Part 1
Succeeding as a Student-Athlete
Secret 1
Create and Follow Your Student-Athlete Plan
THE SECRET IN A FEW WORDS
There is an old saying that failing to plan is planning to fail. Sure, it’s a simple twist on a few words, but the second part of the saying is where the big outcome rests. No plan means you fail. For many that word “plan” is probably mysterious or simply a hassle. Most of us remember in elementary school having to produce an outline that used roman numerals, capital letters, and arabic numerals. Many of us thought it was stupid to be forced to outline a report on birds or the state of Tennessee. Why couldn’t we just start writing the report? The reason was that “the plan” (i.e., the outline) would make writing the story so much easier. For student-athletes, the creation of a plan, simple or otherwise, is a massive determinant in achieving post–athletic career success.
CREATE AND FOLLOW YOUR STUDENT-ATHLETE PLAN
When we asked Oliver Luck, Executive Vice President of the NCAA, about career planning for a student-athlete, he succinctly said, “The backup plan is going pro in your sport.” Yes, a leader of the NCAA who played in the NFL is suggesting that a career in pro sports is Plan B. Plan A is your life path based on your academic choices.
Steve Cobb, Director of the Arizona Fall League, said, “It is important to have a plan as an athlete, a roadmap. If you don’t have a plan, you aren’t going to get to where you want to be. And you can have the best game plan of anyone, but if you don’t have the right people supporting you or around you, your plan won’t be as effective.”
Wise words from these two executives are ones to take to heart, and an indication that you should probably start your plan now.
Most young adults arriving on a college campus as recruited student-athletes (or walk-ons) have both specific and vague goals. And the source of these goals has likely come from life experiences, role models, parents, or peers. Commonly held objectives for freshmen student-athletes entering college include the following:
List No. 1
1. Impress the coaching staff and earn “playing time.”
2. Beat out others on the team and emerge as a “starter.”
3. Take advantage of the university’s training facilities to help achieve Goals 1 and 2.
4. Make new friends and settle into college life.
5. Figure out how to balance athletics with academics and a social life and eventually graduate.
6. Make sure to take care of mental health and consistently make good decisions on sleep, food, socializing, and interpersonal relationships.
Unfortunately, for most student-athletes, there are several other desirable goals that never get stated or are formulated so vaguely that they don’t register until late in an athlete’s senior year. Those goals look a lot more like this:
List No. 2
1. Identify a professional work career that seems exciting and will sustain the lifestyle I want for the many years after I finish playing my sport.
2. Graduate in four or five years with a degree in a major that will enhance the procurement and enjoyment of my future professional career.
3. Graduate with honors or a GPA that will impress future employers or make admission to graduate, medical, or law school possible.
4. Take advantage of every single Athletic Department and University/College offering that makes me more accomplished and more functional for life after college.
5. Build an individual brand that resonates with teachers, administrators, the media, and future employers.
6. Join professional groups on campus or attend professional presentations that facilitate the development of a well-rounded individual and not “just” a “jock” or athlete.
7. Take advantage of the travel opportunities related to my sport and get to know the different cities and countries I might visit. Get out and explore.
. . .
ROB SMITH
(former student-athlete, Head Baseball Coach at Ohio University)
I didn’t have a plan, and I was very misguided early on in the process. I had some struggles, and I didn’t really get things going until after my first year in school. I learned how to start prioritizing things like my academics, because the baseball wasn’t hard to prioritize.
I was also the first person in my family to graduate from college, so academics wasn’t a highly emphasized thing in our house, and I got buried early on because of that.
The plan component is probably more important than the goal-setting component because you can’t reach your goals without a plan. It’s important to understand what your tasks are and what needs to be done to execute them. As Herm Edwards, former NFL star, would say, “a goal without a plan is just a wish.” The plan is far more important than the goal.
If all you are concerned with is the endgame with no real process, then more often than not, you will fail. If you’re like the 99 percent of us who walk on the planet who can’t just show up and play, or have great skills without training as much, you must think about the process.
. . .
You already know which of the two lists above you naturally gravitated toward. And, granted, as a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old landing on a college campus for the first time (carrying the weight of an athletic scholarship and the pride of parents, guardians, or an entire “village”), the reason you were recruited as a student-athlete was because of your athletic skill. So, logically, it makes sense to “stick to what got you here.”
But here’s what makes that natural inclination to simplify tricky. Media coverage of student-athletes around you will reveal many starters or prized recruits who believe they will go pro in their sport. Since they believe they will go to the NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, LPGA, PGA, WTA, or the Olympics, their goals rarely go beyond numbers 1–3 in list 1. So their goal-setting is simple. Get noticed, get media coverage, get drafted/selected. And the faster the better.
But here’s the biggest secret of all that we’ll keep repeating in this book: 99 percent of all collegiate student-athletes will never play professionally or represent their country in the Olympic Games.1 Yes, some will . . . and there is nothing wrong with keeping that particular dream alive . . . but if 100 percent believe they will play professionally and 99 percent will fail at that ambition, then a key secret for the 99 percent is to hedge your bet (even just a little) so you have a safety net for the day your ACL tears or the coaching staff starts taking playing time away from you. If trends hold, on average you have a good sixty-ish years to live after you stop playing a high-performance sport.
The idea of a safety net for college athletes is a well-supported idea based on previous research in the area.2
Said another way, college (in general) covers four years. That’s approximately 1,400 days, between the first day and graduation, and 200 weeks. If you are an elite athlete, you may train, practice, or compete in your sport during each of those 45 months. But how much will you put into preparation for week 201? That’s the week after you graduate and realize you aren’t going back to College Station (Texas), Collegeville (Minnesota), or State College (Pennsylvania) that next August.
This is where planning comes in. The building of the safety net. It is the effort you put into everything other than your sport. Sure, there are a lot of hours that will disappear. If you average eight hours of sleep for 1,400 days, you will lose 467 days (almost 16 months) sleeping. That’s right . . . 33 percent of your college career will be spent sleeping. Eating won’t take up