During our individual year end meetings we always discuss life balance with our team. We asked about the outside interest they have.
We ask about friends they have met that aren’t involved in the university
athletics.
I recently read an article out of Australia by Nathan Price, Nadine Morrison and Sharyn
Arnold titled Life out of the Limelight. Understanding the Non-sporting Pursuits
of Elite Athletes. It made me think about how we train and teach life
balance. There is a perception that the
athletes have to be totally committed and passionate to have success in their
sport. In this article they suggested the
opposite.
I personally think during their sporting careers most
athletes see themselves in relationship to the success they have on the
court. If I am successful on the court,
then I am a success as a person. They have an extremely high sense of identity
from sport. At BU we are trying really had to have the athletes understand that
being an athlete is just one of the roles that they play in their lives. The characteristics that they demonstrate in
training and playing can help describe them but are not all of who they are. Cresswell
and Eklund’s (2006) study has shown that players not engaged in something
meaningful outside sport were less likely to experience instances of positive
accomplishment and self-esteem from sources other than sport; which they argued
can attribute to player burnout. Price and his colleagues from the paper I read
found the vast majority (90%) also stated that these activities helped to
lengthen their sporting career. In the
study they found that the athletes felt they gained a better sense of team work
and patience as they had to interact with different personality types than
those typically found in sport.
If a player or a coach only has friends within the team when
things don’t go well they feel very lost. By having other interests outside
sport this can help them focus on other success when things aren’t going well
within the sport. It will often help transition into a different life when the
sporting ends. Many athletes after they
finish their 5 years of eligibility are lost for awhile as they try to figure
out how to fill their time. We try real hard to help the athletes with this
transition. This year we actually had some of our athletes goal set meeting
people in their class that aren’t involved in BU athletics. Not just someone to borrow notes off of, but
to truely invest some time into them and learn about their lives. In our year end meetings they have found that
having this new group of friends has allowed them a break from the intensity of
being around the team. The athletes on
our team truly like each other and have fun together. They believe in the same things and have the
same experiences so it is easy to want to hang around each other, but it is
nice to get away and talk about other things.
This semester two of our athletes decided to take a pottery
course. This was a real challenge for
them, as they are typically very deft with their hands. In the pottery class
they had to spend many extra hours struggling to get the project
completed. But when it was finished it
seemed they were proud that they accomplished it.
It is my hope that when the athletes finish at BU they leave
feeling fulfilled whether they set new records or just played a role. We hope
that they find lifelong friends, are in love with sport and are constant
learners.
