Sure, you say, an Ivy Leaguer! Anyone can make it big who comes from Princeton (or Harvard, or Yale, or Stanford, or...)! But it isn’t necessarily so. There are many Princeton failures, just as there are many successful politicians, executives, doctors, lawyers, scientists, and community leaders who graduated from all varieties of schools-from large state universities to small backwater colleges. Bradley made it as an athlete and a Senator because of his personal qualities, not because of the school he attended. Many of the same qualities that Senator Bradley used to gain career success were ones that he nurtured in sports; they carried over to his pursuit of a career. The message to you? Because of your involvement in sports, you have a good shot at developing those qualities that help lead to career success; fewer non-athletes have that same chance. Why? Because few non-athletes are doing all that you are doing and certainly not under the same kind of public stress.
Are we telling you that sports in college are more than just games and contests, that sports relate to real life? Yes, without a doubt. We are not just talking about an athlete's advantage in which fans do favors for players they once cheered. This may happen, but that kind of assistance is minor in terms of the contribution it can make to lasting career success. We are talking, instead, about how your experiences in athletics can make you more effective in a real job. There is no guarantee that this will happen for you. (Oh, oh. They're hedging now, you might be thinking. I wish they'd make up their minds.) Your sports experience in college can help you in many important ways to become a career success, but you must understand how this happens and then make it happen.
This chapter shows you how to use your athletic experience to cultivate qualities that will help in whatever career you choose. First, a word of caution about your personal athletic successes. Except in the rarified world of pro athletics, your sports record is not going to count in your career. The element that will help you in your progress toward your career is the sports experience, not your stats and press clippings. All athletes, those who tended to win as well as those who tended to lose, can develop the qualities that spell career success. Because wins and losses are influenced by so many external forces-the level of competition, the fact that at least half of the competitors in sports have to lose in any contest (and all but one lose in the race for championships), the quality of coaching, to name just a few-an athlete's strengths are often buried on a scorecard. A 220 hitter can become an executive as easily as a star player can, maybe even more easily, because the athlete with only average abilities has had to work harder to achieve his or her level of success. What matters most is that as a college athlete you suited up every day, learned to prepare yourself for rigorous competition, took the good and the bad that come from competition, and kept coming back for more.
Athletes are already one step ahead of many other college students in terms of career preparation, since they have worked, risked, succeeded, failed, recovered, and earned the self-respect that comes from doing their job-all while in the public eye. Your college athletic career conditions you to perform under stress, to learn and adjust to variables rapidly, and to become self-disciplined, and it forces you to stretch for your full potential. This is what people must do in preparing for a career, and you've already practiced it in sports. The rigorous demands of sports competition thus form an effective bridge to your future occupational challenges.
THE ROLE OF ATHLETICS IN CAREER PREPARATION
How can college athletics help you to prepare for a career if you are not going to become a pro athlete? Many college athletes, and even many coaches, tend to view sports as a sphere separate from real-world employment. They have cast sports as play-however seriously they take it-and everything else as work. The separation they make is artificial, since diligent striving in any form can be considered work, and a person's work capabilities, skills, and habits are affected by every activity in which he or she participates. Your participation in sports in fact reveals a great many things about you, so you might as well pay attention to the messages you are already sending out to the world.
For the past few years, sports may have been your first priority, the place where you have wanted to devote much of your energy. In doing so, you have made a strong statement about your career potential. Not a statement about the kind of work that you expect to go into, but about the kind of person you are becoming-highly motivated, hardworking, energetic, and willing and able to take instruction so that in due time you will be capable of leading others. These qualities are highly valued by people who select future employees and organizational leaders, and that is where your athletics involvement enters the career picture. Athletics attracts people who already possess strong personal qualities and provides an environment in which they can cultivate and expand these qualities. The intensity of intercollegiate competition is a particularly good crucible for testing the individual against his or her environment.
Employers look for the job candidate who can be trained, is receptive to learning, strives for perfection, follows organization goals, looks for new challenges, and supports other people in the organization. All coaches want these qualities in their players; all employers want these qualities in their employees. If you are the kind of athlete who pushes toward your personal limits, you have a four-year head start on the development of work habits and the highly motivated attitudes that employers most desire.
All this is great in theory, you might be thinking, but what can you do right now, while still in college, to help your chances at a successful career? The following guidelines will show you specifically how to use sports as a bridge to career success:
Cultivate the abilities, behaviors, and attitudes toward work demanded in your sport that generalize to competence in any kind of work.
Improve your interaction with teammates and coaches, your self-discipline, risk-taking, creative strategies (i.e., developing alternative plans), and management of time. To people who run organizations, it is self-evident that success in athletics develops leadership qualities, primarily because the attributes that contribute to a winning team (for example, the ability to organize people's efforts) often are needed to keep members of a company or agency pulling together.
