Attribution of athletic expertise by college coaches

The goals of the study were to identify the factors that college coaches as sociate with athletic achievement and to rest deliberate practice theory pr edictions for practice relevance, effort, and pleasure, Swimming, tennis, a nd volleyball coaches from Division I and Division III schools rank ordered 15 attributes that contribute to successful athletic achievement. They als o rated the relevance, effort. and pleasure of 7 athletic and 7 everyday ev ents for improving athletic achievement. The rank orders showed that the co aches primarily attributed athletic achievement to innate talent. intrinsic motivation, and effort while factors such as accumulated practice and type of the practice received lower rankings. Findings for practice effort were consistent with deliberate practice theory while the relevance and pleasur e findings were mixed. Several explanations for successful athletic achieve ment, other than talent, are discussed.