Although lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) adults may face stigmatization in sport settings that undermines this otherwise identity enhancing form of leisure, LGBT-focused sport groups provide a supportive setting for sport participation. We examine facets of ego involvement (e.g., identity affirmation, social bonding) as predictors of sport group behaviors (e.g., practice participation, volunteering) with 228 LGBT-focused sport group participants. Over time, the more identity affirmation needs were met, the more people took part in sport-related social activities. Further, the more participants’ identity expression needs were met, the more they attended practice. Enhanced social bonding from sport club participation predicted increased social event attendance. Finally, identity affirmation predicted greater social event attendance for men and those with higher levels of internalized homophobia. LGBT-focused sport participation helps meet important psychological needs, leading to enhanced sport organization-supportive behaviors. The contributions of this study to leisure and ego involvement research are discussed.

Months after COVID-19 emerged as a newsmaker in Asia, a new strain of March Madness emerged in North America. Incredulity followed as leisure activities, hallowed as venues and expressions of individual and collective identity were closed. Freedoms, real and perceived, were curtailed. Like others, we sought to maintain social connections. For the first time in decades, our weekly on-line conversations became normative. Two authors remain working to sustain the academy's work during this crisis and the other is retired. Spatially we reside in a major metropolitan area of 6 million, a small west coast college town, and a Great Lakes region vacation community. Our discussion connects leisure research and the context of basic rights that North Americans have long taken for granted. This commentary emerged from integrated discussion regarding how the crisis affects and may change leisure behavior from multiple perspectives.

A reflection on 57 years of continuous academics.

There were two purposes for this research. First was to model influence of ego involvement (EI) facets on running intensity behaviours and preferences over former interuniversity athletes’ lifespans. Second, we examined the role of age as a potential moderator of these relationships. Retrospective data related to ego involvement with, and participation in, running were collected from 288 former varsity distance runners ages 24 to 89. Data suggested that increase in centrality (i.e. the extent to which participants felt their lives were organized around running) was associated with greater self-reported running intensity (e.g. number of days run per week) over the lifespan. Age moderated the association of ego involvement with running intensity and preferences. Specifically, centrality was positively associated with number of days run per week and length of run for younger respondents. Findings are discussed in terms of continuity theory and physically active leisure behaviour over the adult life span.

Earlier this summer, I was thrilled to learn that I had been selected to receive the 2017 Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Award. I've been a National Recreation and Park Association member since 1982. Unfortunately, after considerable agonizing over the past month, I've decided that I will not travel to New Orleans to accept the Roosevelt Award in person. I've concluded that attending NRPA at this time would violate the letter and spirit of a self-imposed travel ban and compromise deeply held values, morals, and principles in light of President Donald Trump (and his administration's) actions since elected into office. In so doing, I attempt to honor Teddy Roosevelt himself who famously wrote nearly 100 years ago that "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

This study aimed to explore the influence of family holiday travel on the subjective well-being (SWB) of Chinese adolescents. Surveys were distributed at two public middle schools in the urban area of a large city located in the eastern part of Mainland China. Participants were middle school students aged between 12 and 15 years (grades 7–9). By using Labor Day in China as an experimental context, this study applied a longitudinal research design. Findings suggest that family holiday travel influences the global life satisfaction; contentment with school, self and leisure life; positive and negative affects of adolescents. In particular, there is a short-term lift-up effect of family holiday travel on the SWB of adolescent travelers. However, the results suggest that the benefits of family holiday travel in terms of SWB diminish when adolescent students return to school. Moreover, students who travel with their families during holidays have significantly higher post-holiday SWB than their non-traveling counterparts. The current study advances our knowledge on the influence of family travel on the SWB of adolescents. Recommendations for parents, schools, and the government were put forward.

