Remembering Robert J. Brustad: An Enduring Image of Positivity and Optimism.

Abstract

Bob Brustad (affectionately known as Bru to many) passed away on February 6, 2022, after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 69 years young. Bob was a significant contributor to the field of sport and exercise psychology, a former editor of the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology (JSEP), and beloved colleague and friend to anybody who had the joy and privilege of interacting with him. Bru was my first full-time doctoral student and a best friend for 40 years, sharing so many adventures and memories together. I embrace this opportunity to honor Bob’s professional achievements and reflect personally on a dear friend who exuded a big personality and an even bigger heart. In September 1982, an intelligent, witty, and enthusiastic student entered my graduate social psychology of sport and physical activity class at the University of Oregon. Bob’s smile, humor, and laugh were infectious and his academic insights deep, thoughtful, and challenging. These personality and intellectual qualities were admired by his many colleagues, students, and friends. Our common bond of growing up in Southern California, being alumni of the University of California system, and possessing a deep love of baseball sealed our close friendship. We shared many adventures at Spring Training in Arizona and later at Colorado Rockies games, as well as at other ballparks. Bru taught me how to throw a curveball and chase down a foul ball, but most importantly he encouraged me to not take myself too seriously. When I regressed, Bru was always there to boost my spirits. His enduring positive and optimistic outlook defined his approach to life every day. Bob obtained his B.A. degree in sociology from the University of California, San Diego, in 1975. For several years prior to starting graduate education, he worked as an afterschool program facilitator with migrant children for the State of California, where he learned to become a fluent Spanish speaker. I remember Bru excitedly telling me about a surprise day trip he planned of taking the children to a baseball game at Chavez Ravine, ballpark of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and arranging the transportation and tickets all on his own. The animation with which he told this story exemplified his deep caring and compassion for children and their families, especially those less privileged and with fewer opportunities. During the 4 years of his graduate studies, Bob taught elementary-age children, primarily kindergarteners and first graders, in my Children’s Summer Sports Program at the University of Oregon. Kids and parents praised his gentle manner, inherent ability to form trusting and respectful relationships, and propensity for structuring activities to maximize motor skill development within an enjoyable and motivating atmosphere. I vividly remember the children’s exhilaration in running the track backwards, wading through the steeplechase water pit, and climbing over the hurdle to get to the other side. Bob’s experiences as a migrant educator and sport skill instructor laid a foundation for what would become his passion for research and scholarship—pursuing ways to enhance the psychosocial health and well-being of children and families through participation in sport and physical activity. After completing his M.A. in 1985 and Ph.D. in 1986 at the University of Oregon, Bob secured a tenure-track assistant professor position at Portland State University. His master’s thesis (Brustad & Weiss, 1987) and dissertation (Brustad, 1988), both published in JSEP, centered on positive and negative affective experiences in competitive youth sport. They were some of the first studies to use Harter’s competence motivation theory as a framework for exploring individual differences and socialization factors related to enjoyment and anxiety in the sport domain. These studies launched Bob’s programmatic line of research exploring parents’ beliefs and behaviors on children’s psychological, affective, and behavioral outcomes. His scholarly work was conducted while serving in two academic positions over 36 years—at Portland State University (1986–1992) and University of Northern Colorado (1992–2022). Bob’s 1992 conceptual paper in JSEP, “Integrating Socialization Influences Into the Study of Children’s Motivation in Sport” (Brustad, 1992), significantly shaped the theoretical and scholarly approach to this area of study. In this article, Bob advocated for a developmental approach to the study of children’s social and motivational experiences in sport, bolstered by his academic background in sociology and developmental sport psychology and real-world experiences teaching and coaching children. He offered a convincing rationale for the use of developmental theories to guide the study of social influences and motivational outcomes and reviewed studies supporting these theories in the academic domain. Although this paper was published 30 years ago, it remains a critical source in which sport and exercise psychology students can appreciate how and why contemporary perspectives stem from early and innovative visions for the field. Bob’s systematic line of research on parental socialization of children’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes in sport and physical activity aligns with the developmental philosophy in his 1992 paper. Studies, reviews, and chapters highlight appropriate theoretical frameworks; include breadth and depth of empirical support; and translate theory and research to professional best practices for parents, coaches, and health care providers (e.g., Brustad, 1993, 1996a, 2003, 2010, 2012; Brustad & Babkes, 2004). His intellectual curiosity came through in all his written work and he was devoted to balancing the conceptual and Address author correspondence to mrweiss@umn.edu.