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What happens now?

This is the question thousands of student-athletes are left wondering once they have completed their athletic eligibility. What happens when they’ve played in their last game, finished their last set, and seen their last pitch? What happens after the last post-game handshake, the final speech from their coach, and their final team banquet? What happens after all of the hours of practice and the countless workouts are over, and there are no more games to play? What happens when there aren’t any more team road trips or team meals? What happens when there isn’t even a team anymore?

What happens now?

Given that less than five percent of collegiate athletes enter the professional ranks at the conclusion of their careers, most athletes face an abrupt end to their playing careers. Athletes react in a wide variety of ways when their careers conclude. Some are excited to conclude their careers, looking forward to more free time, less structure in their lives, and mo more practices. Other struggle with the supposed loss of their identity as an athlete, having been identified with their sport for the majority of their lives. The disparity continues into the professional ranks, as some ex-athletes join the coaching ranks of their sports, throwing themselves back into the daily cycles of a familiar life, while others go the opposite route, and separate themselves completely from their sports, having been burnt out from years with the sport.

Robert Atwood is just starting his life “after football.” A senior at Kalamazoo College, Atwood completed his senior season in the fall, and is still transitioning to the changes. Initially, the loss of his sport was a “fairly large blow.” Football was his life, his passion, his fun. When he lost it, he immediately noticed that he “lost interest in his academics,” and his grades suffered accordingly. He missed the game and initially thought of coaching in the fall. However, the further he became removed from the game, the more interests he found outside of sports. He finally had the free time to pursue interests that he “just didn’t have time for” with his normal football schedule. He put aside the coaching dream, saying “For a while there, football was all I knew. But, I realized that there are other things I’d like to explore.” It took a little longer than he would’ve liked, but Atwood finally was able to put the game aside for good.

Atwood’s story is one that Andrew Malone could relate to. Malone, a 2000 Kenyon College graduate and a member of the football and baseball teams, missed football for several years and recalls being very nostalgic watching his former teammates play. Once the fall weather turned cold, he immediately missed the game, the competitiveness, the camaraderie in the locker room. Soon, though, he too was able to move on from the game once he “found a new outlet.” Malone began training again, striving to “find a new challenge for myself.” He eventually found his new challenge in Gaelic Football, a game in which his competitiveness and skills on the football field easily translated. Though he has moved on, he remembers his playing years with nothing but fondness, as the lessons he learned balancing his school work and sports have aided his work through law school and into his current position. He laughs now, recalling a litigation case he worked on in which his football spirit took over, forcing the one-time safety to take his competition on as he had once taken on blockers.

Eric Soulier, meanwhile, never really left the game. The 2000 K College alumni sits in the same offices that in he himself attended football meetings during his playing days and laughs as he recalls the transition from the end of his career. He remembers a postseason surgery allowing him a great deal of time to reflect on his life after football. However, the more he thought, the more he realized that the game was destined to always be a part of his life. Just as his father before him, Soulier decided to join the coaching ranks, eventually ending up at his current position as assistant head coach at K. His own outlet and new challenge to take on was to continue the same work that his coaches had done for him. He now enjoys the satisfaction from teaching others and communicating with his own players. He calls winning as a coach “almost as gratifying as a win as a player,” though he adds “A win is a win.” Therefore, for Soulier, the more he tried to move on from the game, the more he found himself attached to it.

It was the camaraderie of the team environment that drove Fred Schultz, 1999 Toledo University graduate, back to the game of football. Even after his final game, he never seriously considered leaving the sport. It had been everything for him, the main constant in his life, the thing he remained most in control of. He recalls story after story with teammates and one realizes that he never could have left the friendships formed in the highs and lows of the sport behind. The game as a profession has taken him from Toledo to Colorado and currently back to Orchard Lake, Michigan, where he works as a coach and teacher. It remains easy to see that Schultz draws the passion in his work in sharing the same stories and good times with his own players as his past coaches and teammates shared with him.

Each one of these examples represents a different way for student-athletes to move on after they playing days are completed. Each athlete moves on from their sport in their own way, and in their own time. Some find their way back to the game, for a variety of reason. Others find themselves better off after moving beyond sports, finding new avenues to challenge themselves in. All of them eventually find what happens next for themselves.

