Elsevier

Sport Management Review

Volume 23, Issue 4, August 2020, Pages 704-718
Sport Management Review

“I’m a completely different person now”: Extraordinary experiences and personal transformations in sport

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2019.09.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Extraordinary experiences in sport can result in lasting personal transformation.

  • Newness, intense emotions and deep interpersonal connections led to transformations.

  • Participants developed a sense of empowerment and new meaning and purpose in life.

Abstract

Many sport programs aim to positively impact participants’ lives, but there is little understanding of how sport leads to those changes. The purpose of this study was to examine an extraordinary experience and the participants’ interpretations of that experience as well as their feelings of personal transformation through the experience. In doing so, the authors developed an understanding of how sport can be used to create meaningful life changes at the individual level. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 32 past participants of a long distance cycling ride that raised money and awareness for cancer research. Data analysis included three rounds of coding. Participants reported that the unusualness and sense of newness of the ride, the high levels of emotional intensity experienced, and the deep interpersonal connections developed led to a sense of empowerment and new meaning and purpose in life. Results indicate that extraordinary experiences contribute to lasting personal transformations, beyond intended behavior changes, within sport and out of sport. The characteristics of extraordinary experiences that contribute to personal transformation are discussed, as are suggestions for sport managers to leverage extraordinary experiences to create positive personal transformations.

Introduction

Biking 4500 miles across a continent may seem an impossible task for many, but for those who complete the journey, their lives are changed forever. Life change may seem a large claim for a task that on the surface involves riding a bicycle every day for seventy days. However, the factors involved in creating personal transformation go well beyond the physical challenges of the bicycle ride and have largely remained unexplored in the literature. In short, it is unclear how effective sport experiences can be toward changing people’s lives. According to Hartmann and Kwauk (2011), most beliefs on the impact that sport can have on one’s life are grounded in anecdotal evidence and driven by heartfelt narratives. There is very little understanding of how sport can be used appropriately to positively change people’s lives (Walker, Hills, & Heere, 2017). Therefore, this study is an exploration of personal transformation through an extraordinary sport experience that begins to develop our understanding of how sport can be used to create meaningful life changes at the individual level.

Personal transformation is the process of creating a new self-definition through critical self-reflection and analysis of old and new self-views that changes the way an individual sees their relationships and themselves as well as the way they behave (Mezirow, 1978; Wade, 1998). One mechanism by which this transformation occurs is taking others’ perspectives, and the need or desire to take others’ perspectives is preceded by a dilemma that cannot be resolved through one’s current understanding. These dilemmas will vary from individual to individual but can include conversations with others, stressful life experiences, a new environment, or even reading a book that presents information that conflicts with one’s previous understanding of a subject or experience (Ferguson, 1980; Wildemeersch & Leirman, 1988).

One of these dilemmas is known as an extraordinary experience, or an experience characterized by a sense of newness, high levels of emotional intensity, and interpersonal interaction (Arnould & Price, 1993). Examples of extraordinary experiences can include a river rafting trip, skydiving, mountain climbing, attending events like the Burning Man Festival or Mountain Man fantasy reenactments, and biking across a continent (e.g., Belk & Costa, 1998; Celsi, Rose, & Leigh, 1993; Dodson, 1996; Kozinets, 2002; Triantafillidou & Siomkos, 2013). These extraordinary experiences result in a sense of personal transformation and connection to others making it difficult to return to one’s previous, everyday world (Arnould & Price, 1993).

Because extraordinary experiences are unusual and not every day experiences, not every sport experience can be considered extraordinary. However, the power of these experiences to change lives warrants further attention as organizations could leverage them to benefit participants, particularly as sport organizations tout these benefits. Chalip (2006a) argued that sport and recreation can help participants in a variety of ways, but only if designed and implemented properly. As sport and recreation organizations often claim positive benefits like physical and mental health, socialization and cultural sensitivity, they become a legitimation for providing sport—but these same organizations often do not implement policies or programs that actually provide these benefits (Chalip, 2006a; Coakley, 2011). Understanding extraordinary experiences, and the elements that facilitate the resulting personal transformation, would be one step toward helping organizations provide positive change in participant’s lives.

The purpose of this study is to examine an extraordinary experience and the participants’ interpretation of that experience as well as their feelings of personal transformation through the experience. The findings will help to develop an understanding of how sport can be used to create meaningful life changes at the individual level. Sport must be implemented intentionally and appropriately to help participants reap the potential benefits. This study, grounded in participant experiences, will help further sport management research and practice by developing an understanding of how an extraordinary experience in sport can result in personal transformations, and how sport could be designed and implemented to achieve such results on a broader scale.

Section snippets

Literature review

Chalip (2006b) argued that the social impacts of events are valuable to communities, and do not just happen, but must be fostered through creating a sense of celebration and social camaraderie (liminality). By enabling and amplifying the sense of celebration and camaraderie, event organizers, including those associated with charitable sport organizations, can address social issues, build networks, and empower community action (Chalip, 2006b; Welty Peachey, Borland, Lobpries, & Cohen, 2015).

Method

To understand the transformations and experiences of participants in an extraordinary event, we utilized an interpretive case-study approach with the Texas 4000 as the central case. The interpretive approach centers on the way that human beings make sense of their reality and attach meaning to it. It acknowledges that human behavior and understandings thereof must be interpreted within the context of their lives and interpretations of their lives in short and long-term (Fraser, 1995;

Results

The data analysis showed that extraordinary experience elements, including the unusualness and sense of newness of the ride from Texas to Alaska, the high levels of emotional intensity, and the interpersonal interactions on the ride, all contributed to feelings of personal transformation. In the lead up to the ride, many experiences (e.g., fundraising, volunteering, and training) had some of these elements, but not all, and were not significant contributors to the personal transformations that

Discussion

Overall, the results of this study indicate that unlike results from studies of other cause-related sport events, extraordinary experiences can lead to sport-related and non-sport-related personal transformations that for some participants lasted for years beyond participation. Participants of this event largely and in masse, escaped a ‘return to the baseline’. Research question one asked how the extraordinary experience contributed to the participants’ personal transformations. The results

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