Associate Professor Sam Elliott

Associate Professor Sam Elliott specialises in the fields of sport parenting, participation and retention, and psychosocial outcomes in youth sport. His work spans sport sociology, sport psychology, and sport coaching. He has presented his work internationally in Australia, China, the UK, Canada, and the US, and has attained over $2.2 million in combined research grants, tenders and consultancies.

His research covers three main areas: (1) research on parental involvement on youth sport psychosocial outcomes (including psychological abuse, parent-coach relationships, and parent-club interactions); (2) Research on mental health and youth sport, and; (3) research on participation, retention, dropout, and reengagement (including the psychological, environmental, and social factors which impact sport continuation behaviour).

Sam has supervised/co-supervised 9 PhD and Honours students to timely completion and is currently supervising/co-supervising 8 PhD students and 1 Honours in his Youth Sport Research Lab. His honours and awards include the prestigious Australian Institute of Policy & Science SA Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2022), the Flinders VC Award for Early Career Research, the World Congress on Science and Football Best Research Paper by Code (AFL) Award, and the Universities Australia Award for the ‘Pitch it Clever’ competition. He is also the creator and co-host of Beyond the Club, Australia’s leading science communication podcast for community sport, streamed over 10K times across 46 countries. 

He is also an experienced development coach with a Level 3 (Gold Badge) AFL Coaching Accreditation. Sam spent six seasons at the South Adelaide Football Club as an assistant coach in the U16 and U18 programs including the 2021 U16 and 2023 U18 SANFL premierships. He is currently the Head of Development and SANFL Reserves Heach Coach at the West Adelaide Football Club.