Enhancing Off-Season Motivation in Collegiate Athletes

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the optimal off-season motivational strategies to be utilized by collegiate coaches to maximize the motivation, sport performance, and sport satisfaction of collegiate athletes. Objectives: By identifying the determinants of athlete motivation, this paper will serve as a resource for coaches as they seek to raise the overall motivation and commitment of their athletes during the off-season. Justification: Developing the ideal off-season motivational strategy for collegiate athletes is important on a number of levels. Due to the heightened level of competition in college sports, coaches must ensure that the structuring of their off-season training programs is both efficient and effective in motivating athletes to fully commit to improving over the course of the off-season. Athletes who lack motivation or who are motivated for the wrong reasons will not improve over the course of the off-season to the extent that is necessary to be competitive in collegiate athletics. It is the duty of the coach to properly motivate athletes and illustrate the values of the sport activity, thus it is important to possess a proper and thorough understanding of ideal motivational strategies. However, sport performance is not the only key factor. By developing a deeper understanding of the determinants of self-determined motivation of athletes, coaches will be able to not only elevate the level of self-determined motivation, but they will also have the knowledge necessary for increasing the resultant satisfaction and well-being of athletes as well. Constraints: While the theories reviewed in this paper originated in the disciplines of psychology and education, the review of the empirical research is based on studies conducted primarily in the field of sport psychology. Therefore, this review will provide a motivational framework for collegiate coaches based on the current studies of motivation in the field of sport psychology. The analysis of self-determination of collegiate athletes is based on the current available research and is limited in scope by existing gaps in the literature. Finally, the implications and conclusions drawn by the study are based on the analysis of the author and are not tested in case study.