Later life success of former college student-athletes as a function of retirement from sport and participant characteristics

2013-07-02Existing literature focusing on collegiate student-athletes fails to connect early educational experiences and college experiences with sport retirement and later life outcomes. The existing body of work dealing with these issues covers academic success of student-athletes, difficulties with retirement from sport or making the transition from sports participation for athletes in general, and the college to work transition for students separately. College student-athletes are a unique and growing population so expanding the literature about the experiences and outcomes of this population is warranted. The purpose of this work was to better understand how participant characteristics impact the retirement from sport process as well as life outcomes. The sample consisted of N=6,636 former NCAA Division-I student athletes with data from high school, first year of college, and 10 years after their freshman year of college. Demographics and academic abilities were obtained from in high school and during the first year of college. Retrospective accounts of the college experience as well as current job and life satisfaction were measured approximately 10 years after freshman year when the participants were around an approximate age of 31 years. Sampling bias was assessed using logistic regression and path analysis was used for assessing the proposed hypotheses. Results indicated that likelihood of playing professionally and academic and athletic identity were predictive of sports retirement difficulties as well as life outcomes. Some of the relationship was mediated through sports retirement difficulties. The variance accounted for, however, was low. This implies that retirement difficulties can play a role in life outcomes however a more thorough investigation into the variables of interest (i.e. sports retirement, life satisfaction, and athletic/academic identity) is necessary to fully understand the impacts or lack thereof