READING REPORT 7
SMGT 402
Reading Report Instructions
You will submit a 1-page Reading Report (as an attached document) on the assigned readings from each module/week, answering the questions from the workbook.
Each Reading Report must include the following:
A summary of the major themes and principles in the chapter and workbook.
A critique of the helpfulness of the chapter in your understanding of sport chaplaincy.
How the chapter encouraged you to continue or not continue in this field.
Each assignment is due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Monday of the assigned module/week, except for Reading Report 8, which is due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Friday of Module/Week 8. 13 Serving the spirit?
The sport psychologist and the
chaplain in English Premiership
Football
Mark Nesti
Introduction
Despite considerable efforts by academics, practitioners and professional bodies,
sport psychology and sport psychologists have long struggled for acceptance
in the world of professional sport. One of the reasons for this is the percep-
tion surrounding psychology, namely that it is only for those suffering from
problems or for weak individuals (Fifer et al., 2008). Other obstacles relate to
beliefs about the value of sport psychology work and that many coaches, espe-
cially at the elite level, think of themselves as very competent applied psycholo-
gists, albeit without formal qualifications in the discipline. These and similar
challenges are commonly experienced in professional football. Describing my
experiences as a sport psychologist inside several English Premier League clubs,
I have argued elsewhere that the culture of professional football is particularly
difficult for sport psychologists to operate within because top-level managers
and their players often view themselves as highly knowledgeable about psy-
chological factors and performance (Nesti, 2011a). They maintain this opinion,
quite reasonably some would suggest, because they know that to achieve and
survive at the highest levels of the game requires outstanding psychological
qualities and skills (Brown and Potarc, 2009).
In contrast to the task facing the sport psychologist, the chaplain working
in professional football is rarely seen as someone whose role and function is
already catered for inside the club. Few coaches and managers would make any
public claims to the type of expertise possessed by the chaplain but they may
suggest that they also provide some form of pastoral support for players and staff.
However, most would be quick to acknowledge that this type of activity is not
their primary function and, unlike the chaplain, such provision is not normally
guided by a specific theological orientation or system of religious belief. Inter-
estingly, a close examination of various autobiographies of successful coaches
and managers in a range of professional sports reveals that a significant number
are strongly influenced by their own personal religious beliefs or faith in how
they view their job and how they work with the teams: for example, Vince
Lombardi and Sir Matt Busby. Nevertheless, this is not the main source of diffi-
culty that a chaplain may face in providing a service within professional football
Serving the spirit? 159
or in professional sport in general. A more common problem is that chaplains
are often seen as people lacking any real, in-depth understanding of the demands
of elite level performance sport. They could be viewed as a rather whimsical
figure who is hoping to find converts, someone, who, despite a low-key and
friendly demeanour, is really engaged in a surreptitious programme of religious
evangelization. In contrast, the sport psychologist may be seen more positively at
times, despite concerns over their value and effectiveness, because they are sup-
posed to be engaged in enhancing performance and helping players maximize
their talents. In an environment where continual failure to win games almost
invariably results in the removal of the manager and accompanying staff (Nesti,
2010), the chaplain may be seen as someone with a different focus because the
security of their position does not depend on match-day results. Because of this,
the chaplain might be perceived as one whose sole concern is with spiritual life
and the redemption of souls, someone whose interest does not lie in helping
footballers to play better but rather in supporting them to become better people.
In this chapter, I look more closely at the roles of both the sport psychologist
and the chaplain to reveal that the stereotypes and limited viewpoints outlined
above do not fully represent the realities of high-level professional footballing
environments. Although I will partly draw on my experiences working inside
a number of English Premier League clubs, my main focus is to more closely
examine the theoretical and philosophical problems which sport psychologists
may encounter when working alongside club chaplains in professional foot-
ball at the highest level. To achieve this we will look at four key issues: (1)
the underlying approach to the science of psychology and sport psychology;
(2) the so-called performance or care debate; (3) the place of spiritual belief
and religious faith in the lives of professional footballers and coaches in the
English Premier League context; and (4) the impact of the sport psychologists
personal religious beliefs on their applied work. Given my own background in
the Catholic faith, this final section will highlight how two specific beliefs and
practices from this tradition have had an impact on my work with players, staff
and football chaplains, and influenced the approach I have taken in my role as a
sport psychologist in English Premier League football.
