By Abigail Funk

Abigail Funk is an Assistant Editor at Athletic Management magazine. She can be reached at: afunk@MomentumMedia.com.

You've likely seen the NCAA public service announcements that show an athlete in action, then cut away to the same athlete wearing a business suit, lab coat, or hospital scrubs as he or she says, "There are over 380,000 student-athletes, and most of us go pro in something other than sports." The athlete is proud and confident and gives you the sense that making the transition from college to the working world is an exciting next step in life.

For many student-athletes, however, such is not their reality. Leaving behind their teammates, the structure of sport, and the athletic department support system is a scary and difficult proposition. The confidence portrayed by the student-athletes in the NCAA commercial is not their own.

Alison Ruff, Assistant Director of the Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes at North Carolina State University, vividly remembers this time in her life. "A huge part of my transition from college to the real world had to do with losing my identity," she says. "I was always Alison the volleyball player. Suddenly, I had to redefine who I was. Athletes have a certain set of skills they've been defined by, and they lose that when they graduate. Their role in life is suddenly less certain."

In response, more schools are examining how to help student-athletes with their passage to life after sports. Instead of leaving them to figure it out on their own, athletic departments are creating workshops, seminars, athlete alumni networks, and even classes for credit aimed at giving athletes the tools they need to be successful, including landing that first job.

"It's a very competitive job market out there, especially right now," says Augie Maurelli, Assistant Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Leadership and Performance at Georgetown University. "Administrators are realizing that with everything we ask our student-athletes to do, we owe them some support with their post-graduation endeavors."

PERFECT STORM
Why is it that athletes have a tougher time transitioning to the "real world" than their non-athlete peers? For many, two factors come into play. There is the practical side: finding a career path and a job. And there is also the psychological side: shedding one's identity as an athlete.

On securing that first job, Russ Hafferkamp, Founder and Managing Director of Career Athletes, a career development service for college athletic departments, says there is a perfect storm brewing. "One problem is that we have increasing competition in job markets," he says. "The other problem is the development of a sports arms race in which we're pushing year-round, full-time participation--even at the lowest levels. And when those two things intersect, college athletes end up inadequately prepared to move on and compete in the next segment of their lives.

"It's directly traceable to the fact that athletes had to forgo basic life skills development because they didn't have time to participate in endeavors outside of sports," Hafferkamp continues. "With all their time spent on their sport, it's no wonder student-athletes lag behind the general student body in formulating their career goals and plans."

For some athletes, the psychological transition can be just as difficult. To start, there is a huge change in their daily routine, which can be disconcerting. While in school, days are typically structured with lifting sessions, classes, and afternoon practices, leaving just enough time for meals, homework, and a good night's sleep.

"Athletes have always had lots of structure, especially by the time they're in college," Ruff says. "The sudden lack of routine and the support group pushing that structure isn't necessarily there in the real world."

At the same time athletes are adjusting to setting their own schedule, they're figuring out how to judge their own performance. "There is no scoreboard in real life," Ruff says. "In athletics, we're constantly keeping score, and coaches are always evaluating us. In the real world, it's pretty different. We may get feedback, but not nearly as much and not in the immediate way we got in athletic competition."

James Harris III, Assistant Athletic Director of Student-Athlete Development and Nutrition at the University of Oregon, adds that athletes also miss being on a team. "There is no more team atmosphere, no more real camaraderie," he says. "It's just you looking out for yourself and that can be a scary thing."

An important point to remember, Hafferkamp says, is that these challenges aren't limited to Division I athletes. "Division III people may say, 'Our athletes really don't have that problem because they don't put as much time into their sport,'" he says. "But they still play the athlete role, and they still put most of their waking energy into their sport. So they experience a sense of loss, too."

REALITY CHECK
The first step to helping your student-athletes as they prepare to leave sports behind is making sure they understand what lies ahead. It's likely some of them have dreams of landing professional sports contracts, but the reality is that most athletes' chances of reaching the next level are small. Even for those who make it, most careers will be short-lived.

Both Ruff and Harris are careful not to crush anyone's dreams while urging student-athletes to be realistic. "We really encourage them to have a plan B," Ruff says. "If a pro career doesn't work out, what are they going to do? Or when their pro career is over, what are they going to do? The average professional football career only lasts three years, and there has to be something else beyond that. We give them those real statistics."

