Deconstructing caring in the coach athlete relationship: a gentler form of domination

Sport coaching scholars extol the hope that relations of care will bring to sport. Yet, the insidious nature of relations of power and domination have been under-theorised with respect to care theory in sport coaching. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to problematise sport coaches’ perceptions of caring relations and to consider how caring coaching practices discipline athletic bodies. Specifically, we re-analysed interview data collected from multiple studies over several years; participants included 53 assistant or head coaches representing 11 sports employed at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I level in the USA. Our reanalysis demonstrates how Foucault’s concepts such as technologies of discipline and the confession are enacted under the coaches’ articulation of care, thus creating docile bodies, whilst concealing issues related to equity, dependency, and exploitation