The Effect of the Coach-Athlete Relationship on Passion for Sports: The Case of Male Handball Players in Super League

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to reveal out the relationship between the team players' perceived coach-athlete relationship and their passion in sports. This is a research carried out with sectional screening model. The study group consisted of 200 male handball players in super league in Turkey. Participants were asked questions with demographic information to obtain personal information. Additionally, 11 question “Coach-Athlete Relationship Scale” developed by Jowett & Ntoumanis (2004) and adapted to Turkish by Altıntaş et al. (2012) and 12 question “Athlete Passion Scale” developed by Vallerand et al. (2003) and adapted to Turkish by Kelecek & Aşçı (2013) was applied. To evaluate the obtained data SPSS 20 package program was used and percentage (%), frequency (f), Kruskal Wallis test, correlation analysis, and regression analysis were conducted. There was a positive relationship between the coach-athlete relationship and its sub-dimensions of commitment, closeness and complementarity and also between the passion for sports and its sub-dimensions of harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Besides, the regression analysis has shown that the coach-athlete relationship has a relatively high impact on the passion for sports. In other words, as the effectiveness and quality of the coach-athlete relationship increase, so does "passion", which is one of the most important motivation sources for the athletes. At the end of our research it was found that, the coach-athlete relationship was at high level. As a result, there is a relationship between coach-athlete relationship and sport passion.