for myself as well!”: Constructing coaching careers in elite women’s football

6 There is a limited understanding of career development of sport coaches, especially from the 7 subjective perspective focused on personal meaning and evaluation of this life project in 8 sport. We drew on career construction theory and narrative methodology to explore football 9 coaches’ career development, adaptability resources, and the meanings they assigned to their 10 journeys. Ten women’s football (soccer) coaches (2 women) aged 23-60 in England took part 11 in narrative interviews which we analysed using thematic narrative analysis. Our analysis 12 indicated that early immersion into the football narrative context most often resulted in low 13 career exploration and a strong commitment to coaching as an attempt to keep the footballing 14 identity narrative ‘going’. Whilst the majority of coaches had a full-time occupation 15 elsewhere, they self-identified as professional coaches and approached coaching with a career 16 orientation animated by a desire to progress to a full-time coaching position. The coaches 17 were resourceful and active career agents in crafting their careers in football; however, most 18 of them expressed little concern or curiosity for other careers aside professional coaching, 19 leaving them vulnerable to psychological distress if unable to realise their career ambition. 20 The findings illustrate the seductive nature of football with the narrative context providing 21 coaches with a cherished sense of identity but also bringing a permanent sense of insecurity 22 and costs to their lives outside of the game. 23 24

Sport coaching provides the coach with a life project that often requires extensive 28 commitment, at times at the expense of other activities and interests. Although research into 29 athletic careers spans over the last five decades (Stambulova, 2017), the study of coaching 30 careers is at its early stages (Christensen, 2013;Nash & Sproule, 2009;Purdy & Potrac, 2016). 31 Studying coaching careers is important for understanding how to support coaches' professional 32 and personal development, well-being and motivation (Koh, Mallett, & Wang, 2011). 33 Furthermore, researchers have argued that personal histories and career development 34 trajectories play a significant role in shaping coaching philosophies and practices, often more 35 so than formal coach education (Cushion, Armour, & Jones, 2003;Watts & Cushion, 2017). 36 Similar to theorising on athletic careers, the coaching careers in high-performance 37 contexts have been described with modernist models focused on normative stages in the 38 upward pathway to an expert/professional/elite position (Erickson,Côté,39 2007; Koh et al., 2011;Schinke, Bloom, & Salmela, 1995). Studies have illustrated that the 40 coaches are typically former athletes and accumulate several years of coaching experience 41 before transitioning to the elite level coaching (e.g., Schinke et al., 1995;Koh et al., 2011). 42 However, some researchers have started to problematise the stage-based career models in that 43 they "ignore individual backgrounds, socio-cultural and contextual differences, and significant 44 life events" (Barker-Ruchti, Lindgren, Hofmann, Sinning, & Shelton, 2014, p. 118). 45 Researchers critiquing the linear career models have studied alternative pathways to become 46 an elite sport coach (Blackett, Evans, & Piggott, 2018;Christensen, 2013), whereas others have 47 determination and autonomy. Curiosity refers to exploration and information seeking of career confidence relates to one's sense of ability to successfully navigate the career challenges and 126 reach career goals and is empirically associated with self-efficacy (Öncel, 2014). It has been 127 suggested that career adaptability is especially crucial in times of career transition (Fasbender,128 Wöhrmann, Wang, & Klehe, 2019). Empirical findings on career adaptability have indicated 129 that it is related a number of positive factors including career satisfaction, employability and 130 life satisfaction, and negatively related to job stress (for a review, see Rudolph From a narrative career construction perspective, career development can be understood as "a 142 process of constructing a self-story which integrates the self into the society and the career into 143 the broader framework of life meaning through available narrative resources and life scripts" 144 (Ronkainen & Ryba, 2018, p. 43). In our study, we consider identities as situated self-stories 145 constructed within social relationships (Smith & Sparkes, 2009), while also recognise that 146 storytelling is enabled or limited by material conditions, embodiment and social structures socio-historic context, as the ability to construct particular kind of career stories is dependent on the narrative resources that are available to the individual. Therefore, analysing stories of 150 sport coaches allows for understanding the role of unique personal experiences as well as the 151 socio-cultural influences in the processes of career construction. 152 Participants 153 Ten coaches (2 women) were invited to take part in narrative interviews. The coaches were 154 aged 23-60 years old (median age 29), had been coaching for an average of 11.8 years, and 155 were coaching girls or women in an elite development context across age groups from under 156 10's to senior teams in England. All coaches had been players before starting their coaching 157 careers, but none of them had played in elite senior level. Eight coaches had started as coaches 158 in boys'/men's football and most of them had recently transitioned to the women's game. Seven 159 participants were amateur coaches and had a full-time job elsewhere, two participants were 160 full-time coaches, and one participant was a player alongside coaching. However, in the 161 demographic form, the majority of coaches circled "professional" in the question concerning 162 their coach status, which gave us an initial impression about their subjective career 163 construction. 164

