Current trends in risk management strategies of recreational sport club programs

This study determines whether the institutional size has any relationship to institutional concerns for risk management and if institutional size is related to the effectiveness of sound risk management guidelines within collegiate sport club programs. A risk management self assessment instrument consisting of twenty-five sound risk management guidelines and a ranking of the five most important and most difficult to implement was developed. Using the risk management self-assessment instrument, this nation-wide study asked collegiate sport club administrators to assess the extent to which their programs effectively adhere to sound risk management guidelines and to determine what they deem to be the most important and the most difficult risk management concerns to implement. Between institutional population sizes of 0-3000, 3001-10000, 10001- 20000, and 20001-60500, no significant differences were detected in regards to overall effectiveness of risk management guidelines. Six of twenty-five individual statements had significant differences between institutional sizes. These statements\u27 concerns were in regards to equipment, physical examinations, waivers, travel itineraries, site communication accessibility, and manuals. Analysis of the ranking of most important and most difficult concerns to implement indicated there was no significant differences between the institutional sizes in regards to risk management concerns for sport club programs. The most important concerns were: 1) Waivers, 2) Litigation prevention, 3) Facility inspection, 4) Travel-drivers, and 5) Manuals. The most difficult to implement concerns were: 1) Physical examinations, 2) First aid at competitions, 3) Coaching standards, 4) Equipment inspections, and 5) Travel-drivers. With no significant differences between institutional size groupings in either effectiveness or types of concerns, a standard of care regarding risk management appears to be in place across the country