Episode 2: It's Really Over...

In Episode 2 of The Locker Room, I reflect on the moment it finally settles in that sports are really over. This episode explores the shift from having a schedule, goals, and routine to realizing you are not just taking time off — life has completely changed.

The Locker Room is a podcast for former athletes navigating the confusing and often painful transition from a life centered around sports to a life outside of the game. For many athletes, walking away from sports is more than the end of a season. It can feel like losing purpose and even a piece of who you are. One day, your life is built around competition and performance. Then suddenly, it's not. No schedule. No team. No goals. No clear version of who you are supposed to become next. This podcast explores the emotional weight of that transition: the identity crisis, the anxiety, the depression, the feeling of being lost, and the pressure to “move on” before you have fully processed what you left behind. Through honest conversations, personal reflection, and relatable stories, The Locker Room creates space for former athletes to feel seen, understood, and reminded that they are not alone. Life after sports is not just about finding a new career or routine. It is about rediscovering purpose, rebuilding identity, and learning that who you are has always been bigger than what you did. 

Transcript

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What is up, y'all? It's your boy Jalen and welcome to the Locker Room Podcast. In the last episode, we talked about the purpose of the Locker Room Podcast and why former athletes need a space to have honest conversations about life after sports. This conversation matters because the overwhelming majority of athletes will face it right after high school and many more throughout college. It's not always as simple as just moving on. But today, I want to get more personal. This episode is about the moment you realize it's really over. The moment it starts to settle in that sports are no longer going to be a part of your life in the same way. Life keeps moving. There's still school, work, family, and responsibilities you have to be present for. So even though the sport is technically over, your mind doesn't always process it immediately. That was true for me. I didn't have this dramatic moment where I crossed the finish line and instantly knew I was done. It happened in pieces. It first started during the summer after I graduated. There was no next season. There wasn't a calendar being sent out. There weren't group chats being formed, no coach texting about where to be. And that summer, I began to process that what I had known and lived for most of my life had come to an end. So in this episode, I want to walk through what was different now that my life had completely changed, what happened to my routine that I had completely adjusted to, and the mental shift that came when I accepted that I wasn't just taking a few weeks off. This was real life. As we've talked about before, this transition is difficult for many reasons. One of those is how much of your life is consumed by sports. According to research cited by the Drake group, college athletes often spend 40 to 50 hours or more per week in athletics-related activities. That includes practice, competition, travel, team meetings, injury treatment, rehab, weight training, conditioning, and other responsibilities connected to the sport. This was especially true at the Division I level and even more noticeable in sports like football and basketball. So when people say sports are just an extracurricular, that's not true at all. Sports are full-time commitments. Your body and your mind are constantly preparing for the next competition or the next level to compete against another athlete who sometimes wants it more than you, who may be more prepared than you, who may be faster or stronger or smarter than you, who may be better coached than you, or who may be simply better than you. So your body goes from being trained, pushed, treated, and corrected almost every day to having nothing official to prepare for. I believe a shift that dramatic can cause your body to feel like and maybe even act like it's going through withdrawals. Because the structure that used to tell you where to be and what to do suddenly disappears. And for athletes who suffer career-ending injuries, it might be even worse because you can't see it coming. I had gone from being in a consistent rhythm, days filled from sunrise to sunset, to having more time than I knew what to do with. And my body didn't really know what to do with that space. Which is probably why I started playing the game so much. Because strangely, I think it sends similar signals to when you're playing sports. You have to process information quickly, you have to take a split-second inventory of potential paths to take. You make a decision based on that information, wait for the outcome, and then repeat over and over and over again. And maybe that sounds small or stupid, but looking back, maybe that was me trying to replace the rhythm I had without realizing it. Let's rewind to my last month of college with no practice or any organized sports activities. It was pretty chill and felt good to get a break. School was winding down because we were getting ready for finals, so there wasn't a lot going on. And to be honest, I was enjoying the rest as much as I could. I had a pretty bad adductor strain that kept me from doing anything high intensity, so part of me knew I needed the break anyway. At the time, I also had my internship, so that took up a few of my afternoons, but that wasn't nearly as taxing as a normal week of practice. And that's when the difference started to creep in because before that, my weekdays were pretty hectic. I stayed about 35 minutes off campus and my classes usually started either at 8 or 9.15 Monday through Friday. So most days I was waking up around 6 or 6.30 doing Bible studies, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, making food, and that's not even counting the days we had morning workouts. Then I would drive to campus and between 8 and 3 p.m. I would be alternating between class, studying, and having lunch. After that, I would usually start setting up for our pre-practice meetings. Those could last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on the day. And on the days I had my internship, I would either have