The science of sport psychology
In this section I will discuss the underlying philosophy of science that has influ-
enced the dominant approach to sport psychology since its inception. This is
important because it is one of the clearest reasons why many sport psychologists
feel they should have little to do with the work of chaplains. That is, psychology
as an academic discipline has been almost neurotic in seeking to establish its
distance from theology and philosophy, despite critics like Vitz (1997) accusing
psychology of becoming a new secular religion. In sum, the clash is essen-
tially at the level of presuppositions which govern sport psychologys theoreti-
cal commitments (and all reflection and deliberation for that matter): that is,
fundamental beliefs, epistemology and hermeneutics.
160 Mark Nesti
The academic discipline of sport psychology is still in its infancy. It is approx-
imately 50 years old. Most of the subject matter in terms of theories, research
paradigms, methods and epistemological foundations has been borrowed from
the parent discipline of psychology (Vealey, 2006). Psychology is in some ways
unique in that it can be approached as a branch of the physical sciences for
example, psychophysics or from a more philosophical base as is found in
much counselling psychology (Maslow, 1962). In its attempts to establish its
credibility as an academic discipline, early sport psychology positioned itself
firmly at the experimental, natural scientific and empiricist end of the spec-
trum. Several voices have tried to point out that by doing this, sport psychology
has restricted the types of subject matter and topics that can be studied and
discussed within the context of the discipline (e.g. Ryba and Wright, 2005).
Cartesian dualism and the desire to measure, predict and control, dominates
thinking. This has led to opposition, with some in the discipline adopting a
radical postmodern perspective and suggesting that the future lies in an almost
total dismantling of all preconceived ideas and methods in order to reach a new,
emancipatory situation.
Unfortunately, the epistemological positioning of sport psychology makes it
difficult to study a number of psychological concepts that are not easily meas-
ured, including hope, humility, sacrifice and courage. Other rarely encountered
terms in sport psychology such as spirit, spirituality and personal meaning are
denied existence (Crust, 2006) or seen as inappropriate for the discipline to
consider. Cognitive sport psychology (the dominant approach), grounded as
it is in the philosophy of scientism, has nothing to offer on spirit and spir-
ituality since in this view they cannot be measured, quantified or understood
purely objectively. Meanwhile, the postmodernist viewpoint in academic sport
psychology tends to reduce everything to discourses and feelings. Ideas like
religious belief become stripped of any substance, understood only as an epi-
phenomenon, an irrational set of thoughts that bring emotional comfort. There
is much to object to about this kind of argument, but one of the most amusing
objections for religious believers is the common failing of postmodern critics
to overlook the fact that almost all religions include ideas concerning punish-
ment in this life or after death. All of which represents quite a challenge to the
idea that religious faith is merely some sort of pleasant emotional crutch.
Spirituality and sport psychology
In examining sport psychology literature on spirituality, Watson and Nesti
(2005) identified at least two major obstacles to further study and consideration.
The first is the scientific and philosophical basis of sport psychology outlined
above. The second is the tendency to see spirituality as only related to religion.
However, the majority of literature in psychology and related fields differenti-
ates between spirituality and religion, conceptualizing the former as a broader
phenomenon including also humanistic perspectives (Pargament, 1999). The
situation in the academic literature in sport is less well developed, although in
Serving the spirit? 161
recent years a small number of sport philosophers and theologians have begun
to address this topic, leading to the publication of books and articles on sport
and religion (Ladd and Mathisen, 1999) and sport and spirituality (Parry, Nesti
and Watson, 2011; Robinson, 2007).
