Episode 4: Who Am I Without Sports?

In Episode 4 of The Locker Room, I talk about the identity shift that happens when sports are no longer the center of your life. This episode explores missing who you were as an athlete, questioning your self-worth, and learning how to rebuild purpose beyond performance, recognition, and the game.

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, community, 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 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's up y'all? It's your boy Jalen and welcome or welcome back to the Locker Room Podcast. In the last episode, we talked about the silence that comes after sports and how when your athletic career comes to an end, it's not just the games, practices, and workouts that disappear. It's the physical, mental, emotional, and social noise as well. Once all that is gone, you're left alone with whatever that silence starts revealing about you. But for me, and hopefully for you too, that silence eventually leads to a profound question. Who am I without sports? Questioning your identity is necessary in this transition, and ideally, it should be the natural next step. Once it's all behind you, you'll have nothing left of the old days except pictures, videos, and memories. That summer after graduation, I started questioning whether I really enjoyed those long-established routines because they were a part of what I did or because they had become a part of who I was. Walking through this identity shift is difficult because it exposes how much self-worth you have attached to that activity. It forces you to be honest about how much of your confidence and sense of value are tied to being an athlete. And if you want to come out better on the other side, it requires a high degree of vulnerability, especially when there's so much pressure to just move on and act like it doesn't matter because it's in the past. But that's not how it works. Once you're no longer in that environment, insecurities start showing up real quick, even more so if you are that guy or girl on campus. If being an athlete was the main thing people knew you for, there are two questions every former athlete needs to answer. Who am I now that this is no longer the center of my life? And how do I want people to see me now? For me, being an athlete was everything. That was all I cared about growing up, and that was how I moved through life until it ended. I'm still an athlete now, it just looks different. So in this episode, I want to talk about identity. I want to talk about what it feels like to realize sports weren't just something you did, but a major part of who you were. I want to talk about why that shift can feel so unsettling, and I want to talk about how by separating what you did or didn't accomplish in your sports career from who you are, you can dramatically improve your mental health going through this process. We've talked before about the inevitability of the ending of an athlete's career, which we know can occur for a variety of reasons. Having said that, listen to this quote from an article written by sports psychologist Damian Stewart. The end of a sporting career can feel as a significant loss in an athlete's life, especially if the end of their career was premature or not freely chosen, such as in the case of a career-ending injury. For many athletes, their athletic career is how they create a sense of relevance and purpose in their lives. A highly competitive athletic career is marked by a total commitment to the athlete's chosen sport, involving a daily schedule of training, competition, preparation, and rehabilitation, all of which contribute to the formation of the athletic identity. However, the end of an athletic career can signify a partial or complete loss of identity in the athletic domain. Athletes face a loss of daily routine, regimen, stimulation, and potentially the sense of accomplishment that comes with performing at such a high level. This article was published in 2022. I say that because this has been a topic of conversation since the beginning of athletics. This is not a new phenomenon and it's not just something a few athletes struggle with here and there. When you spend years of your life in an environment that provides structure, teaches life skills, allows you to be recognized, and gives you a sense of purpose, of course your identity will be affected when the environment suddenly disappears. That is why conversations like this matter. Because if athletes have been dealing with this for years, then we need to be honest enough to talk about it. The loss is not just about the sport itself. In this case, it's about realizing that sometimes the version of yourself you understood the best was a version that only makes sense inside sports. For example, every team has roles. Some people are the stars, some are the villains, then you have your glue guys, gadget guys, all-around guys, backups, etc. Whatever your role was, if you lived in it long enough, and especially if it stayed the same throughout your career, it becomes part of, if not your entire identity. So once that environment is gone, your identity goes with it. I think the best place to move to is by talking about how much of my life revolved around sports. I started running track at 6 and playing football at 8. I went to the junior Olympics at least once during youth track between the ages of 10 and 11. I