respecting authority figures may have influenced the sensitivity of Chinese college athletes toward autocratic behaviors, which in turn led to a non-significant relationship between CAR and autonomous motivation ( Lee, 2017 ). Furthermore, the findings revealed no link between autocratic leadership and CAR, either positive or negative, similar to the results of Li and Li (2021) in a study among Chinese youth soccer players.

Secondly, with respect to hypothesis 1b, the democratic coaching approach directly and positively impacted the quality of relationships between coaches and athletes. Moreover, with respect to hypothesis 2b, democratic leadership had an indirect influence on autonomous motivation and athlete satisfaction through CAR. These results are largely in line with previous research findings on such relationships. Through more democratic leadership behaviors, coaches appear to build trust and a sense of respect with their athletes ( Gao et al., 2021 ). Mageau and Vallerand (2003) , p. 886 identified specific behaviors that contributed to the autonomy-supportive climate, including “providing choice to their athletes within specific limits and rules” and “providing the opportunity for athletes to take initiative and act independently.” In addition, Mageau and Valler and highlighted how the autonomy-supportive conduct of coaches improved the quality of CAR and boosted players’ motivation. The results of the current study confirm the mediating role of CAR in the association between democratic leadership style and autonomous motivation and satisfaction. In alignment with Jowett (2017) , CAR appears to be at the core of coach effectiveness. The outcomes of the current study (i.e., CAR, autonomous motivation, and athletes’ satisfaction) have been frequently recognized as important influences for enhancing performance in sports psychology ( Vallerand and Losier, 1999 ; Jowett, 2017 ). Therefore, the current study provides further support to the findings of prior studies regarding the effects of autocratic and democratic coaching styles ( Jowett and Chaundy, 2004 ) by confirming that democratic leadership behaviors had a more positive influence on athletes’ psychological outcomes in Chinese collegiate athletics than autocratic leadership behaviors.

Finally, with respect to hypothesis 6, the current study discovered a partial mediating effect of autonomous motivation between CAR and athlete satisfaction, confirming the association between these three variables observed in previous studies ( Koestner et al., 2008 ; Grant and Berg, 2011 ). The results demonstrated that a number of criteria, including the quality of CAR and the athlete’s internal motivation, can be used to explain athlete satisfaction. Previous results had demonstrated that coaches employing democratic coaching behavior and encouraging athletes to make decisions for themselves improve team cohesion and overall satisfaction ( Weiss and Friedrichs, 1986 ). Athletes who feel trusted and have a strong emotional attachment with their coaches tend to show increased positive motivation and encouragement of feedback from their teammates ( Watson and Kleinert, 2019 ). Ultimately, fostering autonomous motivation among athletes appears to be an important area on which coaches should focus their attention.

Practical implications

The current study’s findings supported the hypotheses that different leadership coaching approaches, particularly democratic leadership, can affect athletes’ satisfaction levels, interpersonal relationships, and motivation. It is crucial for coaches and college sports team administrators to thoroughly understand the ways in which different coaching styles may increase the quality of connections with players and affect their behaviors. The findings of the current study demonstrated that by maintaining a good relationship with the coach and having a high level of autonomous motivation, athletes’ higher levels of satisfaction could be vital to their performance ( Weiss and Friedrichs, 1986 ). The situational leadership model emphasizes the importance of coaches’ flexibility in applying different leadership techniques in accordance with athletes’ needs and goals ( Hersey and Blanchard, 1982 ). Since the autocratic leadership style did not significantly impact athletes’ relationships and autonomous motivation in the current study, Chinese athletes may have a high tolerance for autocratic behaviors due to cultural influences. While Chinese college coaches have the discretion to use an authoritarian approach to achieve efficient results in the preseason or during short-term intensified training, relying solely on autocratic actions would be unlikely to improve the quality of relationships or increase autonomous motivation, despite the fact that China has a “centralized sports governance” system ( Yang et al., 2015 ), and paternalistic leadership is a common leadership style in Chinese culture ( Wu et al., 2014 ). Conversely, coaches should involve the athletes in preparing training plans and developing strategies in competition to avoid monotony and repetition in offseason training. Democratic behaviors that coaches adopt, when appropriate, can make athletes feel respected and trustworthy and satisfy their psychological needs. In responding to the coaches’ effort and care, college athletes would be likely to show more initiative by cultivating healthy relationships with their coaches in response to democratic approaches.

The results of the current study confirmed that both the quality of the coach-athlete relationship and autonomous motivation had a significant positive impact on athlete satisfaction, which may deliver an important message to a sports team. Respect for and obedience toward coaches and other authority figures has been a traditional component of Chinese culture. Athletes, as subordinates, have tended to obey coaches’ demands and refrain from expressing their true feelings to a coach. The conventional view of coaches as authoritarian team leaders has also prevented them from developing the practice of encouraging communication ( Lee, 2017 ). Therefore, it is critical for coaches and team managers to maintain effective two-way communication. The connection and confidence between coaches and athletes should be boosted and supervised to maintain a long-term healthy relationship ( Gao et al., 2021 ). Coaches, as leaders, should regularly and effectively seek to understand athletes’ emotional and psychological changes to evaluate their status and interpersonal relationships. At the same time, the managers of sports teams should foster an environment in which athletes have the opportunity to express their feelings and thoughts to the coach freely. Additionally, maintaining open lines of communication makes it easier for the coach to select the best coaching approach during practice and competition based on the status of the athletes and the team.