For the sport psychologist hoping to explore how spirituality could be
important in their applied work or research, one avenue is to draw on the
ideas of the Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper, who has distinguished between
religious spirituality and human spirituality. As a Catholic philosopher, Pieper
(1998) argues that while these two ways of understanding spirituality and the
idea of spirit itself are fundamentally related, it is also possible to make distinc-
tions. Human spirit refers to our capacity for free will. Pieper further argues
that we use the word spirit to describe human agency articulating this in terms
of a belief in our ability to act beyond the limitations arising from our inherited
characteristics or influence of the environment. As a result, words like cour-
age such an important term in sport can be understood, to some extent,
as a psycho-spiritual idea. Indeed, Corlett (1996a) has suggested that courage
means to choose a course of action that may result in a morally good and desir-
able outcome in the face of considerable uncertainty. Both Pieper and Corlett
are postulating that courage cannot be viewed as merely a psychological skill.
Rather, they want us to conceive of it as something that is evidence of our
free will, in this case our freedom to choose a course of action that in certain
situations could even lead to our death or serious injury. This term can be
differentiated from the semantically similar, yet quite different, word bravery,
which means to do something instinctively, to act without carefully thinking
through the risks involved. According to Aristotle and Aquinas, acting coura-
geously involves doing something (or not doing something) to achieve a moral
good after careful consideration of the risks involved and possible outcomes. It
is for this reason that many sports coaches and managers value courage in their
players, well above psychological skills and emotional control (Nesti, 2011a).
Another important and frequently used term in professional sport, including
football, is spirit (Nesti, 2011b). Coaching staff and players often talk about
the need to show spirit in times of adversity. Teams call on spirit when they
are stuck in the relegation zone, when they find themselves 30 down at half
time, or when players experience long-term injury or do not get selected for
the team on match days. Of course, not all sport psychologists see things this
way, and some have explained notions of courage and spirit by reference to
psychological skills (Crust, 2006). However, it is clear that this is not necessar-
ily how things are interpreted and understood by those inside elite sporting
organizations. In the environment of professional football, spirit is seen as a
quality of the person, something intangible yet real, that reveals the inadequacy
of describing human actions only in terms of behavioural or cognitive processes
(Pieper, 1995).
Sport psychologists who wish to deal with spiritual ideas and concepts in
their work will have to look for alternative theoretical foundations for their
practice. Examining the theoretical spectrum within psychology and sport
162 Mark Nesti
psychology, we find that it is only those adopting person-centred approaches
that take terms like courage, spirit and spirituality seriously (Ravizza, 2002).
Humanistic, phenomenological, existential and some forms of Jungian psychol-
ogy recognize that the philosophical concept of free will must be part of an
empirically sound definition of human being. In contrast, mainstream sport
psychology, both in its academic form and professional practice, is derived from
behaviourist, trait and cognitive psychological approaches. These are all, con-
sciously or unconsciously, based on natural scientific foundations involving a
complete rejection of the idea of human free will and associated terms. It is
for this reason that, despite being mentioned daily at training grounds in the
English Premier League, words like hope, courage and faith are very rarely
found in the mainstream academic sport psychology literature. This is especially
the case in English-speaking countries compared to places where an orthodox
Christian or Catholic anthropology of the human person has a greater influence
on theorizing and practice in the human and social sciences. In those countries
a greater number of philosophers (Marcel, 1948) and psychologists (Caruso,
1964) have based their work on the idea that the human person is made up of
mind, body and soul. Where the sport psychologist acknowledges this idea of
the human person, the psychological understanding of human being should be
much closer to that of the chaplain regardless of their religious or faith tradition.
In addition, if the sport psychologists work is also guided by approaches such
as those strands of existential psychology that place an emphasis on meaning
(Frankl, 1984), or on spirit (Kierkegaard, 1980), one will have the reassurance
of knowing ones professional philosophy and practice is based on a coherent
theoretical position (Slife, Hope and Nebeker, 1999). This shared theology of
the person should make fruitful cooperation between the psychologist and
chaplain a viable reality. This is especially true if the chaplain is an adherent
of one of the majority monotheistic religions where considerable agreement
exists concerning definitions of the human person.
Performance or care?
