‘I’m not a warrior, I’m a basketball player’: A narrative on professional sport in troubled times

Encouraged by work calling for different approaches to examining sport industry issues, a narrative inquiry was adopted to interrogate the relationships between individual experiences and agency, management practices, and a particular sport organisation setting through the most recent turns of the Russia–Ukraine war. Commencing on 24 February 2022, this moment and ensuing consequences for professional Ukrainian basketball players reveal insights into personal sports work experiences within a dynamic, disruptive, and unpredictable setting. The narrative amalgamates data from interviews with two Ukrainian professional basketball players whose lives and careers were disrupted by the war. The narrative includes a chronology of critical moments, reactions, key decisions, and dilemmas and highlights ways the crisis was/is managed and the consequences upon individuals’ lives, well-being, and career decisions. The work contributes to the sociological analysis of crisis management in sport by articulating how individuals might respond to sport systems during times of unprecedented flux.