In your personal game plan, you should investigate and weigh many possible Plans A and B before embarking upon any of them. To help you decide upon your Plans A and B, we offer a roster of athletics-related careers that are linked to larger career areas. But first let's review some of the special considerations that athletes who are intent on pursuing a sports-related career should be aware of, along with several self-defeating patterns they should avoid.
LOOKING INTO ATHLETICS-RELATED CAREERS
Taking a Shot at the Olympics or the Pros
Let's say your Plan A is to take a shot at becoming an Olympic athlete or to see if you can earn a living in professional sports. You already know the odds weigh heavily against you. To give yourself this chance, you may be investing a lot of money in training and travel or borrowing money that you don't have. More likely than not, friends, family, and others are giving you the mixed message of "Go for it!" and "Get serious; prepare for a real career."
You're probably willing to deal with these pressures because you feel no risk is too great if your desire to be an Olympian or pro athlete is strong enough. So what if you fail? You'll try something else when and if that happens.
The odds aren't much better in getting to the Olympics, but, of course, you can also actually achieve your Olympic goal while still in college. In fact, achieving Olympic status is easier while you are in college than after, when much of your support for training and travel ends. Long odds aside, we still like to see people have the experience of shooting for the stars. You can aim for your lofty goal and still keep an eye toward the career you might enter later. Here are several precautions we recommend to those in pursuit of a professional sports-career:
- Minimize your financial risk by encouraging someone to sponsor you. (If you are in a team sport and are drafted immediately, you may not need to take this step.) If you are trying to make it as a golfer or tennis player or as a free agent in a team sport, finding a sponsor may allow you to commit the extra time, energy, and concentration that might make the difference. Ask someone, or several people, to invest in your athletic future; in return, you will have to agree to share a percentage of your earnings with the sponsors, in the event you make it to the pros. However, never make an open-ended deal. Place limits on how much your sponsors will invest and either how much they might eventually make or for how many years the deal will last. In any event, be fully aware of the financial risks you face in your quest for an athletic career. And never put yourself in so great a financial bind that you hurt your chances for developing career alternatives in the future.
- If you haven't already graduated, complete your college degree as soon as possible. It is virtually certain that the kind of employment you will aspire to after a stint as a pro athlete will include jobs that require a degree. The number of jobs in all areas of work for which a college degree is required or preferred is increasing; hence, getting a degree is your best insurance against future career difficulties. In this way, you will avoid going straight to the bottom in earning power after your pro career (or attempt at it) ends.
- If possible, obtain off-season or part-time jobs, preferably in areas providing experience that can be marketed after your professional sports career ends. This means taking a job that holds some prospect for career development rather than any old job to fill time between seasons and earn pocket money.
- Develop an "If I were injured tomorrow" scenario, so that you have a strategy you can use if your athletic career should end suddenly. By having a contingency plan well thought out and firmly in mind, you will not have the added burden of "What will I do...?" while you are still competing. If you deal with this looming question at the proper time-before the crisis occurs- and free from pressure, this kind of "negative thinking" (i.e., what to do in case something bad happens) can help you to survive through rough times.
As a student-athlete, have you imagined or hoped that you would stay in sports in some way, even when your playing days end? Have you considered being a coach, scout, radio announcer, sportswriter, or players' agent? There are three major categories of non-playing athletics-related careers:
a) Careers in which previous athletic experience as a player is almost always essential, such as coaching and scouting.
b) Careers in which experience and knowledge of a sport may be helpful but in which they are not absolutely necessary. These include positions as sportswriters and announcers, sports publicity directors, athletic trainers, or statisticians. Many people who earn a living in these jobs were never more than casual participants, yet they are hired because they have the necessary academic training or because they have skills-such as writing, public speaking, working with numbers-which make them successful in their line of work.
c) Careers in ancillary industries related to sports, for which previous athletic experience is generally not important. Player representatives (agents), equipment manufacturers, food concessionaires, and employees of fitness centers and organizations that promote sports events fall into this category. Even within the management structure of a professional team, very few employees have had serious playing experience. Just check with the front office of any pro team to find out how few of its staff members have played the sport.
There are numerous athletics-related careers you may want to look into, and there is no reason that you shouldn't investigate them. However, only in coaching and scouting will your playing experience be a specific requirement for the job. For jobs in the two other sports-related categories listed above, you will be competing with non-athletes as well as other athletes. The talents you acquired or refined as an athlete will certainly be of benefit, but they won't mean much unless you possess a variety of other generic job skills and knowledge associated with the position in question.