One of the most important recent debates in applied sport psychology centres
on whether work should be exclusively directed at performance enhancement
or more focused on athlete care. Within the literature, the dominant view is
that sport psychologists must attend only to performance-related matters. The
reasoning behind this position is that sport psychology theory and research is
aimed at helping athletes to improve, to develop better psychological skills and
achieve their goals. According to Brady and Maynard (2010), clubs, teams and
individual sports performers expect these improvements from their work with
sport psychologists, and it is through serving in this capacity that psycholo-
gists can offer an effective professional and ethical service. Opposing this view,
Andersen (2009) claims that applied practice should focus on athlete care alone.
The rationale for this position is based upon arguments surrounding measure-
ment and the needs of individuals operating in competitive sport. Andersen
Serving the spirit? 163
suggests that because it is impossible to reliably identify and measure the impact
a sport psychologist can have on athlete performance, we must abandon our
interest in this factor and instead address ourselves to supporting the athlete
as they experience the rigours of performance sport. It could be argued that
sport psychologists who adopt this kind of practice and professional philoso-
phy would be better placed working constructively with and alongside sports
chaplains. Indeed, a focus on the ordinary human needs of the athlete rather
than simply their sporting performance, especially when delivered through a
pastorally oriented approach, is very close to the working practices of the club
chaplain.
In my previous work, I have suggested that although the care only perspec-
tive might appeal to some chaplains, it is highly unlikely that it would be wel-
comed by those within elite level professional sports where performance and
winning are central concerns for all (Nesti, 2011b). Based on my experiences
of delivering sport psychology inside a number of English Premier League
clubs over several seasons, I have observed that almost everyone at those clubs
(including the club chaplain) sees themselves as helping the team to become
more successful. While the coaches might do this through their tactical acumen,
the medical team via their skilled application of injury prevention programmes,
and the fitness staff by the design of scientifically supported strength and con-
ditioning interventions, the sport psychologist and chaplain are not exempt
in this respect. It is very difficult to imagine why an organization operating at
the highest level in professional sport would hire a sport psychologist with no
interest in helping the team, staff and athletes to perform better. Of course, this
does not mean that it is impossible for the psychologist to demonstrate a car-
ing approach to those with whom he or she works, but it highlights the need
to strike a balance in intensely competitive sporting cultures between meeting
individual human need and offering support for performance enhancement. It
is the sport psychologist adopting this type of perspective who will be the one
hired by the clubs and who will be most able to work creatively and positively
with the club chaplain. In addition, it is highly likely that most chaplains in pro-
fessional football clubs feel that they also contribute in subtle and less explicit
ways to team and individual performance. After all, providing care and support
for someone usually enhances their general psychological, physical and spiritual
health, which, in turn, may have a positive impact upon their performance of
professional roles.
Spirituality and religious belief
English Premier League football is a global phenomenon. At the start of the
2013/14 footballing season over 70 per cent of first team players at the 20
Premier League clubs were non-UK citizens. At the top clubs this figure is
even higher, and it is common to see starting line-ups containing no UK-based
players at all. This level of international diversity is not as marked amongst sup-
port staff where the majority of managers, coaches, sports science and medical
164 Mark Nesti
personnel are from the UK. These are very important issues for sport psycholo-
gists and chaplains for a number of reasons. First, it means that there are usually
a significant number of players professing an allegiance to one faith tradition or
another. Second, given that support staff come mainly from the UK, it is often
the case that significantly fewer of these individuals possess an active religious
faith. In this sense, levels of religiosity and belief amongst support staff broadly
reflect the societal backdrop from which they emanate. In common with most
other Western countries, the UK has become a largely secular culture and one
that has increasingly turned away from an affinity with organized religion (Voas
and Crockett, 2005; Theos, 2013). Thirdly, it is common to find chaplains work-
ing with players from a variety of faiths, the largest being Catholic Christianity
and Islam. Indeed, it is entirely possible that a chaplain could work in a club
where no co-religionists exist amongst the playing staff, although there may be
individuals in senior management positions or on the commercial side of the
club, who share the chaplains religious affiliations. This unusual situation will
bring many challenges and opportunities for the chaplain as they fulfil their
role. The chaplain will be in a very privileged position to help the coaching and
sports science staff to understand the demands placed upon players on account
of the various religious obligations and practices to which they may adhere. For
example, there is little to guide clubs in terms of how they might manage the
dietary and other demands a player may encounter during Ramadan. The chap-
lain can be an important conduit between the players and the staff to ensure
that the dictates and demands of particular religious beliefs are respected and
accommodated in a way that does not undermine performance and competi-
tive edge. The chaplain may be invited to events like staff away-days to help the
coaching team understand more about the central role of religious belief and
practice in the lives of players. This type of activity is something that occurs in
high-level, professional football and is welcomed at some clubs (Nesti, 2010).
