Life after competitive sports can be confusing. One day the cheering crowds go silent, the lights go off, and a locker is cleaned out for the last time. Suddenly athletes are without direction, resources and a community necessary to keep moving forward. Sport is something you do; it does not define who you are. … When you retire from your sport, these will still play a part in your life, but in a different way.
The actual playing transition can literally occur overnight or over a senior year — — however the physical, mental and identity transition can last for years and can be highly traumatic and confusing for life after sports. We are here to help you unlock community and connect you to the resources and team needed to have your best days ahead!
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We bring together athletes ready to embrace life after sports....
life after sports
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Physical health. Mental health. Identity. These are the three pillars necessary for the temple that is the athlete. In the United States, while combined sports industries are on target to be worth $73.5 billion by 2019, so much of our industries are focused on those who can do for us now — the current crop of student-athletes and professional athletes — and too little is spent helping those who gave us great memories of sporting achievement earlier in our lives and who have now had to retire from the spotlight into relative anonymity.Our mentorship program and curriculum is proposed as a means to help college athletes prepare to make the transition from being an athlete with a performance purpose to being an athlete with a health-and-wellness purpose upon retirement. This curriculum is not intended to provide a specific plan to help each individual athlete, in each sport at each institution. This curriculum is intended (i) to emphasize to the individual athlete that they will — at some point — have to transition from their sport, whether it is a career ended by injury, graduation or simple retirement, and the importance of planning for the future before the beginning of “normal” life; (ii) to provide the individual athlete with a basic understanding of the foundations of their health and well-being in three different areas ( “pillars”): physical health, mental health and personal identity, and the interplay between them; (iii) to provide to the individual athlete a framework to research and discover on their own the various solutions and methods that may work best for them individually to ensure their health in those three areas after they retire; and (iv) to engage the individual athlete to begin thinking and taking steps toward the transition while they are in their performance period.
jackie robinson is famously quoted as saying
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Jackie Robinson is famously quoted as saying that every athlete dies twice. While he did not go into further detail, what he meant was that a part of the athlete dies on the day that he/she can no longer play the sport that he/she has spent a lifetime perfecting. At the peak of the performance period, every aspect of the elite athletes being is dedicated to obtaining a peak performance on the field, court or track. They keep their body in top shape by eating and exercising with a purpose toward performance. Their mental acuity is reserved to ensure the mind can focus on game days, and their brains are rewarded by the biochemical and psychological benefits associated with personal achievement manifested in athletic prowess. And often their identities are wrapped up in their job title: “quarterback,” “point guard,”outside hitter,” “anchor,” “athlete.” Their physical health, mental health and identity each feed off of the others and combine in ways unique to the elite athlete. During the peak performance period, that combination provides the exact balance needed for the elite athlete. If physical health, mental health and identity are well-preserved, they can be the pillars for the temple that is the athlete’s overall health and wellness.But, as Jackie Robinson implied, few (if any) athletes can play the game until their second death. One day the crowds go silent, the lights go off, and a locker is cleaned out for the last time. And suddenly the elite athlete is thrust into the normal that most people live through every day. And while the actual playing transition can literally occur overnight or over a weekend — playing in a championship game on a Friday, then waking up as a civilian on Monday — the physical, mental and identity transition can last for years and can be highly traumatic. And suddenly the ingredients in the elite athlete’s life balance each become so distressed, those pillars can too easily crumble and the temple can melt into a toxic mélange. Recently, Australia‘s program Insight on SBS explored these very issues without putting the labels on them, as several of the nation’s elite athletes discussed the crumbling of each of these pillars after they retired.
"ATHLETES DIE TWICE, AND THE FIRST
DEATH COMES RETIREMENT."
Jackie Robinson
