The Invisible Transition

09/29/22

Transitioning out of sport whether due to injury, end of career, or quitting is challenging no matter the circumstances. While the difficulty transitioning out of sport has been more widely acknowledged in the past few years, there still appears to be a gap in helping athletes prepare for the transition and supporting them after they retire. Just because we collectively are doing a better job at pointing out the challenge associated with athletes transitioning out of sport, doesn’t mean we are comprehensively taking steps to aid our athletes as they navigate that nebulous space.

The obvious transition out of sport happens when an athlete’s career is over, but what I’m observing more and more is working with former athletes who are 5 or 10 plus years removed from sport who are still struggling with and dealing with remnants of the transition years later. This is what I have started to call the invisible transition.

There appears to be this small window of time that we acknowledge and allow the transition out of sport to be a challenge for former athletes. However, once this brief window expires and a few years go by is when I believe the shift happens into becoming the invisible transition out of sport.

The invisible transition is characterized by athletes pushing down lingering feelings of grief and loss over their athlete identity, figuring out who they are outside of being an athlete, and searching for ways to repurpose that ‘lost’ part of themselves in other arenas.  

The most salient component of this type of transition though based on my experience and work with many former athletes is the invisible and isolating nature of it—hence why I started calling it the invisible transition. I think a big reason why the transition becomes invisible over time is rooted in unhealthy norms surrounding the grief process in our society. In general, our society accepts grieving as long as it is short in nature, with the expectation that a person quickly returns back to “normal life.” When someone loses a loved one in their life for example, family, friends, and coworkers are quick to reach out for support, but oftentimes are just as quick to move on to the next thing.

I think on a smaller scale a similar thing happens to our former athletes. Support is present on the front end as they initially transition out of sport, but then people unintentionally move on (because that’s how we are conditioned), leaving our athletes left to pick up the remaining pieces on their own.  

For many athletes they spend 10 plus years developing their ‘athlete identity’ and then it is immediately gone after they retire. Then we expect the grief and loss associated with losing their ‘athlete identity’ to be short lived after all that time?!

I think that’s a pretty unrealistic expectation, and WHY I see so many athletes in my practice years removed from sport still processing through how that transition and part of their identity continues to impact how they show up in their relationships, job, and the world.

I believe we have to widen our lens when we talk about the ‘transition out of sport’ so we can make room for the grief and identity exploration that continues to take place years after athletes’ careers end. This is how we start to make the invisible transition for athletes visible.