"If you come to the University of Oregon, we want you to go as far as you can in sports," Harris adds. "We don't discourage playing professionally by any means. But even if you do go pro and have a 10-year career, you're done at 31, and I hope your life's not over at 31. So we don't talk in terms of having to choose a sports career or a typical career--we talk about doing both."

Hafferkamp says another part of the reality check is dispelling common myths, including that a student's participation in athletics will automatically land them a job. "Athletic experience isn't the leverage tool it once was," he says. "An athlete can't simply get the name of an influential booster and expect to get a job. That athlete is competing with resumes from around the world, thanks to Internet search engines and job boards.

"Therefore, teaching self responsibility for career development clearly needs to become a higher priority," he continues. "We're seeing some interesting workplace trends today in that everyone is an entrepreneur--their own brand, a sole corporation. The rules of employment have been altered dramatically and you now really have to sell yourself in order to get a job. Athletes need to understand that."

While explaining today's realities certainly helps, getting the light bulb to switch on in a student-athlete's head will likely take more than talking. And that's where programming comes in. Most NCAA Division I and II schools have CHAMPS/Life Skills programs that focus on succeeding at college, but some are adding classes that cover how to develop an overall life plan and skills needed post-college.

At Oregon, it's mandatory for freshman scholarship athletes to take a class called "Issues of Intercollegiate Athletics," where the seed is planted early. "The very first class session involves a panel of senior athletes who have done it the right way," Harris says. "They give the freshmen insight into what they're about to face, and advice on time management, study skills, and character.

"We also talk a lot about the perception of a student-athlete," Harris continues. "You can be the person in the back of the classroom with your hood up and your earphones in or you can be the kid in the front who no one knows is a student-athlete."

Two other topics include credit management and declaring a major. Athletes are also educated on resumes and everyone develops one by the end of the semester. In the last class, students present their "plan for life."

At North Carolina State, Ruff teaches a class titled "Transitions for the College Graduate," which is open to any senior, and student-athletes are strongly encouraged to enroll. It focuses on different aspects of transitioning to the real world, including money management, taking advantage of emerging careers, civic engagement, and continuing education opportunities.

Students leave the class with an updated resume, refined interviewing skills, at least one connection to a professional network, and an understanding of how employers choose job candidates in an application process. They are also required to obtain a copy of their credit report, and the class ends with hypothetical "real life" budget presentations from each student.

At the University of Pittsburgh, an evening financial education series has proven successful. Broken down into three 90-minute sessions, student-athletes learn how to create a personal budget, use credit cards, move off campus and pay bills, understand salaries, prepare for graduate school, and more. Donna Sanft, Executive Associate Athletic Director at Pitt, says a role-playing game has been a big hit among the student-athletes.

"In a group of about 15 athletes, each person is given an envelope with hypothetical information like the city they live in and the salary they make, along with three options for rent, car payment, and cell phone bill. The athletes discuss a personal budget and they start to come to grips with questions like, 'Do I want to live in a really nice place and not have a car, or would I rather have three roommates and get my rent down so that I can have cable and Internet and a big cell phone bill?' They have some pretty good discussions about what they think is important and why."

WORLD OF WORK
Along with developing an initial life plan and a host of skills for being on their own, student-athletes need an introduction to the working world. Many struggle to figure out what they want to do in life because their only experiences so far have related to their sport.

"I think everybody finds their passion eventually," Sanft says. "But if you haven't yet, that can be a scary thing. The classroom education on the real world is important, but I'm very big on getting athletes out in the workplace, which can provide them with at least some idea about what they want to do."

Sanft encourages Panther student-athletes to take advantage of the school's Outside the Classroom Curriculum as a first step. A Web page lists workplace-related tasks any student can complete, such as attending a job fair, completing an internship, updating their resume, or participating in an on-campus club. After a student completes an activity, they record it and an online transcript is maintained for them. Then, when the student is a junior or senior and ready to put a resume together, all of these experiences are in one easy-to-find place.

North Carolina State's sophomore student-athletes have the opportunity to enroll in a class called "Introduction to the World of Labor," where each student is paired with a local business, such as a recreation center or YMCA. Athletes spend eight hours a week getting on-the-job experience, and a seminar course meets on the off-days to cover topics including the power of work, employers' expectations, and potential conflicts in a workplace.

