A well-designed professional development (PD) program serves to deepen and extend teachers' subject matter knowledge and extend and refine their teaching practices. However, professional development programs often fail to achieve sustained change in teacher practices and improvement in student learning. In this study the authors attempt to find the answers to three questions: (1) What components of a PD workshop focused on sport education do teachers plan to use in their lessons?; (2) What components of the SE curriculum do teachers actually use in their lessons?; and (3) What are the teachers' rationales for their use or lack of use of these components? The participants of the study were members of a cohort of 23 urban teachers funded by a 2-year federally funded Physical Education for Progress professional development grant. As part of the PD program, the cohort participated in multiple workshops related to innovative instructional and curriculum strategies for improving physical education teacher practice. The findings of the study raise questions about the effectiveness of workshops and the factors that impact teachers' choices to utilize the knowledge presented in PD experiences. The findings of this study suggest that to design more effective PD experiences requires extensive prior knowledge of the contextual barriers that exist within the target school setting. Most importantly the findings highlight the importance of providing resources to help teachers to integrate new curricula and instructional skills into their existing contexts. Alternative strategies to achieve this could include the use of authentic contexts for training and providing a mentorship model. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)