It’s More Than Just a Game
How do you let go of something that’s defined your existence for the past 17 years?
You struggle to move on, but you get through it.
The gap between the end of an athletic career and the start of a professional career is a tough one to cope with. If your athletic career ends on campus, after you walk off that stage at graduation, you are inevitably going to ask yourself, “Who am I?” Because up until this point, your life has been mostly your sport.
Researchers Jim Taylor and Bruce Ogilvie concluded that the end of a sports career introduces dramatic changes in an athlete’s personal, social, and occupational life. This can, in turn, potentially affect individuals cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally. It’s inevitable that a dramatic lifestyle change such as this one causes some form of distress and emptiness. So if you’re a recently created “former student-athlete” who’s feeling unsure about who you are, don’t worry — because you’re not alone.
The most important thing to remember during the transition from athletics to the job hunt is that while attending college, you didn’t just have one job.
You had two.
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Congratulations, you managed to compete in collegiate athletics and earn a college degree at the same time! Hopefully you were able to squeeze in time to hang out with friends and enjoy being a college student. No? Yeah, me neither.
The years of personal, financial, and emotional sacrifice made it that much harder to let go, but who I am today is a product of all of those years spent playing competitive sports. My character is an accumulation of all the highs, lows, successes, and struggles. For me, it’s important to look at the big picture. Although my soccer career may have ended with a loss, that doesn’t have to translate to a life lost, because soccer was always more than just a sport. I cannot believe what I have gained, and it’s reassuring to know that I have over a decade’s worth of lessons that I never could have learned in a classroom.
Business strategist and career coach Mark Moyer writes in Forbes that former athletes beginning the job hunt should always remember that “each one of you has been a committed ‘employee’ since you were just a child, putting enormous time and effort into becoming one of the best athletes on the planet, and that alone demonstrates a superior level of commitment most employers would love to have.” Mark adds, “You have also proven yourselves to be highly ‘manageable,’ as you have been accustomed to working with a coach throughout your career.”
These are just a couple of the intangible qualities that an athlete brings to the table.
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For those athletes, like me, who are transitioning from one chapter to the next, bridging the gap between sports and business is essential to beginning the job search. It also turns out that research is on their side.
Kathleen Elkins from Business Insider writes that the high concentration of athletes at One Equity Partners is no real coincidence. Senior Managing Director of One Equity Partners Dick Cashin is, in fact, a former men’s crew athlete from Harvard. He also happens to be a former U.S. Olympic rowing team member, who competed in the 1972 Summer Games.
His familiarity with an athlete’s competitive drive and relentless mentality is reflected in his approach to hiring new employees. Cashin believes that former athletes are ideal candidates for finance positions because of their competitive drive, thick skin, and get-it-done mentality.
Given Cashin’s tendency to gravitate toward former student-athletes, Kathleen wrote that “powerful people in finance and student-athletes share many qualities — they are confident, competitive, and hard-wired to win — but perhaps the most striking similarity is their ability to hunker down and do whatever it takes to get the job done.”
Well said, well said.
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Both my research and my own personal curiosity have confirmed that the qualities that former athletes possess are highly desired in the business world. Take Jabari Hearn, for example. He is a former member of the men’s basketball team at Southern Methodist University and is the current global marketing director at Google.
During Jabari’s junior year, the SMU men’s basketball team took on a new coach. However, it was apparent that the coach wasn’t the least bit focused on the upperclassmen. Instead, the new coach decided that it was in his best interest to devote all of his time and attention to the younger players, whom he had just recruited. The older players would try to speak up and voice their opinions, but their coach was only concerned with seeing them through graduation.
Unfortunately for Jabari, he planned to use his redshirt year to pursue a degree, but the coach was uninterested in keeping him around. After talking to his advisors, Jabari was under the impression that they would pay for his last year of school, even though he wouldn’t participate on the team. His coach then called him and said they were going to focus on recruiting the next group of athletes and that in fact, they wouldn’t be paying for his master’s.
Talk about getting knocked on your butt.
Luckily enough, he had been serving as a camp counselor at SMU and had established a good relationship with the campers. One of the camper’s parents approached him and asked about his major and what his plans were after graduation. The child’s parent happened to be the president of a local ad agency and, next thing he knew, Jabari had an interview, followed by his first job out of college, which kickstarted his 10 years in advertising.
“I became like a unicorn out there,” Jabari said. He recalls that there was a high demand (but low availability) of professionals with advertising and sports experience. So it turns out that his experience as a college athlete made him even more qualified for the job.
Jabari later ended up landing a job with Nike’s ad agency, Weiden and Kennedy. The company valued his experience in advertising, as well as his experience playing basketball. They believed that his knowledge of advertising, sports, and urban culture (being from Chicago) made him a perfect fit for the job.
His student-athlete experience was highly valued because they were looking for someone who could really take control of their brands like Nike, Jordan, and Foot Locker. After taking a couple years off to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles, Jabari received a call from Nike to work on Nike Basketball and men’s training.
His status and experience as an athlete coupled with his character made Jabari the perfect fit for a job.
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As it turns out, though, Jabari isn’t the only one whose life has been greatly impacted in the business world. Longitude Research, a leading research and advisory institute, conducted global-scale research in 2014. The report, titled “Making the Connection: Women, Sport and Leadership,” concluded that sports have greatly aided female executives in their trek to the top of the corporate ladder.
After surveying 400 female executives across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas, the report found that “94% of the respondents have participated in sports and close to 74% agree that a background in sport can help accelerate a woman’s leadership and career potential.”
Half of the women surveyed were considered C-suite executives and the other half held management positions at their respective companies. The study also found some other interesting results:
- 61% say that past sporting involvement had contributed to their current career success.
- 67% highlighted that a background in sport was a positive influence on their decision to hire a candidate.
- Only 3% of C-suite women had not played any sport, compared with 9% of women at other management levels.
With regard to these findings, Laura Gentile, vice president of ESPNW, says, “This study validates long-held theories that women who are athletes are well-suited for the business world and have tangible advantages. From work ethic to adaptability to superior problem-solving ability, these women enter the workforce ready to win and demonstrate that ability as they rise throughout their career.”
