From our earliest years, sports can provide a sense of belonging and acceptance. The experience is built into the structure of sport. In team sports, we are accepted as a part of the group, uniforms identify us as such, and we are drawn together by competition on a regular basis. While the outward trappings of identification with a team may be different, competitors in individual sports also bring with them a sense of belonging, though more in the identification with the sport itself, and possibly through the elevated levels of competition. Elite runners, golfers, skaters or skiers are identified as such, and recognized for their status. In either case, the outcome is a built-in sense of community to which a competitor belongs. 

This natural sense of belonging creates a different type of internal conflict when it is time to step away. Some of us had that identification, that belonging, as far back as four or five years old. This encompasses some of the most formative times of our lives. We grew up identifying with that group or sport to meet our need for belonging and acceptance. This team or sport identification became a part of who we are in the purest sense. Even the simple act of attaching the prefix ‘Ex-” or “Former” to the descriptor is a challenge to our identity. (Read as “Ex-basketball player” or “Former Olympian”) It is almost as if we have been somehow cast out of a group from which we have extracted a positive need for much of our lives. 

It is only somewhat helpful to reassure us by telling us that we will find other groups to which we will belong. We will do just that, of course, but that does not relieve us of such a deeply ingrained element of our identity. If we’ve been a part of a team since our childhood, it had fulfilled a need for us for a long time. The ending of a chapter such as that is, in many ways, a loss. Not as much a personal loss, but more a loss of an integral source of belonging. 

The challenge then becomes to experience that loss, and to move beyond it in a healthy way. Too many former competitors either do not acknowledge it, or seek out other sources of acceptance in less productive ways. Our goal here is to open up the discussion to our community, and to share thoughts and experiences as to fulfilling ways to experience a sense of belonging in life after competition.  

Questions for Discussion: 

• What is the most challenging part of leaving behind the sense of belonging to a team or to a community of fellow competitors? What do, or will you miss the most? 
• What are some negative ways to fulfill that void? How can others avoid these pitfalls? 
• What are some positive sources of belonging in life after competition?