5 changes that may occur when an athlete starts college
Athletes transitioning
Athlete transitions into the elite level sport, throughout the elite sport, and out of elite sport is an area of growth within the academic world.
Wylleman, Reints & De Knop (2013) developed the Holistic Athletic Career (HAC) Model which was originally created in ….. by the same authors. This model supports the awareness of the various types of transitions an athlete faces at various ages from a holistic perspective (as a whole person, not just an athlete). The horizontal axis represents the athlete’s age, and the vertical axis represents the different types of development from a holistic perspective. (The image below shows this model). https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203132388-20/developmental-holistic-perspective-athletic-career-development-wylleman-reints-de-knop
For a student-athlete starting university, you can see from the image above that between the ages of 15- 20 multiple development transitions are occurring. Therefore, the athlete must have access to various practitioner support at this time. Athletes also need to take responsibility and take action to ensure these transitions don’t cause them to feel overwhelmed which can have a negative impact on their overall well-being, sporting, and educational performance.
5 changes that occur when athletes start college:
Young athletes may not see the difficulties in transitioning to university, in fact, they usually full of excitement and curiosity.
However, there are several changes to be aware of and consider how they could have a negative impact if not managed carefully. They include:
- A new routine or lack of routine
- Location
- Peer pressure
- Training changes
- Workload
1. A new routine or lack of routine
One of the the 5 changes that occur when athletes start in college is that they commonly feel a sense of freedom, which is a brilliant time to grow as a person but also can cause some issues for student-athletes. In secondary school, your sport fits around your education.
You have a timetable, some student-athletes may have a bespoke timetable but either way, your day is planned from waking in the morning to going to bed at night, and weekends are scheduled around training or competitions. Now, you are in college life is different, your educational timetable may be reduced or slow-tracked meaning you have fewer hours in education each week giving you extra time for other activities or independent study.
If you manage this newfound freedom you can excel in sports and academically but you need to practice organizational, time management, planning, and reflective skills to master this transition.
Below there is a link to the 168hr timetable. This is an excel file where you can enter your sleep, study, training, food prep, social activities, etc, and visually see where your time is spent. At the end of the week, you should ask yourself the reflective questions to check in with what is working and what needs to change.
2. Location
Starting college might mean moving location. It might be the first time living away from home so there are a few things to be aware of and to check in with.
- Location of your new home to college, to training- if you are spending a lot of time commuting this can impact your personal, academic, and sports performance.
- Develop good hygiene practices with your new home- sleep, cooking, ensuring you have clean training gear
- Eating – do you know how to cook healthy nutritious meals? Did you liaise with your nutritionist about this or is a meeting with a nutritionist something the sports scholarship dept can support with? What day are you going to do your food shop? Will you batch cook some meals?
- Who are you living with, how will that impact your sporting performance?
3. Peer Pressure
Socializing is an important part of college life however, as a high-performance athlete you need to understand that you have other commitments, other goals, and other ambitions that other students don’t have. Therefore, you will have to make choices in your socializing at times and not succumb to peer pressure every night of the college week.
Socializing is essential and will support your well-being and personal growth sometimes you will have to be creative in the ways you choose to socialize.
4. Training changes
Fourthly, another one of the 5 changes that occur when athletes start college is a chain in your training schedule. Starting college may require you to move clubs and possibly coach. This is daunting and a huge transition on its own.
It is important to understand that you will be uncomfortable with this change and probably nervous about the change. Don’t be alarmed if this initially causes a dip in performance just acknowledge that it is new and different and takes some time to adapt.
Push yourself to communicate effectively with your new coach and engage with your new team members as best you can. If you are struggling check in with the sports scholarship office as they maybe help to provide additional supports to help with the transition.
5. Workload
Possibly one of the biggest changes of the 5 changes that may occur when an athlete starts college is an increase in workload and demand.
Some college courses will have low contact hours such as Business or Arts degrees but some courses will be very intense such as engineering, nursing, and teaching degrees. It is important to remember that when you are striving towards being an elite sportsperson it is challenging to be brilliant at everything else as well.
You can be a Teacher, Engineer, Doctor, etc when you are 60 but you only have a small window to be the best sportsperson in your chosen area. Therefore, don’t add unnecessary stress and workload to your life, sometimes it will make sense to slow track your college year. It will take you longer to finish the course, your friends that are your age will be finished their course ahead of you and started their career before you, but they have different goals, they are not trying to be an Olympic Champion.
Don’t forget;
College is new and exciting and should be enjoyed by all. If not, then it is essential to reach out to someone with the expertise to support you in making some changes to help you with this transition.
Looking to work during college too?
So you’re also looking to maintain or seek a job outside of college? Did you know that research by British Universities and Sport (BUCS) 2013 found that involvement in sport can boost students’ employability skills. Here’s a link to my previous blog post all about why companies seek to employ student athletes. https://www.carolkeenanguidance.com/why-do-companies-seek-to-employ-student-athletes/