Limitations and future research directions

Although this study contributes to the literature regarding the impacts of various leadership styles on Chinese college athletes, there are some important limitations. First, the current study only examined the influences of coach leadership styles based on the perspective of athletes. Price and Weiss (2000) explain that different leadership styles may also contribute to coaches’ burnout, which affects the coach-athlete relationship as well as the team’s long-term performance. In addition, coaches’ leadership style preferences are not immutable ( Hersey and Blanchard, 1982 ), and the decision-making process for coaches differs from athletes’ considerations and motivation. At the same time, coaches’ perspectives can help further explain the interactive relationship when analyzing the connection between athletes and coaches. Additionally, the data for this study were collected through online surveys. Compared with face-to-face methods, the number of unqualified questionnaires through the online collection is greater ( Heerwegh, 2009 ), further demonstrating the value of multiple methodological approaches when investigating this topic.

Although the current study adds to the base of information on Chinese coaching styles by analyzing the relationship between motivation and satisfaction among CAR, further investigation is required to more comprehensively identify additional factors that impact training effectiveness. The current study emphasized the impact of leadership style, particularly democratic leadership, on athlete outcomes in Chinese collegiate athletics. Of course, the authoritarian leadership style may also be useful in some contexts, such as with novice athletes who wish to improve their skills quickly ( Castillo and Espinosa, 2014 ). Hypothetically, if Chinese youth athletes generally accept an authoritarian leadership style, they may prefer a less stressful or inexperienced democratic leadership style when competing in college. Building from the current study, a more comprehensive sample of athletes, including high school and youth athletes, can provide insight into satisfaction with different coaching leadership styles at different stages of development. Such insight may assist coaches in choosing appropriate leadership styles in different situations at various stages of athletes’ development in order to enhance athletes’ satisfaction and performance.

Finally, the current study is one of relatively few investigations into leadership style and its effect on athletes’ psychological outcomes in China. Such research in the context of China is particularly important, given that many young Chinese athletes may spend more time with their coaches than with their parents due to the high-stakes nature of sport in the country, affecting their sports skills, education, and holistic development ( Zhu et al., 2017 ). While the bulk of research on coaching leadership has been conducted in Western nations, differing cultural norms may impact the nature of the coach-athlete relationship in different national contexts ( Yang et al., 2015 ). In turn, additional cross-cultural research that compares leadership style, CAR, and related outcomes in East Asia and other regions will provide a valuable contribution to the field.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Research Ethics Committee from Hong Kong Baptist University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

Author contributions

HJ designed the computational framework and got involved in every part of the research. SK helped to develop the framework, analyzed the data, and wrote the results. AL helped to write the “Introduction” and “Discussion” of this research. YJ and JZ were in charge of data collection and also helped to write the literature reviews. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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LSU's Kim Mulkey's controversial coaching style detailed in Washington Post story

In a lengthy feature story published by the Washington Post , details of LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey's coaching style were revealed.

The Washington Post story details how Mulkey's controversial ways caused some issues for players; "shame was a frequent tool in Mulkey’s coaching arsenal, whether during practice drills or in addresses to the team," the report says.

Players were called out over their weight, with the team's strength and conditioning coach ordered to conduct player weigh-ins in front of the rest of the team.

The report also details the suspension of Kelli Griffin, a member of the Baylor Lady Bears basketball team between 2007 and 2010. Griffin was issued an indefinite suspension from Mulkey following an altercation with ex-girlfriend and teammate Morghan Medlock; Mulkey did not give Griffin a reason for her suspension, while Medlock was not suspended.

Medlock says that Griffin was suspended for marijuana use, which Griffin denied. Griffin would later quit the team.

FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.

The report also extensively details Mulkey's rise to prominence in the college basketball world, from her playing days to her relationship with the late Pat Summitt. Details of Mulkey's personal life, including the estrangement with her family and divorce with her husband are also included.

The release of the story caught Mulkey by surprise prior to LSU's matchup with UCLA on Saturday, March 30.

“You’re telling me something I didn’t know,” Mulkey told ESPN when informed that the story had published. “So you’re the bearer of good news or bad news, or however you want to look at it. But are you really surprised? Are you really surprised by the timing of it? But I can tell ya I haven’t read it, don’t know that I will read it – I’ll leave that up to my attorneys.

On March 23 Mulkey took to the podium before LSU's matchup vs. Middle Tennessee State to discredit the impending report and issue a warning to the Washington Post, saying that she had hired the "best defamation law firm in the country." Mulkey also threatened to sue if the newspaper published a "false story" about her.

Mulkey continued to throw barbs at Post reporter Kent Babb and the newspaper Sunday, including labeling him a "sleazy reporter."