"This class is for student-athletes specifically because most of them haven't had jobs before," Ruff says. "They all have something besides sports to be passionate about, it's just that they've not tapped into it nearly as much as other students. This class allows them to do that."

It may seem like asking a lot from student-athletes with little free time to get some workplace experience under their belts. But offering credit for completing an internship, and asking employers to take on student-athlete interns during the off-season will make the idea more appealing.

Even an internship that has nothing to do with a student-athlete's eventual career choice can be valuable. "Time spent in the workplace before graduation is never wasted time, even if the athlete didn't view it as helpful for their resume," Hafferkamp says. "The worst case scenario is that they'll determine what they want to do career-wise by process of elimination instead of by throwing darts at a board after graduation."

ALUMNI ON BOARD
Another important step is to get student-athletes networking with people in their career interests, whether it's business, teaching, or technology. And more and more schools are turning to their student-athlete alumni for help.

At Yale University, the Career Alumni Network has been up and running since October and already features almost 700 alumni who have signed up to serve as mentors to current student-athletes. It is being developed by Don Scharf, Special Assistant to the Athletic Director at Yale, who owned a head hunting firm in New York City for 30 years and is an alum himself, with assistance from Alison Cole, Assistant Athletic Director for Development and Outreach, and Bryant Blount, Development and Outreach Assistant.

They started the project by sending out an e-mail inviting athlete alumni to join the network. "Through all the generations and different sports, what current and former athletes have in common is the student-athlete experience, so we try to tap into that through our invitational e-mails," Blount says. "Our alumni have always been very willing to give financially, but this is more about creating a connection through that shared experience. Our alumni really took to the idea of helping someone going through exactly the same things they did."

Interested alumni are directed to a Web page on the athletic department site where they fill out basic personal information, including what sports they played at Yale, where they work now, their position, and how they envision helping. This can include offering advice over the phone, meeting for lunch to discuss career options, inviting a student-athlete to shadow them for a day, or even providing an internship or job opportunity. Within a week of the page's launch, 500 athlete alumni had signed up to serve as mentors.

To spread the word to Yale's current student-athletes, information was posted on the athletics Web site in late October and head coaches received lists of alumni mentors specific to their sport to distribute to their athletes. While the Development and Outreach Office staffers want to see all of Yale's graduating student-athletes make meaningful connections with alumni, Blount stresses that athletes have to take the initiative.

"We help student-athletes make a connection, but then they need to set up their own phone interviews, lunch meetings, and internships, and be willing to explore these opportunities by themselves," he says. "Some athletes are intimidated by the thought of reaching out to someone they don't know, so we make sure they understand that these mentors have all said they're willing to help and the worst thing that can happen is they say they don't have time. And then you just move on to one of the other hundreds of mentors who do."

Oregon also launched a career mentoring program involving its alumni this school year and though in its infancy stages, Harris already has more alumni signed up than he needs. "There has not been one person we've approached who didn't jump in wholeheartedly," he says. "I think a lot of that has to do with not asking our donors to open up their wallets or pocketbooks again. They have told us it's refreshing to have us ask for their time and expertise instead. For most alumni, this kind of donation just makes them feel good."

Harris and his staff help connect athletes with mentors by learning about the athlete first. "We meet with every single one of our student-athletes to find out who they are, what their passions are, and what they're thinking about majoring in," he says. "Then, every day, my staff and I talk about possibilities. For example, we might focus on an alumni who's said he is willing to help us as a mentor and his field is business. We'll ask ourselves, 'How many business student-athletes do we have with resumes ready who want to make a connection?'

"Last week, for example, six junior and senior athletes sat down with one of our top donors," Harris continues. "He gave them information on his field and what he looks for in resumes. He also said he was willing to interview them, or host them for a day so they could see the ins and outs of the business world. Nobody is giving anyone a job, but our athletes are learning about the real world from real people who once were athletes, too."

ATHLETE BUY-IN
From engaging programs to networking options, offering an array of choices is great, but getting your student-athletes to take advantage of them can prove difficult. What are some tips for drawing your student-athletes in?

Maurelli has found it invaluable to work with the school's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee's Subcommittee for Career Skills to help plan curriculum for the Leadership Academy--a non-credit program offered to student-athletes. "The athletes are involved in every component of the planning and execution of our programs," he says. "It's very much pulled together by the athletes rather than us spoon-feeding them. As a result, buy-in is created because they're not going to propose things they don't think are worthwhile."

