Precarity in sport coaching: Exploring the working conditions of Canadian university sports coaches

Abstract

Although the study of sport coaching as the body of knowledge and praxis is well established, very few studies have unpacked sport coaching through a sociological work and/or labour lens. Drawing on the findings from a larger institutional ethnographic study exploring gender, work, and professionalization in sport coaching within the Canadian university sport system, this article highlights the ways in which the Canadian university sport coaching environment constructs and normalizes overwork, such that sport coaches often experience worker precarity. Given the emphasis within the university sport environment on performance, and/or the need for sport coaches to win in order to keep their jobs, this article highlights how coaches have internalized their constant work efforts as ‘just part of the job’. Key findings demonstrate the deleterious effects of nonstop work on sport coaches both within and outside of their working environments. This article concludes by emphasizing how in the contemporary political-economic context of Canadian university sport, where meritocracy is a powerful and prominent player and where winning matters most, sport coaches are often always overworked and undersupported.