Read more about Mulkey: LSU coach Kim Mulkey subjected to harsh lens that no male coach is

"No. Listen, we’re not going to let one sleazy reporter distract us from what we’re trying to do. Absolutely not," Mulkey said following LSU's 83-56 win over Middle Tennessee State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

On March 22, rumors swirled that Mulkey was the focus of a Washington Post investigative report, leading to the head coach's remarks at her press availability the following day. Mulkey said she was given a "deadline" of Thursday, March 21, to respond to the report.

LSU is in the midst of another March Madness run, a year after the Lady Tigers won the national championship over Iowa and Caitlin Clark. LSU is set for a Sweet 16 matchup vs. UCLA on Saturday, March 30, in Albany, New York.

Preps | Joel Babbitt is All-Colorado boys basketball…

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Preps | Joel Babbitt is All-Colorado boys basketball Coach of the Year after leading Mesa Ridge to back-to-back Class 5A titles

After going 28-0 last year, mesa ridge repeated its dominance, going 26-2 and beating windsor in the title.

Twenty minutes into Joel Babbitt’s first practice as the Mesa Ridge boys basketball coach in the summer of 2022, he pulled his new team into a huddle to let them hold an omen.

From his pocket, he produced the state championship ring he won as an assistant at Lewis-Palmer in 2019.

“I threw it to one of the kids and said, ‘Right now, after 20 minutes, I believe we can go get one of these,'” Babbitt said. “They each held the ring, checked out the ring. I did that because within that first 20 minutes, they were asking the right questions, they were buying into the defensive stuff we were working on. It was immediate, and they caught on so fast.”

Turns out, Babbitt was only half correct.

His Grizzlies didn’t just get one ring, they got two: First as the undefeated Class 5A champions in 2023, and then another title this year in a repeat campaign.

That made Babbitt the first Colorado boys hoops coach to win back-to-back state championships in his first two years at a school since Otis Johnson accomplished the feat in 2009 and ’10 at Sierra. It improved Babbitt to an eye-popping 54-2 at Mesa Ridge and earned him the nod as The Denver Post’s All-Colorado boys basketball Coach of the Year.

“I went and watched some video once before I got the job, because I wanted to see what I was potentially signing up for,” Babbitt said. “And I immediately saw there were some guys who could fly around and do some really good things, and there were some really good athletes, but the team just needed some structure to what they were doing.”

Babbitt gave the Grizzlies that. After going 28-0 last year, Mesa Ridge repeated its dominance in 2023-24, turning in a 26-2 record while running the table to another Colorado Springs Metro League South championship.

Mesa Ridge had the talent on paper to repeat this year, but Babbitt emphasizes it was the Grizzlies’ commitment to small details on the defensive end that led to another title. That was especially the case in the championship, a grinding 57-53 win over Windsor in which the Grizzlies posted their third-lowest scoring output of the season.

That defensive-oriented victory, as well as a narrow 65-59 win over Green Mountain in the Sweet 16, is why Babbitt believes the Grizzlies have the potential to remain a 5A powerhouse.

“One of my goals coming in was to develop a program, instead of just a team that wins in a single year,” Babbitt said. “We lost our offense in the second half of that Windsor game. And our defense kept fighting. As we start teaching the new kids in the program how to play offense, the hope is we can continue to rely on that defense.”

After a winding Colorado coaching road that included stops at Liberty (where he coached the girls for four years, and currently still works), Pine Creek, Lewis-Palmer (he coached the Ranger girls before becoming a boys assistant) and Palmer Ridge, Babbitt landed in a spot already loaded with talent.

This year, the tandem of All-Colorado senior guard Tevin Riehl (18.3 points per game) and junior guard Bryce Riehl (17.6, including 30 points in the title game) were the headliners, but Mesa Ridge’s success stemmed from more than just the brothers. Senior point guard Tanner Widic, the league MVP, ran the offense while junior forward Zander Iwanski and junior small forward Jaxon Auger provided size.

That starting cast came up clutch in March, and made Mesa Ridge’s back-to-back December losses to Pueblo South and Pine Creek seem like a distant memory.

“We were struggling early, and struggling to have enough experience out there as Zander didn’t come back until January from a broken collarbone in football,” Babbitt said. “We were pretty thin, and the first month was all about learning, trying to get healthy, trying to figure out our roles. It took us a while to figure all that out, but when we did, we became a really tough team to beat.”

For Babbitt, a Wisconsin native who started his coaching career in California, the last two seasons have been the ultimate payoff for a guy who was denied the chance to play hoops himself.

As an 8-year-old, he was affected by Perthes disease, a rare condition that decimated the bone in his right hip. As a result, doctors told him he couldn’t play any sports where he jumped a lot, and he began suffering from arthritis in the hip at around age 10.

The 53-year-old put off fixing the hip for decades, until a couple of months before taking the Mesa Ridge job. Now, he has a titanium rod in his hip, the limp is gone, and he has two rings on his fingers.

“Obviously right there, that’s why I love basketball, because I was told I couldn’t do it,” Babbitt said. “(Since the hip replacement), I’m feeling great. … I’ve been trying to figure out what my lucky charm was. I told my kids, ‘When I die, cremate me and put my titanium hip on your mantle.’ Now I can say, ‘Put my lucky titanium hip on your mantle.'”

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