Profile Update

I'm still kinda struggling with which way I want to take my profile piece. From the suggestions of my workshop group, it seems like I need to focus more on my subject or provide a lot more information about the city of Flint and how it ended up in its current state. I'm beginning to lean more towards focusing more on the city for a few reasons, though. First, I can do a lot more outside research on the city than I can on Mr. Herm. I could interview any number of people to get a wide variety of opinions or read newspapers or magazine articles. Second, I can provide a much better description of the city than I can of Mr. Herman. Third, it also seemed that even the people who wanted me to focus more on my subject still wanted more information on the city.

So, I may end up rolling with that choice, but we'll see. I've written a bunch of papers on Flint before, and I was looking forward to focusing more on my subject for this paper. It should be interesting to see which way I end up going with.

"I'm With The Steelers"

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2860426&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos2

I thought that this story was just strange. I pretty much found myself laughing at the women being affected by the Steelers impersonator. On one hand, the women were definitely taken advantage of and were lied to by Jackson. They were led to believe something about someone and suffered emotional damage from the entire incident.

However, on the other hand, a large part of the fault from the entire story lies with the women. For one thing, it seems that the majority of the damage suffered was emotional and financial and not physical. Other than the one woman who became uncomfortable when he tried to kiss her, it does not seem like he was trying to take advantage of the women in a sexual manner.

Therefore, how exactly could they possibly be that naive to be taken advantage of? To meet a person in a bar or restaurant claiming to be a professional football player is one thing. It is an entirely different thing to agree to see that person again or to go out with him. Just because some guy is kind of big and says he plays football does not mean he's telling the truth. First, once these women met someone claiming to be a Steeler, they probably should have take the twenty seconds it would have take to look on Steeler.com or ESPN.com player profile page. It really would not be that hard to see that the man that they met was not who he was claiming to be. For one thing, Pittsburgh is one of those cities that worships its football team, similar to Green Bay or Dallas. Are you telling me that there is not one male in these women's lives that they could've gone to and asked if Jackson was a real professional football player?? I mean, really? No one? Not a relative, friend, co-worker, no one? Take the twenty seconds and do your research, lady!!!

(And for another thing, it's one thing for Jackson to claim he is Jerame Tuman, a bum third string tight end from a crappy football school known as the University of Michigan, or Brian St. Pierre, a backup quarterback who has thrown exactly 1 pass in his career, but how exactly did Jackson think that he was going to convince people that he was Ben Roethlisberger, who, among other things, has been a first round pick, won numerous awards, been the winning quarterback on a Super Bowl champion, been all over the news for injuries, been on the cover of Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine, and has his face plastered all over the city of Pittsburgh for local advertisements??? If he really wanted to be a starter, maybe he shouldn't have chosen the most famous player on the team. Just be a punter or holder or something. No one knows what they look like. Or say you're the third-down back. Call me crazy, but people know who their starting quarterback is)

Second, how exactly do you lend someone money if you have no idea who they are??? When you start talking about loaning a friend thousands of dollars, you better know that person like the back of your hand. I mean, I've got friends that I have known since I was 8, and I get mad about loaning them a twenty bucks. Call me cheap, but if we start talking about thousands of dollars, I better be holding something of theirs in case they don't pay me back. So, this lady has this guy that she met in a bar and who constantly acts shady and isn't reliable at all, but she trusts him with a thousand dollars?!?!?! I mean, come on. Give me her number - I'm broke as a joke. I'll tell her I'm Michael Vick. Maybe, she'll believe me.

Third, there are so many cases where women try to get close to professional athletes to try to mooch money off of them for clothes and cars, it's nice to finally see these gold-diggers get what they had coming to them....OK, not really, but you have to admit that these women saw this "professional football player" as their opportunity to get rich and to tell their friends they were dating someone famous. They saw his car and his supposed g-l-a-m-o-r-o-u-s life and thought they could get a piece of the action. I guarantee that the woman who loaned Jackson 4 G's was doing it just so that she could her own share when he finally got a big contract (Though I am not sure how large of a contract a fat, slow tight end from U-M would get).

I just have trouble having sympathy for these women when no physical damage was done to them and when they basically set themselves up to get hurt. I agree with the Pittsburgh natives who think that the entire story is funny and that women look pretty naive and stupid to me. I enjoyed reading this article because it helped me realize how dumb some people truly are ha.