to skip practice or leave early. So most nights, I wasn't heading back home until around 8.30 or 9 o'clock, and I still had my 35 minute drive. When I got home, I'd shower, eat, and do whatever work I need to finish, talk with my wife, maybe watch TV or play the game a little bit, but then I just go to sleep and wake up to do it all over again, Monday through Friday, like clockwork. That was what most of my weekdays looked like closer to the end. So when the season actually ended, it wasn't like my whole life instantly stopped. But the sports part was gone. No meetings, no practice, no workouts, no conditioning, not even an afternoon spent mentally preparing for whatever dreadful workout was coming that day. And it felt good. It felt good to have freedom and to rest, but that also felt weird because even though I didn't wake up expecting something to feel different, it was strange knowing something was different. The feeling of being with the team or having the mental switch that happens when you know you're about to train or compete wasn't there. So even though I had things to do, that piece was missing. That's what can make it difficult for non-athletes to understand. Sometimes you still have a full schedule, but your routine and the emotions associated with it aren't there. Before the season ended, even my free time still had an athlete's mindset attached to it. A couple days out the week, I would take an hour or so to go run or lift, sometimes both. Even on the normal days when I didn't, I was still thinking like how can I recover or get better today? How can I gain the edge? What can I focus on for practice? But after the season ended, I wasn't really looking to run or lift at all. I was really just going with the flow because I needed some time away from trying to cram nearly every hour of my day with something. It was definitely a good idea because it wasn't like my whole life fell apart. I ended up taking about two months off from running and doing any consistent working out, only to realize later that I still needed more time for further rehab. I knew I wasn't gonna fall completely out of shape overnight, and even though I felt like I deserved a break after putting in so much work over the last few months, I also felt lazy for not being physically active. I was a little confused too. Going from knowing what season and goals I was preparing for to not knowing, I felt lost and aimless. I knew things were gonna be awkward for a while, and I knew life was about to be different. There was a mental and emotional component of this transition as well. I was very anxious at times. There were a lot of uncertainties about what the future held. I felt behind in life. I felt like a failure. I felt like an outlier. I considered joining track teams in the area, I even considered trying to make a run at football again, even though that was much less attainable. But at the time, I didn't care. I wanted another chance because I knew my potential hadn't been fully realized and I wanted to do something about it. That was a hard feeling to carry. Because on one hand, life is moving forward, but on the other hand, there's still this part of you that feels incomplete. Like I said in the last episode, my senior track season was so terrible performance-wise, so off script, I thought surely that wasn't it. But then I thought I was one of the ones who just didn't seize enough moments. I bloomed too late. I'm just supposed to be a springboard for other athletes. Maybe I just need to spend more time developing the skills I was missing earlier in my career and figure out another route. One of the hardest parts of it all was that I didn't feel like anybody understood. I genuinely thought there was no way anyone else could be dealing with this and I was having an original experience. It hurts even worse to look back sometimes because to this day, I believe I matured the most as my career was coming to an end. It sucks knowing that I was finally starting to understand things right as it was ending. It makes you wonder why it didn't click earlier and why it seemed to click for so many of your teammates. That's why I didn't think anyone else could relate. I wasn't just dealing with the end of a season. I was dealing with the feeling that I had more in me, knowing I did, but thinking the window had closed and I would be living with a regret forever. That's what made it hard to accept. And even though it was already over, it started to hit so much differently once those thoughts crept in. If there's one thing I wish every athlete knew before that last game, it is to consider what life without sports will look like and to prepare for it. Don't let it catch you by surprise. As you can see, it's a complicated process that varies from athlete to athlete, but you have to deal with it regardless. The end of my career will never sit right with me, and there may always be some part of it that feels unfinished. I started to realize that although the organized career ends, the pursuit of development doesn't have to. Obviously, age and injury are real limiting factors, and I'm not saying everybody can just go back and do whatever they want physically, but nothing is stopping you from identifying a challenging but attainable goal, making a plan to reach it, and getting started. That matters. Because at one point, the end of my sports career felt like the end of my development as a person, but it's not. I want to leave you with this. If you're still trying to process what losing sports means for your life, you can be grateful and still grieve. You can move forward and still wonder what could have happened if things went differently. That tension is real, and that's where the transition begins, with the slow realization that life is changing and the sport that used to shape so much of your world is no longer at the center of it. Just because one chapter ended doesn't mean your story stopped. Sometimes the ending is what forces you to finally ask what comes next. Because once you realize it's really over, the next thing you have to deal with is the silence, the space left behind when the noise of sports is gone. If you got value from this, make sure you subscribe, leave a like, and comment your own experience below. I'd love to hear what you missed the most and what you're still working through. And until next time, remember the game changed, but your story is still being written. Take care and God bless.