No matter what kind of sports-related job you may be interested in pursuing, your success will be more a function of those nonathletic skills that relate directly to the job than to any athletics-related skills you might have. If, for example, you want to be an agent for pro athletes, the key hiring consideration would be your talents in sales and public relations, not your previous athletic record. You can be a play-by-play baseball announcer if you had a 210 batting average in college and a truckload of errors, but you won't make it if you have a lousy voice and don't speak proper English. Further, some of the best coaches have been among the worst athletes and vice versa. This may be because top athletes are often "naturals" who don't have to think much about what they are doing on the field to do it right. In contrast, no coach will do well without thinking extensively about his or her team.
Give a sports-related occupation a whirl if you really feel the need. But leave room for movement or reexamination of your career goals. Ask yourself if the sports-related occupation meets all of your needs in terms of income, challenge, lifestyle, and room for growth and advancement-or if you are primarily taking care of your need to stay close to sports at the expense of other needs.
Self-Defeating Patterns to Avoid
Many college athletes believe that their future work should have a direct relationship to their career as an athlete. Trying to build a connection between the two is sometimes very tempting, and it is quite understandable why individuals might resist letting go of something at which they've been successful and felt comfortable. Unfortunately, a preoccupation with athletics, especially in trying to fit it into the next phase of your life, may lead to nonproductive or even destructive patterns in the careers of former college athletes. Resist the temptation to look at your opportunities in the work world as if they had to pass through the narrow funnel of sports. You've learned from sports, but you aren't limited to work which involves sports. But before discussing how to broaden your view of career options, let's look at the unnecessarily confining patterns that many college athletes set for their futures.
Pattern #1: "I'm going to try to make it as a pro athlete at all costs."
This pattern is fueled by the immense publicity given to highly paid professional athletes. It involves continual workouts to maintain and improve the athlete's physical conditioning and skills, repeated team tryouts or qualifying tournaments in golf and tennis, and frequent contact with and referrals from coaches. These activities become all-consuming and often are done to the exclusion of thought or effort in any other career direction. Dedication is total, with thoughts of failure and what to do next vigorously pushed to the back of the athlete's mind. If you follow this pattern, you may take odd jobs of no consequence or opportunity for advancement while waiting for your big break to happen. Disappointments are accepted as part of the waiting process. You draw hope from the few stories of athletes who eventually made it after long years of obscure struggle. Work harder, you say. You still have eight to ten of your body's best years ahead of you. Why waste these years doing anything else besides following your dream of being a pro athlete?
We do not want to discourage anyone who truly has the potential to be a professional athlete. But we do want you to be aware of the likely consequence of following this pattern. Very few athletes ever make even a few dollars as professionals, while only a small percentage of these can claim to earn a regular living at their sport long enough to call it a career. While trying to earn a place in professional sports, you may suffer these consequences:
- Your college education may be curtailed and may end short of a degree. Many student-athletes who believe they have professional potential quit college soon after their eligibility expires.
- You may delay learning about other fields of work because of your preoccupation with your sport. Then, when you eventually give up the dream of being a professional athlete, you'll have to "play catch-up" once you find a career that looks interesting.
- You may find your confidence withering by thinking to yourself, "If I don't make it as a pro, I won't be able to do anything." This pessimism is unnecessary and unfounded, but you may feel it because you have kept yourself from the nonathletic world of work for so long. In short, though it is hard to leave the corps of athletes, you may pay a hard price for hanging on.
Coaching is, of course, the first alternative for many athletes whose professional playing aspirations are fading. As noted earlier, it's also a career alternative strongly considered by many other college athletes who have no thoughts of competing as pros. Although your role as a competitive performer ends, coaching keeps you close to the competitive arena, closer to the excitement and the feeling of participation than anything else.
Keeping close to athletics through coaching often entails staying actively involved in some level of the sport, accepting any kind of coaching job no matter what the pay or level of competition, taking other jobs to supplement your income, and waiting for a break. You'll coach Pony League or Bobby Sox, junior high, anything, and push hard for a winning record to show that you're worthy of a coaching job in higher levels of competition. You will probably continue to hope that a top coaching job will open up for you, like magic. But if you think of how many other former athletes are looking for good coaching jobs, you'll begin to understand and appreciate that getting one of these jobs is almost as hard as playing in professional sports. You might waste many years waiting for the big break that never comes.
