To address the need for theoretical investigations of life skills development, the current study looked to combine Self-Determination Theory and the 3C's model when investigating life skills development in sport. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of the coach-athlete relationship in mediating the potential associations between coach autonomy support and participant's life skills development in Brazilian youth sport. A total of 724 (380 boys and 344 girls, Mage = 14.57, SD = 1.62) took part in the study. These participants completed measures assessing their perceptions of coach autonomy support, coach-athlete relationship (closeness, commitment, and complementarity) and life skill development (teamwork, goal setting, interpersonal communication, problem solving and decision making, time management, emotional skills, leadership, and social skills). Our analyses indicated that coach autonomy support had an indirect effect on participant's total life skills development (i.e., all eight life skills combined) via the coach-athlete relationship. In practice, these findings suggest that when trying to promote participant's total life skills development through sport, coaches should display autonomy-supportive behaviors and foster a positive coach-athlete relationship.
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