Airbnb has grown very rapidly over the past several years, with millions of tourists having used the service. The purpose of this study was to investigate tourists' motivations for using Airbnb and to segment them accordingly. The study involved an online survey completed in 2015 by more than 800 tourists who had stayed in Airbnb accommodation during the previous 12 months. Aggregate results indicated that respondents were most strongly attracted to Airbnb by its practical attributes, and somewhat less so by its experiential attributes. An exploratory factor analysis identified five motivating factors-Interaction, Home Benefits, Novelty, Sharing Economy Ethos, and Local Authenticity. A subsequent cluster analysis divided the respondents into five segments-Money Savers, Home Seekers, Collaborative Consumers, Pragmatic Novelty Seekers, and Interactive Novelty Seekers. Profiling of the segments revealed numerous distinctive characteristics. Various practical and conceptual implications of the findings are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to identify cognitive and affective mechanisms by which the experience of live sport spectating might inspire new sport participation. A conceptual model of demonstration effects that explored relationships among cognitive dimensions of spectators' consumptive experiences (i.e., fantasy, flow, evaluation, aesthetics and physical attractiveness), an affective state of inspiration, and intention to try a sport on display was tested. Data were collected from spectators attending 2015 Pan Am Games track cycling competitions through a written questionnaire. Cognitive dimensions were all positively related to feelings of being inspired while watching the event. Feelings of being inspired while watching the event, in turn, had a positive effect on intention to try the sport of track cycling. An affective state of inspiration also mediated relationships between each cognitive dimension of sport event performance consumption and intention. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Sports participants' attitudes, usually measured based on enduring characteristics, are increasingly being examined in terms of situational nuances that affect their experience. This study is an examination of situational (SI) and enduring (EI) involvement among 195 adult male ice hockey enthusiasts. Existing EI instrumentation is utilised, as well as an SI scale developed specifically for this research. Results build on existing research from other exploratory studies that SI has an additive effect alongside EI. Further, significant differences in sport behaviour patterns were shown among groups created using EI profiles. Innovative data collection methods are discussed given the inherently intrusive nature of collecting SI data at the site of activity engagement.

This research examined the degree to which commitment to parks and parks -focused motivations are linked to well-being, broadly defined. We draw on psychological theory that suggests that experiences that expand our sense of meaning and identity enhance well-being and act as stress buffers. Similarly, pursuit of social and spiritual motivations have been linked to well-being and are important resources for stress reduction. To test this, the association of psychological conunitment, including informational complexity (i.e., participants' degree of parks -related knowledge), position involvement (i.e., the degree to which participant identity is linked to parks) and motivations (e.g., psychosocial, spiritual, economic) with well-being (e.g., life satisfaction and self-rated mental health) was examined among a group of 634 visitors to two parks in Alberta, Canada. Further, we examined potential role of parks -focused commitment and motivations as stress buffers. Multivariate analyses showed that the more park visitors valued informational complexity (i.e., the level of knowledge one has about parks), the greater their mental health. Further, greater position involvement (i.e., parks linked to identity) was associated with higher levels of life satisfaction. In terms of motivations, higher levels of spiritual/ecological motivations were associated with greater life satisfaction and greater psychosocial motivations were also linked better mental health. In terms of buffers, position involvement seemed to provide some relief from the impact of self -rated stress on diminished mental health, and psychosocial motivations helped lessen the association of stress with lower life satisfaction. Thus, the degree to which people are invested in their knowledge of parks, parks are a reflection of identity, and people have parks focused motivations appear to have implications for well-being. These findings are discussed in terms of the contribution of park visitors' relationship to parks and well-being as well as implications for marketing and park management. For example, the results suggest that educational programming may enhance benefits derived from parks visits by increasing visitor's informational complexity and identification with parks. In particular, parks -focused education in childhood

This research was developed to answer two questions: (1) What is the relationship between producer bias and the way public recreation services are produced? (2) What is the relationship between people's preferences for a particular model of service production (i.e., producer biases) and how people think of themselves as participants in their communities (i.e., citizenship orientations)? Data were gathered from 302 recreation participants at three community centers in Southwestern Ontario. The centers represented three distinct production models. Producer biases were universally related to the production mode experienced by respondents in this study (p<.05). As well, political and social citizenship were positively associated with both coproduction and direct provision producer biases. Civil citizenship was positively associated with contractual model producer biases. Method of recreation service production, bias in favor of production modes to which participants are exposed, and citizenship orientations appear inextricably linked. Cette recherche a ete menee pour repondre a deux questions : (1) Quelle est la relation entre les preferences des membres de centre de loisir et la facon dont les services publics de loisirs sont crees? (2) Quelle est la relation entre les preferences personnelles pour un modele de gestion de service et les croyances qu'ont les membres a propos de ce que devrait etre leur implication au sein de leur communaute (cf. l'action civique)? Les donnees ont ete rassemblees a partir de 302 questionnaires remplis par des membres d'activites de loisirs provenant de trois centres communautaires dans le sud-ouest de l'Ontario. Ces centres sont geres selon trois modeles de gestion differents. Le choix fait pour un centre de loisirs etait toujours lie au mode de gestion prealablement connu par les participants de cette enquete. De plus, le choix pour un mode de gestion public ou mixte etait positivement associe aux croyances politiques et sociales des participants. Les croyances civiques ont positivement influence le mode de gestion choisi. Les methodes de creation de service de loisirs, les influences exercees sur le choix d'un mode de gestion due au fait que les participants y ont deja ete exposes, et les croyances civiques apparaissent inexorablement liees.