won multiple championships in youth football around 11 and 12. I ran in multiple state championships in high school, won a state championship in the 4x4 as a senior, and was one of the first All-Americans in track at my high school. I went to college with close to a full ride for football, where I started half the season as one of, if not the only, true freshmen and earned another scholarship when I transferred. I'm not listing any of this to brag or to be praised, but when I say sports were everything, I gave two decades to track and football. That's who I identified as. But it changed as I got older. When I was younger, I wasn't sitting around consciously thinking about my self-worth. I was just playing and having fun. But by the time I got to my junior and senior years of high school, that changed dramatically. Since football was my main sport, my mindset was something like this. If I missed a tackle, trash. If I dropped a pick, trash. If a receiver caught a ball on me, trash. If a receiver scored on me, in my mind, it was like quit at life, burn your cleats, trash. There was no distinction between jailing the athlete and jailing the person. If I played well, I felt better about myself. If I didn't, I felt worse. And that is one of the most dangerous parts about having a prominent athletic identity. Because over time, performance stops feeling like something you do and starts feeling like proof of who you are. The Association for Applied Sports Psychology defines athletic identity as the degree to which an individual identifies with the athletic role. They explain that when most of an athlete's life revolves around sports, there are likely no other outlets to connect with. This is especially important when negative experiences happen or when the sport comes to an end. They also point to research showing that athletes with high athletic identity are more at risk for difficulty coping, negative social and emotional adjustment, and symptoms of anxiety. And that makes complete sense, but it's difficult to dissociate because outside of the game itself, sports gave me so much. It gave me peace, it gave me a home away from home, it gave me brothers and friends, it taught me the value of discipline, sacrifice, and hard work. It taught me how to come up with a game plan based on the tools you have, how to stick with it, and how to adjust when needed. It taught me how to learn from losing. It taught me that even when you work hard and feel like you deserve to win, sometimes you don't, and you still have to keep working anyway. It shaped my mindset and my confidence. And when it all ended, I didn't fully realize how high my athletic identity was. Even if I did, I don't think it would have mattered because that seemed like the norm. And to make it worse, I didn't care about my grades until I was a sophomore in college. So that made me care about sports even more. I told myself grades didn't matter because I would only have a few years in college, I would do the bare minimum, and after that, nobody will care about my grades anyways. I was 14, 15 years old thinking like this. Lived like that for almost a decade, and you can see how what you do becomes who you are. The first time I felt like I didn't know myself the same way was that summer after graduation. If I had to describe what that felt like, the closest thing would be like a hero losing his powers. Because I went from knowing where I fit, knowing the language, and how to contribute, to working my first real job. I worked as a personal trainer in a small, privately owned, community-oriented gym. So it wasn't your stereotypical white-collar office job. Still, going into that environment was very weird at first because most of my coworkers were about twice my age. Some of them were former athletes too, but they were way past that stage of their lives. They were great people to be around, and I genuinely enjoyed the experience. Even then, trying to navigate that environment while also dealing with all the emotions from the end of my sports career was very rough. My confidence was extremely low. I was learning new skills, new people, new systems, trying to adapt to new routines, and that sucked. Because after years in any environment, you get used to the culture. You know how things work, and there's a level of confidence that comes from familiarity. But here, it was a complete culture shock. I was the new guy in a new field. I was back at the bottom. I didn't even remember what it felt like to be back at the bottom. I hadn't been a beginner in too many things that had a major impact on my life since I started playing sports. One thing that did help make that transition easier was that there were clear steps for how I could grow on my role. My boss made learning very simple and gave me something to work toward. He challenged me to grow and regularly push me outside of my comfort zone, and that made a huge difference. But even with that, I constantly felt like my best days were behind me, like the most meaningful parts of my life had already happened, like the rest of my life would be filled with meaningless work and a lot of time spent looking backward. This was the most difficult season in the entire transition out of regular sports by far. I was getting used to not having things figured out. There was a lot of uncertainty and discomfort in that. I was anxious about what the future would hold, all