“21 and retired”
A few months ago, at the start of my spring quarter of senior year in college, I attended my first ever class as an official NARP— a title that stands for “non-athletic regular person” and is used by college athletes to describe those of their peers who don’t compete on a varsity team. But, because I had just recently finished up my last competitive season, I still carried around my black Under Armour backpack and my green Gatorade bottle; the unmistakable markers of a student-athlete.
Naturally, my new professor asked me what sport I played. I gave the automatic answer, the one I had been giving for four years: “I’m a diver on the swim and dive team,” but then I paused. “Actually, I guess I’m not an athlete anymore. I’m retired.”
My professor laughed and said, “You don’t often hear someone talk about retirement at your age.”
I guess you don’t. But for the world I was in, it’s completely normal. For most of college, I competed for Northwestern University as a diver in the Big 10 collegiate athletic conference. This career came to a screeching halt when I performed my last dive at the final competition of my senior season. Just like that, I finally retired at 21 years old.
Being a division 1 student-athlete is a full-time job, and a job that I spent the majority of my childhood preparing for. The end of an elite athletic career like this is something that they try to warn you about. I consider myself one of the luckier ones because I got to choose my ending; I wasn’t forced out of the sport by injury or burnout, and I didn’t choose to use my fifth year of eligibility. I got to decide that when my time as a college student ended, so would my time as a college diver. It’s the neatest ending a student-athlete could ask for. I spent months preparing; talking to my therapist, solidifying my identity outside of diving, and planning what I could accomplish with all my new free time.
The issue is, when you’ve had one identity since the age of 8, it’s never that easy to let go. It’s much more complicated than I initially wanted to believe. Collegiate diving influenced every single aspect of my life: The clothes I wore, what I ate, how my body looked, when I slept, the classes I could take, when I shaved my legs, the shampoo products I used. What happens when all of this changes at once? How is it possible to relearn a life I’ve only ever known in the context of my sport?
I’m trying to learn how to accept the growing pains that come with an identity shift like this. I’m learning that it’s okay to be scared of a future I can’t imagine. I’m learning that it’s valid when I miss the sport I poured my heart and soul into; but I’m also learning that it’s valid when I really don’t miss it.
In sports, you’re taught to push quietly through discomfort and pain. For this blog, I want the opposite. I want my deepest thoughts out in the open. I want other retired athletes – no matter how old, how serious, or what sport – to know that they are not alone. Ending a sports career does not mean automatically losing value as a person.
I don’t have anything particularly revolutionary to say here. I wasn’t an insanely high-profile athlete or a pro, and of course my experience isn’t unique to just me. But, more often than not, this part of an athlete’s story isn’t told. That doesn’t mean it’s not important.