It's a Scientific Fact

Inside the book and game of CareerBall: You should know a few things about being a highly competitive athlete that were not advertised in advance and are a downside of being an athlete in college.

First, researchers in sport psychology (the people who spend their lives studying these types of things), have conducted studies that support the notion that college athletes often compare unfavorably to non-athletes in terms of issues related to vocational and career development. Non-athletes have been found to score higher than athletes on measures of career maturity, vocational maturity, and the formulation of mature educational and career plans. These studies seem to indicate that college athletes experience less career development and maturity than non-athletes. Ouch!

These sports researchers also go on to introduce plausible reasoning why athletes compare unfavorably to non-athletes in early career development. One of the related factors that might influence an athlete’s level of career development is “athletic community,” which is defined as “the degree to which an individual identifies with the athlete role.” It appears that individuals who have a strong athletic identity place great importance on being involved in sport, which may actually hinder career development among athletes. More specifically, sports psychologists have hypothesized that athletes with a high athletic identity may engage in fewer exploratory behaviors, experience “identity foreclosure,” and perceive their “life role” as solely that of an athlete, which may inadvertently postpone career decisions.

Another plausible sports-related theory is that an "early life focus" on athletics is also a significant factor that inhibits career development. Athletes often develop a strong commitment to sports early in life through reinforcement from parents, coaches, and peers. Although a strong commitment to sports is certainly a desirable characteristic from an athletic point of view, many leading psychologists have theorized that such a strong commitment may be harmful in areas outside of sports, including career development.

What we do know as the truth today is that college athletes generally have more time constraints placed on them than non-athletes; for example, practice, training room time, road trips, film, study hall, nutrition, etc. Further, the life of a college athlete is often highly structured, with many important decisions made by others (e.g., coaches, academic coordinators, and team cultures). Taken together, these factors may cause the college athlete to feel that he or she is lacking in terms of tangible, practical, occupational information. Throw in the fact that most athletes never make professional ranks, and often a college sports commitment simply does not prepare an athlete for a career outside of athletics. As a result, college athletes lag behind their non-athlete peers in formulating career goals and plans.