| This study explores the concept of mental toughness in the sport-specific context of high school boys' basketball through in-depth qualitative interviews with six Southern California boys' varsity head coaches. The purpose of this study was to move toward an understanding of mental toughness in high school boys' basketball by exploring six coaches' perceptions of this concept. Inductive content analysis revealed findings addressing coaches' perceptions of what mental toughness is and where they believe mental toughness comes from. Results indicated as follows: (a) all coaches recognized the term mental toughness and two-thirds of the coaches used the term without prompting; (b) mental toughness was perceived as a multifaceted construct characterized by mental, physical, and intellectual characteristics---specifically, coaches believed that mentally tough players possessed belief, drive, focus, coping skills, character (mental), physical toughness (physical ), and sport intelligence (intellectual ); and, (c) coaches believed that mental toughness comes from a combination of innate characteristics and learned elements that arise from childhood development (upbringing, early experiences in sport, and other social influences) and high school development (coach driven and experience driven development). The findings of this study supported previous literature on mental toughness, further demonstrating its perception as a multifaceted construct characterized by seemingly global attributes. Practical implications were made for application of the findings in sport psychology consulting. |