In my experience, the sport psychologist can play an important role in facilitat-
ing this type of information exchange and educational opportunity by inviting
the chaplain to attend and speak at away-days or to take part in smaller, more
focused meetings with key first team staff.
Common ground in adversity
The sport psychologist can become an important ally in the work of the chap-
lain in a number of practical ways. Where the psychologist conceives of their
work as being both about player performance and caring for the person, it is
much easier for them to develop a close working relationship with the chap-
lain. Again, to return to an earlier discussion, this becomes altogether more
feasible and indeed professionally consistent if the psychologist is guided in
their activity by human science conceptualizations of psychology (Van Deurzen
and Arnold-Baker, 2005) and uses models derived from humanistic and other
person-centred approaches. The sport psychologist who uses one-to-one confi-
dential counselling sessions as part of their work should discover that they share
much common ground with the chaplain. This will also be apparent if the sport
Serving the spirit? 165
psychologist is interested equally in football-related matters and the players
life beyond the training ground. And finally, greater professional respect and
mutual sharing of important information will increase if the sport psycholo-
gist is committed to carrying out longer-term developmental work rather than
using quick-fix mental training interventions to remove or alleviate symptoms
(Corlett, 1996b).
During those inevitable periods when a team or club is facing crisis the
chaplain could benefit considerably from the visible and active support of the
sport psychologist. It is not uncommon for some staff to see the chaplain as
someone whose interests are very different from their own. At such times there
may even be attempts to keep the chaplain away from the training ground or
to make him or her feel less welcome than they would during more fruit-
ful periods. This tension is unavoidable when one group of people is under
intense pressure in relation to their performance and the inability to improve
club circumstance quickly may result in job loses. However, paradoxically, it is
in these frequently encountered moments that the chaplain may find that they
are most in demand by players if not staff. When clubs and teams are facing
adversity, players in particular can be placed under intense scrutiny. Passions run
high, communication commonly becomes abrasive, scapegoating takes place
and team spirit is strained (Nesti & Littlewood, 2011). The pastoral care offered
to players in these arduous situations is important at a human level, and may
even go some way to helping indirectly with performance enhancement.
There will be many occasions when players and staff seek support from the
chaplain because of hardship in their personal lives. For example, the chaplain
may be key to helping a players family deal with the illness of a child, the
death of a close relative, or the consequences of an accident. Sometimes when
new players join a club, especially if they come from a different culture, they
might encounter social dislocation, severe homesickness and disorientation. At
Premier League level, this can be experienced even more acutely because of
a range of unique factors such as the levels of media interest in players lives
and the accompanying lack of privacy, language and communication problems
and unfamiliar cultural practices. On top of this, players might have to quickly
adjust to new ways of playing and training and to winning over teammates and
fans. In these situations, the chaplain, may be viewed by the troubled player as
someone who is prepared to approach them as a fellow human being rather
than a highly paid, elite professional footballer. This type of support from the
chaplain and the sport psychologist working in partnership can be highly ben-
eficial to the team and can help individual players settle in more easily and
contribute more fully (see Gamble, Hill and Parker, 2013).
Catholic perspectives
Where the sport psychologist is a Catholic working in English Premier League
football, there are some opportunities that may be more easily afforded them
than may be the case with a practitioner of another faith tradition or secular
belief. Given the large numbers of Spanish, French, South American, Italian,
166 Mark Nesti
Irish, Polish and Dutch players in the English Premier League, the sport psy-
chologist will find that many of these individuals are practising Catholics or
have some understanding of this religion having lived in traditionally Catholic
cultures. It is not uncommon for these players to ask the sport psychologist as
well as the chaplain for information about Mass times, locations of churches
and, if they have children, access to local Catholic schools. These can be very
powerful ways for both the chaplain and the sport psychologist to build rela-
tionships with and to begin to support players. Many clubs have a compre-
hensive induction process in place for new players and their families; this may
involve the chaplain and the sport psychologist as well as other specialist staff
like liaison officers and coaches.
