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Career Transition Among Athletes: Is There Life

After Sports? David Lavallee, Sunghee Park, and Jim Taylor

Chapter 23

“I can’t do it physically anymore, and that’s really hard for me to say. It’s hard to walk away. I can’t explain in words how much everyone has meant to me. I’ll never be able to fill the void of playing a football game. I don’t look at it as a retirement. I look on it as graduation. You graduate from high school and you graduate from college. I’m graduating from pro football.”

—John Elway, two-time Super Bowl–winning quarterback

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History and Background

• As the demands associated with competitive sport have increased in recent years, so has academic interest in sports career transitions• The opportunity to study and address career transition needs

of elite athletes has proven to be difficult

Sport Career Transition Programs• Athlete Career and Education Program (ACE) in

Australia• Performance Lifestyle Program in the UK• Lifestyle Program in the Republic of Ireland• The International Olympic Committee (IOC)• The program aims to enhance elite athletes’ successful

daily lives both inside and outside sport through education, life skills, and employment

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Theoretical Perspectives onCareer Transition• Thanatology• The study of death and dying• Retirement from sports is like social death – social isolation

and rejection from the former in-group

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McGraw-Hill Education.

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Theoretical Perspectives onCareer Transition (cont.)• Social gerontology • The study of the aging process• Considers life satisfaction to be dependent upon

characteristics of the sports experienceo Disengagement theoryo Subculture theoryo Activity theoryo Continuity theory o Exchange theory o Social breakdown theory

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• Retirement as transition• A process that involves development through life• The focus should be on:• Continuation of behaviors• Gradual alteration of goals and interests• Emergence of few difficulties in adjustment

Theoretical Perspectives onCareer Transition (cont.)

5 Stages of Career Transition

1. Causes of career termination2. Factors related to adaptation to career transition3. Available resources for adaptation to career transition4. Quality of career transition5. Intervention for career transition

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Stage 1: Causes of Career Termination

• Age/Decline in performance

• Deselection

• Injury

• Free choice/ “Voluntary” retirement

• Decision-making process

• Other causesCopyright © 2015 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of

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Stage 2: Factors in Adaptation to Career Transition• Developmental contributors

• Self-identity• Perceived control• Social identity

• Tertiary contributors

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McGraw-Hill Education.

Stage 3: Available Resources for Adaptation to Career Termination

• Coping strategies

• Social support

• Pre-retirement planning

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Stage 4: Quality of Career Transition

• The quality of athletes’ adaptation to career transition will depend on the previous steps of the retirement process

• Some athletes experience difficulties like identity crisis, feelings of loss, and distress

• Other reactions to retirement included:• Alcohol dependence/Increased smoking/Drug use

• Suicide

• Participation in criminal activitiesCopyright © 2015 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of

McGraw-Hill Education.

Stage 5: Intervention for Career Transition• Complex interaction of stressors that can create some

form of distress • Financial, social, psychological and/or physical• Fewer resources to address these issues once outside a sport

organization

• The most important task in the transition is to assist athletes in maintaining their sense of self-worth when establishing a new self-identity• Sport psychologists can help cope with the transition

process

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McGraw-Hill Education.