This paper extends the growing body of leisure research related to impact of major life events into the realm of physical activity. Respondents were a homogenous group of 224 runners in the sense that all competed in varsity cross country at the intercollegiate level. This early-adult life similarity was deemed appropriate as it provides additional power to conclusions drawn regarding magnitude of major life events (none, minor, major) and impact (qualitative and quantitative) on later life participation. Respondents ranged in age from mid-20s to mid-90s, with an average age of just under 50. They reported on life events ranging from graduation, marriage, and addition of children, to changes in employment and residence, divorce, and death of a spouse. Data suggested that, on the whole, these highly involved and invested runners were relatively resilient to major events in their lives. Nearly 70% continued to run at some level. Respondents were more likely to report qualitative impact on running-sometimes positive, sometimes negative-than they were quantitative impact. The only exception to this rule was for addition of children to the family, and running less was, especially for women, the most common response. Although the majority of life events occurred during early adulthood, for example, graduation and marriage, those most challenging with respect to maintenance of running activity more often occurred a bit later in early midlife (children) and in middle age and beyond (serious injury and/or illness). Specific implications for practice are focused on those most impactful events. With respect to addition of children to the family, agencies are challenged to emphasize social support for young parents while remaining mindful of social norms that differentially impact men and women in this context. Proactive solutions are proposed for reducing likelihood and impact of serious running-related injuries, many of which focus on park and recreation agencies role in molding the built environment. As well, co-production opportunities with the sports medicine community are explored. The present research largely supports Whaley's (2007) argument that impactful life events are spread over the entire lifespan and Carpenter and colleagues' (multiple studies) conclusions regarding the complexity of interpreting life event impacts.

“Worked Out in Infinite Detail”: Michigan State College’s Lauren P. Brown and the Origins of the NCAA Cross Country Championships by Mark E. Havitz and Eric D. Zemper Origins Cross-country running is a sport of paradoxes, standing simultaneously at the center and periphery of the college athletic spectrum. Long-distance running will more likely lead to lifetime fitness than to a lucrative professional career. Running is pretty basic; skill, technique, and equipment requirements are minimal. Yet competitive success is predicated on complex combinations of genetics, mental resilience, the capacity for extreme training, strategy, good coaching, and unusual tolerance for the inevitable pain. In running, unlike many other sports, smaller is often better. Crosscountry runners are more prone to physical comparisons with cheerleaders, gymnasts, and members of debate teams and marching bands than with larger athletes who dominate popular spectator sports. No sport has more potential to integrate itself within the spatial milieu of host campuses. Races can be run anywhere: through manicured lawns and fairways, open meadows, and along muddy river banks; or across patches of pavement, through woodland trails, and over hill and dale in all weather conditions. No facilities are required, and distance is the only standardized element shared by individual courses. No one sits on the bench; all entrants are “starters.” It is the only National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sport where, in the national championship, hundreds of competing athletes from dozens of schools step off at the very same moment, competing stride-for-stride across the exact same terrain. Yet, of all NCAA sports, cross country is perhaps the least spectator friendly. Perfect vantage points are difficult to come by and little sense of effort, action, or drama is apparent when athletes are hidden from view or silhouetted against a distant sky. Those qualities only become apparent when one is immersed in the pack or standing among a rare THE MICHIGAN HISTORICAL REVIEW 39:1 (Spring 2013): PP 1-39.©2013 by Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved. 2 The Michigan Historical Review boisterous crowd as straining athletes glide by. In sum, it is a difficult sport to package for an audience. Cross country at what was then Michigan Agricultural College (MAC) dates to 1907, when Coach Chester Brewer, the director of physical culture, organized a large, split-squad intracollege race over a three-mile course winding through campus.1 Sporadic interuniversity competition commenced in 1910. Subsequent athletic directors, John Macklin and George Gauthier, who, like Brewer, were responsible for coaching most, if not all, of the school's varsity teams during their respective tenures, tutored cross-country runners through most of the following decade. By 1920, MAC had established the state’s most consistent cross-country team. New coach Art Smith led that 1920 team to its third straight triumph, thus earning permanent possession of the traveling State Intercollegiate Cup, over a field including second-place University of Michigan as well as Hope, Albion, Kalamazoo, and Alma colleges. But five straight years of one-year coaches brought cross country to a low ebb by the middle of the decade. The last two men in this series were Michigan State’s longtime athletic trainer Jack Heppinstall, who mentored the 1923 team, and athletic director and multisport coach Ralph Young, who worked with the team in 1924. Although Young was a track-and-field expert, his primary talent lay in developing sprinters and throwers. Indeed, the college’s highest-profile athletes of that decade, superseding even its football and basketball players, were a stable of outstanding sprinters led by NCAA 100-yarddash champion and United States Olympian Fred Alderman.2 Ralph Young, like Chester Brewer, John Macklin, and Albert Barron before him, served concurrently as football coach, cross-country coach, and athletic director during the fall term in 1924 and was responsible for coaching other sports throughout the year. Indeed, on the occasion of two of the cross-country team’s three dual meets, Coach Young was with his football team, literally in a different state.3 If Michigan State College intended to get serious about cross country, and for that matter stay relevant in football, full-time coaching was a necessity...

