The struggle to find your identity can be a challenging and exhausting process, but when you have identified yourself with something for almost your entire life and are forced to give that something up, it can be terrifying.
Athletes often dedicate their lives to their respective sports, as I did with hockey. They give everything they have to be the best that they can be. They spend countless hours over the years in practices, offseason training and games trying to make something out of themselves as an athlete.
For some, including myself, the goal is to play college sports. I always wanted to play college hockey; it had been my goal ever since I was little. I spent every second of my life trying to become a better hockey player so that one day I would throw on a jersey for whatever college wanted me.
But there comes a moment in the lives of so many athletes when they realize they aren’t destined to play sports forever. There comes a time when they realize it’s time to hang up their equipment. It might be that they’ve just reached the peak of their athletic career, or it might be injury forcing them out of the game. It was injuries that put an end to my athletic career.
As time passed and I moved closer to playing the final competitive hockey game of my career, I was scared. My identity was always as a hockey player. It’s who I was inside and out. I had no idea what I was other than a hockey player, but the amount of time I had to figure that out was getting more and more small.
The experience you go through when you no longer identify as an athlete can be frightening and intimidating. Many athletes, like myself, can fall into a state of depression, sometimes known as post-competition depression. According to an informational article from livestrong.com, “an athlete may lose his sense of purpose and have a hard time reintegrating into a routine that does not focus solely on the sport.”
It’s a specific thought process that gets someone into such a state. If they don’t belong on the court, field, ice or whatever ground they play on, they might feel like they don’t belong anywhere. This is what’s known as an identity crisis.
I remember all too well the struggle of an identity crisis. I find it difficult to put into words how it felt to no longer have sports as a part of my life. For years, everything I did was motivated by one sport or another, and I never thought twice about it. When I was forced out of the game, I couldn’t think about it any less.
I no longer knew what would push me to get through the day. I would stay inside with no motivation, no intentions of getting things done. I had no reason to be successful because, in my eyes, the only way I would have ever been successful was if I fulfilled my athletic goals. Now, I knew that was never going to happen and I saw no reason to work for things if athletics was no longer in the picture. Simply put, I had lost my sense of purpose.
Associate Professor in the Physical Education Department at Keene State College Fitni Destani teaches a class called ‘Psycho Social Aspects of Sport,’ a topic in which Destani has his PhD. Destani said he is a firm believer in the issue of an identity crisis for former athletes.
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“The biggest situation that I’ve noticed is their own perception of who they are as an individual and their self identity,” Destani said.
Destani also said that it can help if an athlete is going out on their own terms. In other words, if an athlete is constantly injured and is no longer physically capable to play, it may be much harder than if they are deciding that they no longer want to be a part of the competitive environment.
In the year 2011, three former National Hockey League players committed suicide after suffering from depression due to their exit from the game of hockey. Rick Rypien, Derek Boogard and Wade Belak were all found dead within a four month span, according to the New York Times.
All three of these athletes had lost their sense of purpose since retiring from the game, and were unsuccessful in perceiving their new identities. As time goes by, these cases continue to appear, with the most recent taking place in February of 2015. Unfortunately, it isn’t a simple phase that will disappear with time. It also isn’t something that only happens to professional athletes.
Senior baseball player at Keene State College Keith Simpson said he was a multi-sport athlete growing up and, although he’s played hockey, baseball and golf, he focuses primarily on baseball. Simpson said he truly misses the feeling of playing hockey.
“I definitely do miss hockey. There’s nothing like being on the ice and just being able to forget about everything,” Simpson said.
While Simpson said he has already addressed the problem once with hockey, he is still worried about his departure from baseball, his favorite sport, but has tried not to think about it too much and enjoy his senior year. “At twenty or twenty-one years old, it’s hard to know exactly what you want to do,” Simpson said. “But I am definitely scared.”
It doesn’t matter if it has happened yet, every athlete reaches a time where they are no longer able to compete in their sport. From professional athletes to amatuer competitors, no matter what sport it is, it’s a difficult time for the person going through it.
Simpson said that that the struggle to identify after sports is something that he knows is there, but tries his best not to talk or think about. He said, “You have to go to the real world at some point, and I guess in a year it’ll be my time. But right now I’m just trying to live in the present.”
Crae can be contacted at cmesser@kscequinox.com