The association of mentoring with psychosocial development among male athletes at termination of college career

Abstract

Male athletes' and a matched group of nonathletes' occupational plans, identity and intimacy scores, and level of mentoring were assessed at the end of the college career. No significant between-group differences existed with regard to identity, intimacy, or occupational plan. In accordance with predictions. mentoring was positively related in multiple regression analyses to athletes' intimacy score, and a coach was the most frequent mentor of athletes. In partial support of predictions, athletes reported a greater frequency of mentoring than nonathletes when mentoring was nonempirically appraised but not when empirically assessed. Results contradict Nelson's (1983) hypothesis of an “athletic identity” while findings support Blann's (1985) contention that athletes are developmentally on par with non-athletes by the end of the collegiate career. Mentoring is concluded to be a potentially useful paradigm from which to examine the coach-athlete relationship.