Procedure 165
After obtaining ethical approval for the study, the interviews with the coaches were 166 arranged in the club facilities (empty changing rooms and offices) mostly before or after the 167 training sessions. The coaches were informed that the study was about their stories as a coach 168 and their coaching philosophy, and we explained their rights as participants. We invited the 169 participants to ask any questions they had about the research before and after the interviews. 170 The coaches provided written consent before the interview. The interviews were audio recorded author conducted the interviews. 173 We adopted a narrative approach because it provides the participant with considerable 174 control over choosing which events and experiences to introduce to the researcher (Bates, 175 2004), and is compatible with the key tenets of career construction theory. While all qualitative 176 interviews elicit stories, a narrative interview is unique in introducing a broad biographical 177 topic and inviting participants to tell long uninterrupted stories from the past to the present 178 (Jovchelovitch, & Bauer, 2000). In line with Rosenthal (1993), we used a two-phased approach 179 where the period of main narration was followed by a period of questioning. Our interviews 180 started with a grand tour question "could you tell me your story of becoming a coach". As the 181 coaches started telling their storiesmost often from their childhood when they had played 182 football themselvesthe interviewers started drawing a timeline to note critical events, thus 183 mapping the objective career trajectories of coaches (e.g., career transitions). After coaches' 184 stories had come to a 'natural' close, we started to complement the stories with additional 185 reflective questions and questions about the club environment. The additional themes we were 186 interested in included coach identity and meaning (example question: you spend a lot of your 187 time in coaching. What is it that makes it worthwhile for you?), club culture (example question: 188 How would you describe this club's objectives and mission?) and players' dual careers 189 (example question: do you feel that the players with full-time status will now make different 190 decisions concerning education?). The timeline was also used to ask additional questions of 191 significant moments and gaps in the narrative, thus providing a helpful tool to ensure that the 192 story was as detailed as possible (Kolar, Ahmad, Chan, & Erickson, 2015). At the end of the 193 interview, we drew another 5-10 years in the timeline and asked the participants to imagine 194 where they would see themselves in the future. The future perspective was included in the exploration of future vocational possibilities) on career adaptability (Savickas, 2013). By prioritised in their life design (Ronkainen & Ryba, 2018) and their perceptions of the subjective 199 career which "is not a behavior; it is an idea" (Savickas, 2013, p. 159). 200

Narrative Analysis and Representation 201
After the interviews were transcribed, we read them several times to further immerse 202 ourselves into the stories. We also coded the interviews to organise the data and prepare it for 203 further analysis. We then worked with thematic narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008) to 204 systematically focus on the content of the speech and to compare and contrast participants' 205 stories. Our specific interest was on understanding how the key events and experiences (e.g., 206 transition from a player to a coach, transition to coaching women's football) were rendered 207 meaningful, and to identify life themes (Savickas, 2013 vignettes show the common trajectories and experiences in coaches' journeys; however, we 232 also represent stories that deviate from the most common patterns identified in our analysis. 233

Validity 234
In addressing validity, we drew on a realist assertion that no standardised procedure can 235 guarantee sound interpretation and valid conclusions (Hammersley, 1992;Maxwell, 1992). In 236 other words, the validity of an account is not in the procedures but in attending to the possible 237 ways in which it might be wrongwhether in mispresenting the participants or in making 238 implausible interpretations or questionable theoretical inferences. To address potential ways in 239 which we might be wrong, we followed Maxwell's (1992, 2017) recommendations to scrutinise 240 descriptive, interpretive and theoretical validity. After checking the transcriptions to ensure 241 they represented what had been said accurately (descriptive validity), the first and second 242 author read all interviews and worked extensively on the transcripts to understand the 243 subjective meanings of the research participants (interpretive validity). Frequent author 244 meetings took place to discuss the interviews and our impressions of the transcripts and career 245 meanings in coaches' stories. In these meetings, we also sought to reflexively address power insider vs outsider in football culture), our pre-conceived ideas of the studied phenomenon, and 250 how these issues influenced how we represented the stories (Day, 2012). Furthermore, although 251 we were committed to representing participants' views as accurately as possible, we were 252 cautious that anonymity was crucial not to harm participants' future career prospects. In 253 addition, although gender issues were infused with the stories being told, due to the potential 254 identifiability of female participants we chose to omit gender from the vignettes. 255 Theoretical validity refers to the plausibility of the more abstract explanatory account 256 created by the researchers (Maxwell, 1992(Maxwell, , 2017. In the manuscript preparation stage, the 257 second and the third author acted as critical friends helping to explore alternative interpretations 258 to identify the most plausible explanations. The second author's specific task was to seek for 259 disconfirming cases in the transcripts that challenged the first author's analysis. The findings 260 were also discussed with other colleagues to test whether the interpretations were defendable. 261 The formal peer review acted as a further step to evaluate the soundness of our theorising, 262 methodology and interpretations. While maintaining that some explanations can be better than 263 others, realist researchers agree with interpretive scholars that interviews are shaped by the 264 interactions between the researcher and the participant, our interpretations are fallible 265 constructions, and that many valid explanations are also possible (Hammersley, 1992;266 Maxwell, 2017). 267