Build the mental side of your sport. A good level of physical fitness will help somewhat in your future work, but the mental qualities that you bring to it will be far more crucial. The toughness you need to endure grueling practices, overcome pain and injuries, and accept losses in order to bounce back with a better performance in the future, all breed personal qualities that you can use in your career. The qualities of emotional endurance and resilience are as necessary in an executive or a scientist as they are in a trained athlete. The mental side of your athletic career also cultivates a spirit of reasonable risk-taking, including awareness of the effects of your risks on others and willingness to accept the consequences of your actions. The emotional steadiness of an athlete who stands up to crises and enjoys pressure wears well in the world of work.
Get involved in pregame strategic planning. Get as close as you can to the thinking that produces results on the field. Involve yourself in the mental preparation that precedes a game (either by working with the coaches or by studying the books and manuals in your sport). Take part in the mental activity that surrounds contests, even if your position or event doesn't involve decision making. Participate in strategy talks when and where you can. Make a habit of asking "Why?" Even individual sports, such as tennis, swimming, gymnastics, and track and field, include strategies such as pacing, psychological combat with opponents and the judicious placement of individuals in particular events. No matter what sport you are in, don't just leave the thinking up to coaches and captains. Even if they don't want to hear what you think, you want to hear what they are thinking and why. Use your sport to train your mind to think, to weigh alternatives, to plan and adjust; this is the way a college graduate seeking success in his or her career will be expected to think.
Find opportunities for teaching your sport to others. Teach children, sports-minded folks, high school athletes, and others. (Remember, however, that you cannot be paid for this, other than expenses, if you want to remain eligible.) Teaching helps to build communication skills-talking, explaining the way you see things, listening and trying to understand the way others see things-as well as a general sensitivity to other people. Most jobs involve teaching in one form or another, so the earlier you learn to communicate your ideas and perspectives to others, the better. Teaching can also be a form of salesmanship, in that you try to get others hooked on your viewpoint, or persuade them to appreciate different views. "Here's how I see it..." operates in all forms of work.
Mingle with non-athletes as much as you can. There is nothing wrong with having other athletes as friends, of course, but you see enough of them without trying. To get a broader perspective on what life-after-college will be like, get acquainted with people whose interests and abilities differ from yours. Athletics can be a very closed, insulated world. Limiting yourself to jock-talk can lead you to believe there's nothing else going on. Talk with students who don't care about athletics; get into town and meet community people, especially those who don't know that you are an athlete. (Once they find out you're an athlete, many will want to talk about sports. Resist! That's not why you're spending your time doing this.) Talk about what they do, not what you do. Especially if your life in college has been wrapped up in sports and classes, take up an activity, no matter how informal, that has nothing to do with athletics, something that forces you to reach people whose interests are entirely different.
You also can broaden your perspective beyond your athletic circle of friends through the elective courses you choose as well as in the places you go and the people you choose to hang around with. We don't mean that you should reject your athlete friends; we simply mean that you should learn to move easily in other groups with various interests. To do this takes practice. You may have to force yourself at first, especially since there is a special in-group magnetism among jocks; but after you beat a few different paths around campus, you'll find it easy to be a citizen of the whole school, instead of just the community of athletes.
Make use of your public recognition. Most athletes are not known publicly by name and reputation, but your school and your sport are known. Take advantage of the relatively public nature of athletics. Tell the people you meet (fans included) that you would like to know more about their field of work. During team trips, try to meet people in work situations that interest you, and get some exposure to their places of work, if possible. Every contact out of town expands your frame of reference for making a career choice.
It is, of course, especially useful to open dialogue with someone who might either have a job available or have inside information in a particular career area. Naturally, you wouldn't go up to this person and just say: "Hi! My name is Joe/Josie and I played basketball at Ole U. How's about a job?" But the following approach, or something like it, could get the ball rolling nicely for you:
At this point, Mr./Ms. Smith may pick up your lead and talk about sports or life as an athlete. If so, great! This should completely melt the ice and allow you to slide easily into career talk. But even if Smith doesn't care about or want to talk sports, it gives him or her, an image of you as a striving, hardworking, interesting person.
By the way, if you do talk sports with someone who might help you in your career search or in gaining career information; don't speak negatively of your coach or the team, even if you feel that way. Honesty is not always the best policy, especially if the main impression that Mr./Ms. Smith forms of you is that of a bitter or angry person. Even if Smith shares your bad feeling toward, say, the coach, your best response is to say something like, "Well, we all could've done better and we certainly learned by the experience." In this way, you will come across as a person who is capable of profiting by your experiences, both good and bad.
Don't be afraid to promote yourself as an athlete, you may have had press interviews or at least conversations with friends in which you projected an "Aw, shucks" modesty about your accomplishments. While this modesty is appropriate for athletes, modesty does little good when you are trying to advance your career interests. Tell people that you believe you possess the potential for success in your career goal. Other college graduates have career aspirations similar to yours, and interviewers will pay the most attention to those who show the greatest drive and self-confidence.
Many people interpret modesty as lack of self-confidence. While you may not intend your modesty to be interpreted that way, it is how others see you that is important in career concerns. So, put aside your modesty and say in a straightforward way what you have done and can do. Don't go overboard, obviously; there is a clear line between bragging and an honest accounting of what you believe to be your assets.
