Retired Athletes

Professional athletes have a very different career structure than the rest of the working world.  The fact that athletes are highly paid but usually only for a short time brings up some issues that the common worker does not usually have to deal with.  At the top of the list is the punishing physical trauma that professional athletes are forced to deal with for the majority of their career.  Also, professional athletes are paid a considerable amount of money for a relatively short time which leads to financial problems after their short-lived career comes to an abrupt end.  Players become used to an expensive lifestyle that is supported by a high paying salary.  When their career comes to an end, some players have a hard time transitioning to a more normal budget.  Bankruptcy is all too common for players that can no longer afford to live the way they became used to when they received large sums of money when they were in their athletic prime.

  For a professional athlete, the transition period between their sports career and retired life can be hard to overcome.  Some athletes find it hard to move past the time when their whole life was dedicated to their respective sport and have trouble finding a new way to spend their time.  Adjusting to a “normal life” is difficult after spending, in some cases decades, focusing all of their attention to sporting events and sport related travel.   

A far worse consequence of having a professional sports career is the permanent personal injury that some athletes face, especially those in the NFL.  Football players commonly suffer head trauma, such as concussions, that pose a long term threat for mental health.  Dementia is one of the many consequences of this repeated physical injury that has been documented by retired football players.  There have been a number of suicide attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, that have been accredited to these head injuries, mainly concussions.