Retirement can leave athletes purposeless. For every Shaquille O’Neal starting a lucrative business, there are 100 athletes who struggle to fill their day. As a professional athlete, the majority of your day is spent in the gym, on the court, or studying game plan. This often leaves players with little time to pursue other avenues in life; making retirement a difficult period for them. This article is going to explore what happens to all the athletes after they retire and how they choose to deal with their retirement.
1. Coaching
Whenever an athlete retires, the usual go-to line of work is to coaching the sport for young up-and-coming players. The skills and experience learned from years of top tier competition can be very handy for inexperienced players looking to learn from someone who was knee-deep in the game before retiring. Depending on skill level, some of the higher end teams usually keep an eye out for every retired athlete to get them to coach their team for national tournaments. It’s one of the most common career routes athletes take after retirement as it’s still in the same field, using the same knowledge.
2. Game Analysis
This is one of the more recent job opportunities for retired athletes at the moment as a lot of sports channels on TV, radio, and online look for athletes to give valuable insight to their respective sport. Having played the sport at the highest of levels is something not many can boast, and this leads to appealing perspective for these media outlets’ viewers. You can see a lot of athletes transitioning into game analysis after pursuing a career in any sport. The opportunities are countless as every outlet now provides pre and post-game breakdowns and often want the athletes to provide exclusive analysis.
3. Retirement Job Opportunities
If you’re an athlete that’s close to retirement and you’re worried about how you’re going to find work after being in one field for so long, then you should probably be looking at some retirement plans. Experienced retirement planners over at My Retirement Rehab provide a constant flow of content regarding what some retired people have done, regardless of their age/career history. This can be a great way to get some idea as to where your life is headed after you make the big leap into retirement. There are also multiple guides on what you can do after retirement scattered all over the internet, so check those out as they can be very helpful in letting you know how to plan your life post-retirement.
4. Pursue Different Careers
Many athletes were drafted from their college team and were never fully able to pursue the career they studied. Some athletes simply retire from the sport they used to practice and start another career down another path using their college education. It can be pretty surprising to hear that one of your professors or colleagues at work used to be an athlete, but it’s also much more common than you think.
5. They Go Back to College
Much like the previous point mentioned, a lot of athletes were in college as they pursued their careers in a specific sport, however, not all of them finish college as some drop out midway to better pursue their athletic career. After they’d retired, some of them get the spark to learn reignited and go back to college to finish their degree and eventually go into a different career path that has something to do with their college education.
6. Traveling to a Country with a Better Retirement Plan
Some countries offer more benefits to retired citizens than others. Some people plan out their retirement by filing the paperwork and traveling to a different country in order to retire there and get the benefits from that country’s retirement system.
Finding guidance after retirement is difficult for most and even more so for athletes. The thrill of the game, the excitement of the crowd, and the glory of the win gives them a high that is unparalleled. Athletes, generally retire a lot younger than people from any other field as they can only achieve their maximum potential up to a certain age. This makes retirement a very trendy topic to talk about if you’re an athlete closing in on the average retirement age of players in your specific sport. Doing the research and understanding what you’re in for after you’ve announced your official retirement from the sport can greatly reduce how scary the entire process can be for a person who has never worked in other fields.
Read the latest issue of Athleisure Mag.
