The recruit

This piece explores the possibilities of poetic representation within qualitativeresearch on sport and exercise and subsequently engages with ongoing scholarlydebates on representation, form, validity and methodology. The representationwithin this piece is part of a larger project which seeks to better understandwomen's experiences as recruited athletes within the US intercollegiate sportssystem. To create this particular poetic representation, I utilised narrativesgathered through small group interviews with seven women who were recruitedto play Division I basketball in the US. Presenting portions of their storiesand voices via a series of six poems demonstrates writing as a method ofenquiry as well as the ways in which different types of representations allowone to access the embodied and emotional components of sport and exerciseexperiences.