All former athletes believe they know the sport they played well. Many believe they can transmit this knowledge to others simply because of their experience as players. But if you do not have any appreciation for teaching and the administrative details of coaching, then you probably don't belong there. It's a good profession but a tough one, requiring a great deal of dedication. Having been a player, even a great one, is merely a starting point in the profession of coaching.
The majority of athletes who stay in coaching end up as public school coaches. If this is where your career settles, you had better like teaching children and adolescents and be prepared for very little public recognition and much hard work that has nothing to do with the glamour of collegiate or professional sports. You had better like long hours, paperwork, dealing with parents, and handling troublemakers as well as the "good kids." And all this for relatively little pay. Coaching is a wonderful and stimulating career if you really want to be a coach and teacher; coaching is not a refuge for frustrated and unfulfilled former athletes who just want to stay close to their sport.
Pattern #3: "Someone will reward me for having been an athlete."
A peculiar yet persistent belief espoused by some athletes is that they will do well in their career simply because they have been an athlete. Some athletes are complacent about looking for work and preparing a career strategy because they believe that people want athletes to succeed. Whether or not they were star players, athletes generally receive considerable attention while in college and are often admired. It is easy to understand why they feel special and might expect people to want their services later on. Mixed with the inertia that comes from having been taken care of in many ways, an athlete's feeling of specialness may encourage him or her to wait for opportunities to develop and to avoid taking responsibility for this process. This harmful behavior pattern is characterized by "biding one's time," coaching here and there, maybe taking a job just because it happens to be there (the extra money is always helpful), and waiting for the good opportunity to come along. "Someone will find me; they won't let me down." Especially if college athletics has given you success, rewards, and identity, these three patterns may tempt you as your thoughts turn to your future career. No one wants to put down the torch before the flame has expired. But clinging to the past or giving in to any of these three patterns can only delay your immediate task of finding a job that matches your interests and abilities and offers challenge and room for professional growth.
USING ATHLETICS AS AN ENTRY INTO OTHER CAREERS
Although most college athletes, sooner or later, go on to pursue careers unrelated to athletics, student-athletes fresh out of college often try hard to find sports-related employment. While you may not stay in the first sports-related career you decide to enter, in many cases it will be a sensible way to make the transition between college athletics and the world of employment. If your career ideas are uncertain, look into the work people do that supports the elaborate structure surrounding organized sports-promotion, media communications, physiology, administration, writing, transportation, stadium construction, manufacturing of equipment and clothing, and so on. As you explore these areas, you will notice that each area represents a far broader profession than simply that serving athletes, sports fans, and team managers. Thus, you can use your curiosity about sports-related enterprises to discover many other occupational areas. You may obtain a first job on the basis of your athletic background but later move into the broader profession as your interests widen. As you explore, you will discover that athletics is related to almost every major occupation or profession in some way. Thus, we find sports involved in law, medicine, media, construction, education, finance, retailing, investments, and even politics.
In order to give you a number of different ideas for using athletics-related careers to investigate larger occupational categories, we have presented here a broad sampling of jobs in the sports world and the corresponding larger professions of which they are a part. In each of the sixteen work categories presented here, the sports-related job is defined first, followed by more general employment opportunities, entry requirements, and the job outlook for that occupation in the future. The roster of career possibilities is presented in this way to help you see that your attraction to a sports-related occupation opens up a far broader set of employment possibilities. If, for example, you've thought about being a sports statistician, you should also consider the possibility of being a generalist statistician-one who works in any number of fields. In the long run, your interest in working with quantitative analysis and statistical problem solving may move beyond your interest in working with sports. Similarly, the interest that drew you to the area of sports team management may lead you to personnel and labor relations work. For any sports-related career, there is usually a much larger category of work that might interest you and would offer you a wider array of opportunities.
As you look through the roster of career possibilities that follows, keep in mind that this is but a small sample of your alternatives. The Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Department of Labor, lists over 200 broad categories of employment. You should visit your college career center to review the larger numbers of possibilities. Ask for both the Occupational Outlook Handbook and the Occupational Outlook Quarterly. These government publications will be available along with many other specific career materials.
