Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

This study examines how varsity NCAA D-1 millennial female tennis student athletes’ perceived their overall collegiate student athlete experience from the recruiting process through their college career. 8 former NCAA D-1 millennial female tennis students voluntarily participated in either a face-to-face or Skype semi-structured interview. This study is important because understanding how student athletes’ perceive their coaches’ leadership style will assist athletic departments, college coaches, and school personnel in establishing better recruitment techniques and procedures that can promote the successful attraction and retention of top ranked student athletes. Most prospective college student athletes go through similar athletic recruiting experiences, which can be overwhelming, confusing, and intimidating at times. There are many reasons why a PSA chooses one school over another. The demographic factors include: facilities, name brand, location, (Huffman & Cooper, 2012) apparel company (Davies & Burakowski, 2015), family or friends, degree program, head coach, academic support, community or campus, and schools sports customs (Letawsky, Schneider, Paul, & Carolyn, 2003). Prospective student athletes, are being recruited by a myriad number of coaches, yet there are many motivational college choice factors that NCAA D-1 millennial female tennis student athletes face in choosing the right school and coach for them. For many student athletes, playing their sport in college and choosing the right college, will lead to a good career choice after college. Only about 1% of all student athletes will go professional in their sport (NCAA), so for the other 99% of athletes they need to have a chance to succeed when they are finished with their playing career in college. (Huffman & Cooper, 2012). This research study analyzes the leadership style of former NCAA D-1 head college tennis coaches’ in a meaningful way.