Some of the ideas the subcommittee members have come up with include panel discussions, mock interviews with alumni, and a trip to Wall Street. In October, for example, the Leadership Academy organized a panel featuring the Dean of Admissions at Georgetown's law school, Georgetown's Director of Career Management, the recruitment director at Teach for America, and a former baseball student-athlete who now works for an international financial services group.

Georgetown also offers an extra incentive to get student-athletes involved. Each year, the Hoyas team that tallies the most participation in non-athletic endeavors receives an athletic department award. "If your team shows up for another team's game, it gets points," Maurelli says. "If that month's community outreach task is a food drive and your teammates attend, you get points. And the same goes for our Leadership Academy panels and workshops. We try to put a competitive component in everything we do, and that helps drive a lot of participation."

Maurelli says coaches play an important role as well. "Our coaches are very involved in the whole process," he says. "Our athletic department senior staff members and coaches meet three times a semester just so that our coaches are abreast of everything we're doing, including what's happening in the Leadership Academy. It's not uncommon for our coaches to ask how they can help get involved."

Ruff has gotten coaches on board at N.C. State, too. "Many of our coaches really encourage their athletes to think about what they want to do," she says. "They'll support a student who wants to change their major or has to take a class at a time that conflicts with practice."

Another way to get coaches to participate is showing them how they can benefit. "I've explained to our coaches that the alumni network is a recruiting tool," Scharf says. "If you sit down and tell the parent of a recruit about our alumni career program and how that's going to help their kid get a job after they graduate or an internship for the summer after their sophomore year, they listen."

"It's powerful to be able to say to your recruits, 'This is what our alumni are doing now and they're willing to help you. If you come here, it's not just a four-year athletic decision, but a 40-year career development decision,'" Blount adds.

Finally, it's important to remember that workshops and classes need to be worthwhile for your extremely busy athletes. "It sounds simple, but we try to make every program excellent," Sanft says. "We would rather offer five exceptional programs than 10 mediocre ones. Sometimes I think our athletes feel like they're on warp speed, so we want to provide the kind of programming that really stops them for an hour. This is about their life--we want them to slow down and think about what's ahead."

Sidebar: A WEIGHTY MATTER
You've probably heard of the "freshman 15," but how about the "post-graduation pudge?" Without daily practices and mandatory lifting sessions, former student-athletes working 9-to-5 jobs may find themselves packing on a few unwanted pounds. More importantly, they may be falling into unhealthy lifestyles that are hard to alter after a couple of years. At the University of Oregon, administrators try to educate athletes on the physical transition before they leave campus.

"The key is for athletes to not give up their workouts, but to change them," says James Harris III, Assistant Athletic Director of Student-Athlete Development and Nutrition at Oregon. "So instead of a two-hour practice every day, we give them advice on how to do a great 30 minute workout. And instead of eating tons of everything, a football player should eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water, and reduce his sugar intake."

Harris also gets some help from Oregon's strength coaches. "For example, with our soccer team, our strength coach starts transitioning the seniors into running 5K races and marathons," he says. "We try to give them ideas on how to stay competitive and find a reason to continue training."

The football strength coach provides workouts for graduating seniors and then motivates them with a challenge. "He has weightlifting competitions for alumni to compete in," Harris says. "That gives the guys some motivation to continue training and the opportunity to come back and compete."

As a final step, Harris encourages the athletes to call when they need advice. "Some of our athletes, especially football players, get a pretty rude awakening in terms of their physical health once they leave here," he says. "If in two years, they find that they're bigger than they want to be, we tell them to turn to us for help and use us as a resource."

Sidebar: ON THE WEB

For more about Georgetown University's Leadership Academy, go to: www.guhoyas.cstv.com/ot/leadership_index.html.

Information about the North Carolina State University Academic Support Program for Student-Athletes is at: www.ncsu.edu/aspsa.

To visit the University of Oregon Office of Student-Athlete Development online, go to: www.goducks.com and click on "Student-Athlete Development" under the "Athletics" pulldown menu.

For more information on the University of Pittsburgh Panther Game Plan program, visit: www.pittsburghpanthers.com/ot/panther-game-plan.html.

The Yale University's Student-Athlete Career Services Web site can be found at: yalebulldogs.com/information/alumni/career_services.

To visit the Career Athletes Web site, go to: www.careerathletes.com.