Associate Professor Sam Elliott

Current projects

• Global review of reviews in youth sport (Elliott et al., 2025-2026)
• Mental Health and Wellbeing in the AFL Talent Pathway: players, parents and coaches perspectives (Elliott et al., 2026-2028)
• Safe and supported officials: Strengthening young officials’ experiences and retention (Crozier et al., 2026-2027)

Impact statement

Sam is a leading authority in the field of sport parenting, participation and retention, and psychosocial outcomes in youth sport. He has collaborated with Football Australia, Hockey Australia, Cycling Australia, the AFL, and the Australian Sports Commission, and attained over AUD$2.73M in combined research grants, tenders, and consultancies. He regularly reviews for over 40 journals and is an invited grants reviewer for major international grant funding schemes including the SSHRC (Canada) and the Marsden Fund (NZ). 

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).

His work has been cited in the US Olympic and Paralympic Quality Parenting Framework, the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union's Sport Parent Network, the Australian Sports Commission's Clearinghouse for Sport, and the Office for Recreation, Sport and Racing's policies and funding guidelines. He is also on the EDITORIAL BOARD of Elsevier's new journal Team Sports Studies. 

Sam leads the CHAYS-R Lab of 8 PhD/Hons students and is the co-chair of the National Youth Sport Conference 2026. His impact on the field is sustained by disseminating knowledge on Beyond the Club, Australia’s leading science communication podcast for community sport, streamed over 12K times across 60 countries.

His impact has been recognised through several honours and awards including the prestigious Australian Institute of Policy & Science SA Young Tall Poppy Science Award, 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. Sam also impacts local communities as a Level 3 (Gold Badge) AFL Coach. Into his 8th season, he currently serves as the Head of Development, League Assistant, and Reserves Head Coach at the West Adelaide Football Club.