The first post in series on vocation and student-athletes.
In the third semester of my graduate studies, I realized it was not for me, and I needed to call home to discuss dropping out. It was the first time ever that I had not wanted to attend school; in fact, I had been looking forward to the focused coursework. I had always planned to go to graduate school, but what I couldn’t account for were my feelings of being lost and disconnected. I finished my bachelor’s in May and started graduate school in July, so there was little time to process my undergraduate experience. There was even less time to process the loss of my athletic career, something that had been a driving force in my life for a solid decade. I played three sports a year from the seventh grade until I graduated from college. My identity as an athlete was deeply ingrained in my mind—it was how I identified with the outside world and how the world acknowledged me. When I graduated, that part of me seemingly stopped, but I had no way to understand what was happening.
This was my lived experience, but not a unique one—as has become clear in the growing field of research on the experience of student-athletes. This work explores student-athlete identity, the loss of identity, and the transitions that these students face. In such moments, Clare Manthey and Jimmy Smith suggest that student-athletes should spend time grieving the loss of their athletic identity. According to Andrea Cota Powell and her colleagues, a student-athlete who transitions from playing sports might find initial satisfaction having achieved their goal of playing, but then months afterward experience a decrease in overall life satisfaction. Without their sport, student-athletes lack the same drive and motivation they once experienced; they need to redirect their attention and energy to develop new meaning in their lives.
The student-athletes with whom we work will likely experience issues in transitioning to “life after sports.” As they close out their playing careers, they may face depression, lack of motivation, and disconnection. While the end of athletic eligibility is a finite deadline, there are other ways that playing careers can end. Student athletes may decide to stop playing at any time; and although they might do so for a variety of reasons, the decision presents a unique set of challenges for everyone. If they remain on campus, former athletes can find themselves socially outside of the team; they can be cut off from their network and no longer associate with others as an athlete. Even though a student might have control over the choice to end their career, they might not be prepared for their campus experience without that athletic association. To further complicate matters, if a student-athlete experiences a career-ending injury, there is no choice or control over the situation. The individual had no time to prepare for the change.
A significant number of students will experience this kind of identity transition. The NCAA reports that there are more than 500,000 student-athletes in the NCAA, and that fewer than 2% of them go on to play professionally. After college, student-athletes most often go on to graduate school or start their career, and some might stay in fields associated with sport. The key is that when their playing career is done, their identity will have to change. Even if students pursue a job in a sports-related field, they will need to establish a different identity within that space. The athlete part of their identity will become part of their history, even if it feels alive inside them.
Those who serve as advisors, mentors, staff members, or professors working with student-athletes—especially on campuses where we rely heavily on athletics as a recruitment and retention tool—need to understand the changes student-athletes will go through, in order to help them prepare for life after college. There need to be widespread programs to assist student-athletes in their identity transition, and it is up to us to recognize the changes for what they are and provide support. In the classroom, it might seem as though a student-athlete has pulled away, is sullen, or maybe misses class more frequently. The student could be frustrated or angry, which might seem out of character, or fatigued or partying more than usual, which leaves the student drained of energy.
What we need to understand is that the end of a playing career is not just about playing time; it is about unraveling years of physical, mental, and social training. It is about rethinking—usually in a relatively short amount of time—who you are and the systems of support and structure that playing a sport offered. Many students need to establish a new support network and find different people for advice and even socializing. If students played on a team, they will need to establish new workout patterns and routines and possibly set new goals for exercise as an individual or small group. And even if a group of individuals can be found, can that group compete or train at a level that the student-athlete is accustomed to? The transition might also mean reimagining nutrition and food intake, as most student athletes who stop playing struggle to replace the calorie-burning activities that practices or games require. What might seem like common sense about such changes may not be as common as we anticipate. Have you devoted time to having these discussions with your student-athletes? Have they had ongoing conversations about what it means to end a playing career, or what they look forward to or could expect? In most cases, we don’t prepare them well: we often celebrate their career with family, friends, and teammates on senior day, but what follows is a void.
Conversations about vocation can fill this void and serve student-athletes well. If we engage them intentionally in discussions of life-after-sports, or about how they wish to be seen after they finish playing, it could benefit them as they transition. Planting a seed of understanding gives the athlete a way to identify some of what they experience. You put the ball in their court, so to speak, by making them aware and starting them on the path of vocational discernment, when otherwise they might not have taken the time to do so. Scheduled advising time also provides a natural platform to start the conversation even with a student in the first year. Advisors have a natural link to the student to check-in with them, to ask questions about their future goals, and to talk frankly about their performance as a student. These kinds of conversations provide time to ask how they feel their season is going, how they believe they are playing, and even how they might anticipate the end of their playing career.
Student athletes are looking for strong communication, a strong personal connection with their advisor, and recognition that the challenges faced by a student-athlete are different than those of a non-athlete. As scholars at Gonzaga University have found, recognizing these differences can facilitate a strong connection and conversation in an advising session. Taking the time to ask questions can get students to open up, creating a space outside of the athletic department (and away from anyone that has decision-making power about playing time) where they can have honest and heartfelt conversations about their futures.
Angie Morenz is professor of physical education and sport management at Blackburn College, where she is a 1997 graduate. In addition, she is in her second year serving as the director for the Blackburn College Center for Teaching and Learning. Angie is a NetVUE Faculty Fellow and the co-principal investigator on the Purposeful Student-Athlete project.