The Adjustment

One of the hardest things to admit as an athlete is facing the fact that your playing days have come to an end.  I know from my experience of facing that dreaded day was bitter sweet, it sucked it had to end but at the same time it felt good to knowing my body would not be taking anymore punishment on the football field.  Do not get me wrong it is a very emotinal time because growing up and playing for 14 straight years, then having it taken away was pretty rough.  My mind and my body were so programmed and trained to the eating habits, workout rountines and waking up times, and now it all has felt weird since being done.  I feel that other athletes going through the same thing can testify and agree with me on some of those things as well, and so far since being away from the game for the last few months I have seen others in a similar position like mine going through hard coming to terms that everything is over.  Yes we get to sleep in and have more down time to ourseleves but on the flip side of that, it is harder to get motivated to hit the gym or to do some kind of excerise to stay in shape.  I talked to a fellow teammate of mine who has played with me on the Mercyhurst University football team Fred Hale and he said " I would give anything to go back to our junior because everything went right for us, that year and we finished it off by winning our division for the first time in school history!" and then i chimed in and started to get emotional because now that its all over I just have memories and that is hard to swallow.  But it does not stop just for college athletes, it happens in the professional ranks as well, and in my opinion i feel it is worse because that is their job.  Professional athletes im sure have it harder to deal with the end of the road because that is their way of life and source of income to feed their families.

There have been cases of Athletes going crazy, committing suicide, losing all of their money and even ending in trouble with the law, and i feel the main cause of that is because its hard making the adjustment to life after sports.  Here is a link that shows the struggle that comes with dealing with the cruel reality of a life with not having something you loved for so long taken away from you. Take a look.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/people/Professional-Athletes-Prepare-for-Life-after-Sports-118377659.html