Coach's Autonomy Support is Especially Important for Varsity Compared to Club and Recreational Athletes

Autonomy supportive (rather than controlling) coaching has been shown to be important for motivating athletes and for boosting their performance. However, is this especially true for elite-level athletes, who presumably face greater stress and performance pressure? To address this question we surveyed 264 student athletes (141 recreational, 83 club sport, and 40 varsity) playing on sports teams at a U.S. public university. As expected, varsity athletes were higher than the other groups in external reward motivation and lower in intrinsic motivation. Consistent with past self-determination theory findings, coach's autonomy supportive behavior predicted intrinsic and identified motivation in all athletes, and also positive appraisals of the team experience. Most importantly, coach's autonomy support was a significantly stronger predictor of these outcomes in the varsity compared to the recreational and club groups. These findings suggest that elite-level coaches should make special efforts to be autonomy supportive (rather than controlling) with their athletes.