ProfileProgramPHD - Sports Psychology Year2 Favourite ShotBackhand Down The Line Tennis IdolSteffi Graf Favourite SurfaceGrass |
InterviewHaving been born in Plymouth, England, how did you end up in Edmonton playing Tennis for the Pandas?It’s a bit of a long story, but the reason I’m here is because the person I wanted to do my PhD with is at the U of A. He’s also a Brit, and through various connections, I found out he was looking for people in my research area. What is your area of research?In a broad sense, we are looking at youth sport and positive youth development. My specific area of research is more along the lines of parental involvement and how we can ease the sporting experiences for young athletes. I am using tennis for most of my research. I know in the case of the Williams sisters, they were pushed from a very young age. Are tennis parents notoriously bad for putting pressure on their kids?In Britain, our tennis parents are like your hockey parents. All the media headlines surround their behaviour. In this research, I get to take an international perspective and look at tennis parents from around the world. It turns out there are issues with tennis parents worldwide. You must have grown up playing tennis. Were your parents tough on you from the beginning?I was lucky enough to have a dad that was an athlete himself, so he understood what I was going through. He was great at leaving me alone if I was angry and didn’t want to talk or chatting with me if things had gone well. My mom found the whole thing too stressful, so she would just stay home and wait for the phone call to say whether I had won or lost. |
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