while still maintaining that I'm a failure belief in my mind. On a more positive note, one of the biggest things that helped me start seeing myself as more than just an athlete was getting married. Because in that process, my life started revolving around so much more than just me. And for a moment, marriage helped me see past all of that. It helped me see that life is so much bigger than wins and losses, rankings and achievements. I think that perspective matters because for most of us, we're only athletes for a fraction of our lives. The closer you are to the end of it, the more it stings. But the older you get and the more distant you get from it, you start to realize that while sports are meaningful, it's not nearly as meaningful as some of the other things life has to offer. That's a hard but healthy truth. As I reflected more, I started to recognize plenty of healthy traits that carried over from athletics that transfer into everyday life. Leadership is a big one. Knowing when to be vocal and when not to, knowing how to speak up for the right reasons at the right time. My competitive nature still shows up, especially in wanting to put my best foot forward and be the best at what I do. Discipline shows up in everything. Hard work is always valuable. Attention to detail will take you further than the average person. Emotional intelligence matters because it helps you earn trust and understand what people need in certain situations. Punctuality is huge. Being stronger, healthier, and more in shape than the average person never hurts either. So the same traits that make you an average, good, or great athlete show up even though you may no longer be competing. It just starts to show up differently. I had to unlearn that my worth and value as a human being and as a man is not tied to my ability or inability to accomplish a task or goal. I'm still in the process of unlearning some of these unhealthy behaviors and mindsets, and some days are better than others. But every day is a new day. Every season brings different challenges and different opportunities to grow. Sports will always be a part of my identity in some way, and during seasons when other things in life take priority over getting on the track, on the field, or getting in the gym, those old thoughts and emotions still try to come back. A few keys I found to help combat the negativity is by doing my best to stay in the moment. Stay present. Control what you can control. If you have something you want to improve on, do it right then. If you need to make a plan because it'll take time, craft it right then. At the same time, have fun. Don't be afraid to make mistakes and don't beat yourself up when you do. It also helps to know that when I constantly live like this, I'm working to build a life that gives me the time and space to enjoy sports and other things without them completely defining me. With that being said, I'm not saying this process is easy. It takes time. But if you keep moving forward, if you are intentional about taking your life, your development into your own hands instead of just waiting for it to happen, one day you'll look back in awe at how far you've come. If there's one thing I want former athletes to understand, it's that you are more than a performance. Your worth was never supposed to be tied up in what you could or could not do in a competition setting. Because when that becomes the main way you measure yourself, it makes the transition out of sports even harder than it already is. Around 93% of athletes are going to be done competing after high school, and around 97% will be done after college. That means the majority of us and our lives will be lived outside of organized sports. I wish someone had told me earlier that I wasn't the only one, that I wasn't crazy for thinking I would just stumble through life feeling like an athletic reject. I hope you recognize there are so many other things in life, more important things, to find your identity in besides being an athlete. Your best days can still be ahead of you, but you have to prepare for them. I want to leave you with this. If you've been struggling with who you are outside of sports, you're not crazy for feeling like you're losing a version of yourself too. When you've spent years being known as the athlete and measuring yourself through performance, it's natural to experience. But just because that identity is being challenged doesn't mean you're losing yourself. It may actually be the beginning of seeing yourself more clearly. And if you felt like an athletic reject, if you felt behind, if you felt like your best days were already behind you, I want you to know you're not the only one. A lot more athletes struggle with this than the world realizes. Even though most of your life is going to be lived outside the sports, that doesn't have to be depressing. It can actually be freeing because it means there's still so much life left to live, so much growth left to experience. But you have to be intentional about building a life that is meaningful to you. If this episode gave you something to think about, make sure you subscribe, leave a like, and comment your own experience below. I'd love to hear what part of your identity you've had to rebuild and what this transition has taught you about yourself. And until next time, remember the game changed, but your story is still being written. Take care and God bless.