Athlete Retirement: Moving on From a Sports Career

Life after college sports can bring changes in activity, nutrition, athletic identity, body image and career plans. Amy Van Ryn explores how athletes can adapt while carrying their commitment into the next chapter.

What changes during a sports career transition?

There are many difficulties and challenges that athletes will experience when they move on from their life of competition. There are many changes that will affect their body, their mind and emotions while planning the rest of their lives. Each athlete will need to learn how to cope with these challenges and try to reacquire what they may have given up to become part of a team.

Many will experience major setbacks, as their very identity has been associated with their sport. Ending a career in which a majority of life had been spent competing can feel like losing the only purpose in life.

How can you stay active in life after college sports?

As athletes transition into their post-college life, one of the struggles they will face is the physical changes they will experience. Former college athletes may need to rebuild their activity routine when organized training ends. How active they remain varies. As a college athlete, coaches run your lives for the most part. Practices are routinely twice, sometimes three times a day.

Due to the sheer number of practices, sleep and food are extremely important and play a huge role in recovery. Most days have routine workouts. The duration, intensity, and frequency of training makes working out and burning calories a part of normal life. Transitioning out of this into a life where there is no coach or teammate pushing you can be quite challenging.

How can nutrition needs change after college sports?

One of the first items that must be addressed is the change of food intake. An athlete’s food needs may change after college sports, but retirement does not automatically require cutting calories. Athletes must adjust to their new exercise output and change their intake dependent on their new schedule. Food intake needs to reflect the athlete’s current activity and circumstances.

Portion control is a major difference between an athlete and a retired athlete’s diet. One of the most practical ways to be on top of food intake is to keep a daily food log of everything eaten. BMI is a screening measure of weight relative to height. It does not distinguish fat, muscle and bone, and does not calculate individual food needs or exercise energy expenditure.

A food log can help an athlete notice eating patterns as routines change. This will allow the retired athlete to be more aware of the food consumed, and the calories that they need to burn or consume to lose, gain, or maintain weight.

How does athletic identity affect the transition?

As athletes make the career transition from collegiate athlete to retired athlete, there are factors that can affect them mentally. A major challenge in transitioning stems from an athlete’s identity, and the career change can cause a major identity crisis. A strong or exclusive athletic identity can complicate transition for some athletes. In the cited 2013 survey, athletic identity was also positively associated with physical activity after college.

For some athletes, self-worth becomes closely tied to sport achievements and recognition from others. When your whole life revolves around one number, one time, one team, it permeates you at a subconscious level. You find your worth solely in performance and achievements in the sport.

If an athlete has greater confidence, it may help them have a more positive outlook on post-college career possibilities looking into the future. Feelings of failure lessen, and self-worth may then be identified outside of the sports arena.

How can body image change after sports?

It can be very difficult for an athlete to watch their body change. For most Division 1 athletes, the sport they played in college was a sport in which they had been participating for a very long time. For this reason, their body composition may have stayed consistent most of their lives. Body composition may change after college when activity, training and other routines change.

Many athletes will go through a dramatic body change when transitioning. Changes in muscle mass and body fat vary with the athlete’s new routine. Even if the athlete has planned to stay in shape in some way, the body will not be subjected to the same stressors it has been in the past. When an injury forces the transition, adjusting to body image may be harder for some athletes.

What happens when athlete retirement is involuntary?

Another aspect that impacts the way an athlete transitions is how much control and volition they had in stopping their sport. A 2013 systematic review examined research on athletes’ career transitions, including retirement circumstances, identity and social support. Athletes facing an unwanted end to their career may fear social exclusion, social death or a loss of identity.

A large change in daily life such as leaving college brings stress into most graduating athlete’s lives. Often, athletes do not have the time or energy to add a job or internship to their busy schedule. They are already committed to sport and school, usually in that order. This leads to frustration, feeling like there is no one to help, or that they were ill-prepared to find a suitable job in their post-sport world.

What can athletes carry into their next chapter?

As retiring athletes come to the end of their sports career, they must adjust and learn how to accommodate a less active lifestyle than they are accustomed. They will have to find ways to cope with the loss of competition and find their way through the jungle that is “real life”. Even though this may seem daunting, athletes have many great qualities they have learned from competing.

The commitment that helped them compete in college may also help them pursue goals throughout their lives.

Bibliography

Park, S., Lavallee, D., & Tod, D. (2013). Athletes’ career transition out of sport: a systematic review. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 6(1), 22–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2012.687053

Reifsteck, E. J., Brooks, D. D., Newton, J. D., & Shriver, L. H. (2018). Promoting a Healthy Post-Collegiate Lifestyle: An Evaluation of the Moving On! Transition Program for Student-Athletes. Journal of Higher Education and Athletics Innovation, 1(4), 54–76. https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2376-5267.2018.1.4.54-76

Reifsteck, E. J., Gill, D. L., & Brooks, D. L. (2013). The Relationship between Athletic Identity and Physical Activity among Former College Athletes. Athletic Insight, 5(3), 271–284. https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/D_Gill_Relationship_2013.pdf

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025, December 16). About Body Mass Index (BMI). https://www.cdc.gov/bmi/about/index.html

National Collegiate Athletic Association. (n.d.). Probability of Competing Beyond High School. https://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/probability-of-competing-beyond-high-school/

Pull Quotes

“Athletes must adjust to their new exercise output and change their intake dependent on their new schedule.”

“If an athlete has greater confidence, it may help them have a more positive outlook on post-college career possibilities looking into the future.”

“It can be very difficult for an athlete to watch their body change.”