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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.