The famous psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung (1963) claimed that through-
out his professional life, he very rarely worked with any Catholic patients in his
clinic despite this group representing around 40 per cent of the Swiss popula-
tion at that time. He suggested that this was not necessarily a comment on
the mental health of this section of Swiss society, but was likely due to the
psychological benefits associated with the sacrament of confession. In com-
menting on the psychotherapeutic value of engaging in a confidential and
private encounter where the believer speaks about their failures to another
trusted figure, Jung pointed out that the unburdening of guilt resulting from
this type of dialogue in confession can have a profound and positive impact
on an individuals psychological state. The Catholic sport psychologist guided
by a personalist perspective in their work and with personal experience of the
encounter that takes place in confession and reconciliation, may draw on this
experience. This knowledge, working in a subtle and implicit way, may then
influence the approach taken to dialogue in one-to-one sessions with players.
This can help to reassure the player that no matter what is discussed, complete
confidentiality will be maintained, something that they have encountered when
attending confession or by knowing about the seal of the confessional. This is
especially important given that it is quite common for players to want to discuss
a number of delicate and very sensitive matters. These might include feeling
anger and frustration at not being selected for the team, objecting to how the
manager and coaches are treating them, doubting their own ability to consist-
ently meet expectations concerning performance and a range of non-football
related, broader life challenges that they would rather keep completely private
from management, support staff and teammates.
Sometimes the sport psychologist and the chaplain can work together to
provide players with opportunities to meet their spiritual and religious needs
that are not attached to any one specific faith tradition. For example, some
clubs are beginning to establish prayer rooms and private spaces where players
and staff, regardless of their religious affiliation, can find a place for quiet reflec-
tion and prayer. Again, this is something that the sport psychologist following
a person-centred and holistic working philosophy can help to create alongside
the club chaplain. This type of fruitful partnership between the chaplain and
the sport psychologist can be a highly visible way to demonstrate that the club
Serving the spirit? 167
is committed to meeting the deepest, most personal needs of their players and
supporting their quest for performance excellence. This level of cooperation
between chaplain and sport psychologist can encourage players and staff to
reflect on their own identity and represent a gentle but persuasive reminder that
there are more important things than winning football matches and succeed-
ing as a professional footballer. I would respectfully suggest that some of those
things are health, family, love and finding meaning in ones life.
Concluding comments
Sport psychologists operating inside professional football clubs have much
to gain from developing strong and close professional relationships with club
chaplains. If this means that the academic discipline of sport psychology needs
to confront the limitations of its underlying scientific foundations and recog-
nize its philosophical antecedents, then this should be welcomed. If this were
to happen, chaplains operating in professional football would have provided a
great service to those sport psychologists who conceive their role as helpers of
persons who just happen to be professional sports performers. The chaplains
pastoral role and care for souls extends to everyone at the club; staff and players
alike. Best practice for sport psychologists must follow this lead from chaplains,
not only because it is ethically sound to do so, but because it is the optimum
way to support performance enhancement.
As I have argued previously, there is much resistance from within academic
quarters to sport psychologists being involved in matters spiritual and religious
(Nesti, 2011b). However, these issues are very important for some players and
staff (Nesti, 2011a) and therefore should not be ignored by sport psychologists
just because they lack a religious faith or feel uncomfortable about people
with a spiritual outlook on life (see Sarkar, Hill and Parker, 2014). This is not
consistent with the importance of toleration and inclusivity that we hear about
so often from psychologists and other social scientists. Sport psychologists are
not being asked to provide a religious or spiritual answer to the problems faced
by their clients; this would require them to go beyond their professional role.
However, it could be considered a missed opportunity if the psychologist does
not fully sup