Results 268
In the following, we represent our analysis with composite vignettes to illustrate the constructed the transition to coaching as the "natural" progression in their involvement in 287 football. The narrative rhetoric of "love for the sport" worked to normalise the "natural" desire 288 to stay in football and continue extensive investment in the sport, only in a different role within 289 the game. All coaches rejected the idea of coaching as simply a job and described it mainly as 290 a career and at times as a passion, a hobby (because coaching, like a hobby, was freely chosen 291 and something they love), or even a calling. These narratives also worked to exclude 292 consideration of alternative pathways and justify strong dedication to 'making it' as a coach. 293 The dominant storyline of coaching as a natural next step was temporarily challenged by 294 two participants who had a period of exploration manifest in their choices to pursue university 295 education unrelated to sport.
Everyone expected me to go to sport. I didn't like coaching back then. I was quiet and I didn't like standing in front of people and doing the coaching bit. So when I went to 298 university I said I don't want to go into sport I want to go into [unrelated field]. The 299 lifestyle at uni took over really and I enjoyed it but I actually made a close group of 300 friends who studied sport science and sport psychology and I just ended up in circles of 301 people, of other coaches who worked in the professional game, and I had a passion for 302 football... [And] there were no jobs [in the field of studies] when I graduated [so] I'd start 303 to go into sports things. 304 These coaches also returned to football for the love for the game, an enduring life theme 305 that was evident in all coaches' stories. The relationships with others who were passionate 306 about football further directed the coaches' career choices. What was common to the stories 307 was the primacy of the coaching in their lives after the commitment had been made, even if 308 many of the coaches also pursued an unrelated job. Many coaches discussed the jobs they had 309 done to sustain their livelihood with little enthusiasm, whereas coaching was constructed a 310 passion they would pursue even for little or no financial compensation. being here helps me. And that is partly the reason why I am here. 335 Being asked to come and coach here was quite a shock to me. It was a massive 336 step. This is probably for me the [career] highlight as we say, of the journey, I have 337 managed to get myself to come and work at a club like this. 338 Most coaches had only recently transitioned to women's game and constructed the transition 339 primarily as a personal opportunity for progress. However, one of the coaches had been 340 involved in the women's game for several years before it had become professional and did not 341 see it just as a step towards personal advancement: 'I care about women's football, because 342 because somebody is threatened by you or whatever it may be. [Another coach in the 348 club], he got me the job. That's what often happens in football. It is a shame isn't it but 349 that is the way it is. I am lucky that someone gave me that opportunity. 350 Coaching is fickle, isn't it? I take security from the fact that I feel that I do a good job. Some of the coaches are friends. Some not. I think they would never help each other. But 362 definitely that is not how it works in the long term, you need to make friends along the 363 way. Because they might be able to help you in the future when you really need them. 364 You're -you're not using them, but you are keeping them close [because] you might 365 need them in the future. [But in the end,] I think it is everyone for themselves, everyone 366 knows that everyone is trying to get to that next step. 367 coaching career, football was essentially described as a "who you know" culture that worked were not sufficient for crafting a career in coaching, especially for female coaches: 373 The FA has stretched out to say that they will make sure that if the female coach goes 374 to like the UEFA B or UEFA A, it is not just about getting a qualification and there is 375 nowhere to go. I think that has happened before, like people have got to that point - Most of the participants had been willing to situationally or more permanently prioritise 390 coaching over holidays, own sport activities, free time, and family life. While the coaches 391 acknowledged the costs associated with their career choice, the commitment was often justified 392 within the rhetoric of the love for the game. The (prospective) elite coach identity took cultural narratives emphasising hard work and dedication to sport appeared not only relevant to players, but also to coaches who were aspiring to 'make it' into professional ranks. 396

Looking ahead: becoming an elite coach 397
Yeah senior football is what I want to be in. I want a full time role in professional 398 football. There are always barriers aren't there but you just have to overcome them. I 399 look at qualifications as barriers -I probably need to get another qualification before it is 400 realistic, for coaching to be a full career or profession. 401 and have another job besides it. Just to concentrate on coaching and give everything to 410 that… as long as I am on that pathway towards it, then I will be happy. 411 For eight coaches, full-time professional coaching was the unambiguous goal for the future. The coaches described themselves as active career agents who strategically obtained they can do to advance their careers (control), making plans and considering how to reach the 446 next step (concern), and self-belief they expressed (confidence) could be seen as signs of career 447 adaptability in career construction theory (Savickas, 2013)