Career development after professional football

Professional football places extraordinary demands on players. Very few, if any other, occupations are as physically and psycho-logically consuming. The unique demands of professional football have been found to be especially problematic to players and their families as their careers transition from football. This article’s pri-mary purpose is to elucidate a number of career development issues many former players encounter, thus enabling the counselor to better facilitate the career transitions of these and other professional ath-letes. The Transition from Football A 1986 survey (Pitts, Popovich, & Bober) commissioned by the Na-tional Football League Players Association (NFLPA) found that the average length of a professional football player’s career in the Na-tional Football League (NFL) was only 3.2 years. Because of the ex-tended playing season, the prevalence of astroturf, and the increasin