The Retired Athlete:
Athletes helping Athletes.
The Retired Athlete: Athletes Helping Athletes
In most professions, you don't reach the pinnacle of success until you're well within your career, and you can usually craft skills that help you stay within that profession until you desire a change or comfortably retire. This statement holds in every "career" but athletics. While some consider athletics a career, a window is a better way to describe it. Athletes have a short window to reach their athletic dreams, and that window can close in middle school, high school, college, or for the fortunate, after reaching the professional level. As you progress in your athletic window you begin to see the funnel getting smaller, opposition decreasing, and competition increasing. The cliché line that athletes live two lives, and retirement is when they start the second one is the harsh reality of being an athlete. One day the ball will stop dribbling whether you want it to or not, and this truth will be faced by every athlete at some point in their athletic window.
For some, retirement serves as liberation, seeing it as a portal to finally experience a different side of life. It can be perceived as an opportunity for growth, expansion, and the realization that identity is rooted in who you are and not what you do. If that is you, then great! But for most athletes, retirement serves as a permanent reminder that life will never be the same, or as you knew it to be. Retirement forces athletes to look in the mirror and see value beyond their sport, and this can be a very daunting and challenging task. There is no shame in having trouble dealing with retirement, and whether you were an All-American or a Walk-On, transitioning out of your sport can serve as a catalyst for the development of mental health issues and can trigger inevitable feelings and emotions. This is understandable, but it is imperative to know that asking for help is the greatest sign of strength.
As athletes, we must speak up for ourselves when we encounter mental valleys and offer empathy to others when we see them struggle. No one will understand your story and plight quite like another athlete! Having the chance to be vulnerable with someone who truly understands your circumstances provides a non-judgmental outlet to find peace and channel comfort. This is why during transitional periods; it is important to reach out to athletes who have gone through the same situation to be able to vent and gain insight. Athletes need to talk to athletes! The engagement between a retired athlete and an athlete experiencing a sudden transition, or a mental health issue, can be a healing opportunity for the current athlete and inadvertently the retired athlete.
Retirement presents another opportunity for athletes to find purpose and to find their position in the puzzle of life, and athletes helping athletes provides that! The struggle for most athlete’s post-career is finding purpose, and there is no better way to live with purpose than to help people who went through what you encountered. This is done through healthy engagement and conversation with athletes. The innovative and intentional mission of Onrise is to empower retired athletes to help current athletes. Allowing retired athletes to walk in purpose by serving current athletes gives them a chance to experience true transparency while simultaneously allowing retired athletes to serve and, in some cases, heal through healing others. Speaking to a mental health provider can be a powerful experience, but to speak to a like-minded individual who truly comprehends your predicament provides an additional benefit. Creating engagement while breaking the mental health stigma in sports, two athletes at a time, will alleviate the mental health challenges facing athletes today and introduce a non-traditional concept in sports, the culture of vulnerability. Athletes need athletes! The feeling of community is a part of the fabric of the athlete experience, and it is important to have teammates on the court but more importantly, in the game of life!
Emanuel McGirt Jr. is a former five-year scholarship student-athlete at North Carolina State University, where he played football while majoring in English with a focus in Language, Writing, and Rhetoric. Emanuel was a Professional athlete and now a NCAA D1 Governance intern.