Motivation and Behaviors Related to Sport Specialization in Collegiate Baseball Players.

Context: Early sport specialization is a growing concern among youth sport athletes, particularly in baseball. Motivation to participate in sports is an important factor in determining which sports youth athletes participate in and why.

Objective: To qualitatively investigate the youth sport participation behaviors and motivations of collegiate baseball players.

Design: Qualitative study.

Setting: Online teleconference.

Patients or other participants: We conducted 25 semistructured interviews with collegiate baseball athletes who were classified as high-level (n = 8), moderate-level (n = 9), or low-level (n = 8) specialists before college.

Data collection and analysis: Participants completed individual semistructured interviews to allow us to develop an understanding of their youth and high school sports experiences and associated motivations to engage in those experiences. A framework analysis approach was used to analyze the transcript data and identify themes among the 3 specialization groups.

Results: From our interview analysis, 6 overall themes emerged: (1) motivation, (2) stress, (3) quitting, (4) barriers, (5) facilitators of success, and (6) future directions. Moderate- and high-level specialists described greater levels of passion, participating in deliberate practice, greater levels of performance-related stress, and more desire to quit sports than low-level specialists. None of the groups cited parents as an overbearing external motivator to participate in sport at an early age.

Conclusions: Participants who were classified as low-, moderate-, or high-level specialists noted different experiences related to their motivation, stress level, desire to quit, barriers to participating in baseball, facilitators of success, and their overall future career goals after completing baseball. This information may be useful for parents, coaches, and health care professionals to better communicate the benefits and risks associated with sport specialization to youth athletes. Future research is needed to determine if differences in motivation levels exist in younger populations.