The emergence of virtual social networks has enabled people to communicate and gather information at the click of a button. Although it has been generally accepted that Internet blogs are an important factor influencing consumers' purchase decisions, the content of travel blogs has commonly been reduced by current research to statistical data and mere categories. This article suggests that it is only by incorporating qualitative analyses of travel bloggers' experiences that destination marketers can extrapolate, comprehend, and ultimately incorporate into marketing strategies the meanings tourists assign to their tourism experiences. A brief review of the current research methods on blogs establishes the need to apply a realist evaluation of travel blogs using qualitative techniques to complement quantitative research methods. This would allow for both objective and subjective travel experience components to be examined and considered for research and marketing purposes.

Given the commonplace of physically active charity events, it is increasingly important for charitable organizations to understand how participants form personal attachments to their events so that marketers can maximize the amount of funds raised and achieve an attractive return on marketing expenditures. This exploratory study examines the ways in which participants at a walk/run for multiple sclerosis form personal attachments to the event. The limited work that has been conducted in this area has focused on cycling events, which may not include all types of participants (e.g., people with physical restrictions tied to the cause) and their experiences. Data were collected through an online questionnaire that employed open‐ended qualitative questions. The findings suggest three ways in which participants form attachments to the event, including being known as a fundraiser, aligning self and cause, and developing social bonds. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research objectives were both applied and conceptual. Actionable segments of physical activity participants were developed using leisure involvement profiles. Also explored were links between leisure involvement, a construct primarily developed and applied in leisure literature, and psychological variables found to influence participation in physical activity literature. A community-based sample of 384 adults completed measures of five involvement facets and psychological, demographic, and behavioral variables. Cluster analysis revealed four groups: Extremely Involved, Quite Involved, Moderately Involved, and Marginally Involved. Scores for physical activity behavior, self-efficacy, motivations, and body mass index were most positive for the Extremely Involved, with a linear decline across the three remaining segments (p < .05). Few demographic between-group differences were found. The data suggest that leisure involvement provides an effective means of segmenting physically active leisure participants for purposes of research and health promotion, and that self-efficacy and motivation for physical activity were predictably linked to involvement.

As government funding is reduced and tourism-based fees are increasingly used to fund protected area operations, two options are often used for management: transfer of tourism services to the private sector or operation of tourism services by a government agency that functions like a corporation. This paper reports stakeholders' views concerning governance for two prominent, but different, management models for protected areas' tourism services in Canada. British Columbia Provincial Parks uses profit-making companies to deliver park services; Ontario Provincial Parks uses the parastatal approach, where park staff members provide most services directly. Surveys of five key stakeholder groups (park staff, visitors, contractors working in park, nearby residents and NGOs with an interest in parks) provided higher rankings of perceptions of governance criteria closer to good governance for the Ontario approach, with important differences found between some groups and amongst some criteria in both park systems. This research suggests that the parastatal model is perceived as superior by important stakeholder groups, using the lens of standard governance criteria, compared to the outsourcing model that uses profit-making companies to provide park tourism services. This finding has implications globally where governments seek to shift park funding from government towards tourism fees and charges.