10 things I know about being an elite athlete
So here are 10 lesser publicized things I have come to know to be true about being an elite athlete, gleaned from over a decade in my own athletic career, nine years of personal and academic inquiry on athlete development, and seven years of working in the Olympic and Paralympic movement.
1. The journey always starts with love. Love for a person, a place, a team, an experience, or a feeling—love is the spark igniting the fire that fuels the years to come.
2. The world makes it out to be much more glamorous than it is. When the medals are awarded it is easy to forget that a life spent in a singular pursuit of greatness means deep and personal sacrifice.
3. It can be lonely. Our society loves athletes, or maybe the idea of them, but few people really “get” the experience in a way that can be meaningfully shared.
Guest post by Mackenzie Morse
Mackenzie (Mac) Morse is a former Division I athlete, a Dartmouth College graduate, and a certified athlete development specialist. She currently works for U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee as the manager of athlete outreach & engagement. Morse is also the founder of The Sideline Perspective, where injured and retired athletes can come together to find connection, share stories, and move forward with purpose.
5. It costs a lot of money. Sure some athletes make it back, but the business of sport is not a democracy.
6. It is a foundational experience. Competing at that level will shape the rest of that athlete’s life, for better or for worse, in both big and small ways.
7. There is heartbreak.
8. There is pure blissful joy.
9. There is a cliff. At the end of it all, there is a cliff that every athlete looks out over the edge of. When the end of their competitive days come, they stand at the verge of reckoning no matter who they are or what they accomplished. They toe the line, some with the protective parachute of a life lived in parallel to their playing days and others with nothing but their dry-fit t-shirts and a sinking realization that even superheroes hang up the cape.
Every athlete, ready or not, has to take the next step, has to jump, hoping to find themselves in the fall…It’s never clear at the start, to see where they’ll land.
But the tenth thing that I know to be true about being an elite athlete is that there is life after!
This post was originally published on Changing the Game Project.
10. Athletes aren’t known for their counting abilities… lol (where is number 10 on your list of 10 things you know??) ;)
It’s the very last line of the post: But the tenth thing that I know to be true about being an elite athlete is that there is life after!