An athlete sees his or herself as someone who becomes their sport, not one who simply participates in it from time to time. Sport has afforded them elite status, has separated them from ordinary, has provided them a like-minded circle of friends, and has given them a concrete goal to improve upon every day. In turn, they are dependent on this gift giver for all the specialness they've encountered: travel, experience, notoriety, fortune... the good in their life has come because they were good at a particular sport. It is the utmost esteem builder to walk around every day knowing that you are already better than most people at at least one thing, and to have the chance to prove you are better than even your specialized peers at every practice, training, game, or match.
In researching information about the post-competitive athlete, I have come upon multiple sources that attempt to explain this particular phenomenon as scientific and categorical. As someone who suffered greatly through leaving my given sport, I argue that the depression and search for identity is stifling and stunting and anything but rational and following formulaic logic. Studies of hundreds of soccer players doesn't give you an insight into the agony of one who physically cannot or, even more indecisively, makes the conscience decision to stop playing.
How do you divorce yourself from the sport that you didn't just marry, but have become?
This blog attempts to flush out the answers to that by giving anecdotal evidence, documented observations, and insight into the mind of a post-competitive athlete that found her way to the other side.
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