Retirement can be a scary place for a former sportsman or woman, and that’s why players need to do the prep, both physical and mentally, to ensure they prosper beyond their playing days.
We’ve all envied them.
Professional sportsmen and women who play the game we love AND get paid to do it.
So, why would we pity them in retirement?
Well, the fact remains that many of South Africa’s sports stars are not equipped – whether it’s financially, mentally, or just skills-wise – to make a successful transition into retirement and ensure the next phase of their lives is as successful as the one that saw them reach the pinnacle of their sport on the field of play.
Examples
South African football, for example, is littered with stories of former players falling on hard times once their playing days are done, with the likes of Phil Masinga, Sizwe Motaung, Benedict Vilakazi, and Mbulelo Mabizela among the big names to struggle, post-playing, due to poor planning, bad decisions, or the leading of overly-lavish lifestyles whilst they were still employed as footballers.
Sharks programme
It was with this in mind that the Sharks rugby franchise seemed quite forward-thinking when it announced the launch of its comprehensive ‘Players First Programme’ in November last year, with the Sharks pledging their commitment to managing their players through their careers and helping them “navigate uncharted waters once their rugby careers are complete”.
The programme covers six areas:
The Sharks Entrepreneurship Academy – co-ordinating franchise/business investment opportunities
Endowment and Investing – assisting players with their personal investments
Education Development – facilitating the admin process and providing tutor services to ensure successful completion of studies
The Life Coaching and Mentoring Programme – developing a holistic or “fit for plan” career and life plan by identifying a mentor
Post-Rugby Career Development – formal job placement programme, including career counselling
Friends of Sharks Rugby – foundations to be formed in different territories to support former players in need of financial assistance
“A global brand not only develops and builds its key assets, but strives to protect them beyond their professional careers,” said Sharks CEO Eduard Coetzee at the time. “We recognise that a player’s rugby journey must include lessons and opportunities both on and off the field, and our aim is to transform rugby players into exceptional human beings who are prepared for the next phase of their lives, post a successful rugby career.”
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But, it’s not just in the nuts and bolts of forward-planning, saving, investing and education that players need to be prepared for in retirement, according to former Proteas cricketer JP Duminy.
Mental aspect
“When the time came, it was this massive brick that hit me,” he says. “This understanding of, ‘hey, man, what now?’ I don’t mean that in a sense of what I needed to do. I think it was more a question of, ‘where do I find deeper meaning in what I do, going forward now?’ That transition was quite a difficult one, mentally, to accept.”
Duminy certainly comes across as a deeper thinker than your average professional sportsman, with respect to those who have worn the green and gold or turned out for a professional sports team. Whether that has always been the case, I’m not privy to, but perhaps Duminy’s introspection is a by-product of the journey he’s had to take – a journey all our sports stars, eventually, have to take.
“It comes down to identity,” he says. “You can get caught up in the idea of JP Duminy the cricketer, and not JP Duminy the human being, and I think that’s where we can get lost in the transition into retirement. People are putting you on pedestals wherever you are and looking at you in a certain way, and all of a sudden, that pedestal gets taken out from under you, so who are you now? And if you can’t answer that question, that’s where you’re going to struggle. As much as I prepared for that, it was still a mental battle and it was important to have good people around me to navigate my way through that.”
Responsibility
Not everyone has that, though, and this is where the responsibility of the sports organisations, clubs, franchises etc comes into question.
Just how interested are they in how successful their employee is POST-playing, when their focus, as a revenue and results-driven organisation, is getting the most out of them whilst they are still on the field of play?
The Sharks, seemingly, take this responsibility seriously, but can the same be said for all professional outfits?
SACA
In South African cricket’s case, Duminy points to the good work done by the South African Cricketers’ Association, which has Personal Development Managers on its books and a ‘SACA Player Plus’ programme that is facilitated by PDMs in each province. Their brief is to draft and put into action the player’s individual Personal Development Plan, as well as “support players in their process of becoming all-rounders in their lives”.
SACA PDM’s engage with players who have lost their contracts or are retired, in order to assist them in putting together a personalised transition support plan, based on their individual needs and circumstances. Players have full access to the Player Plus programme for 12 months after the loss of a contract.
Duminy, though, believes the players themselves also need to take responsibility in driving a different culture and mindset within sports organisations.
“I think where we come up short as players is that we don’t want to speak about it,” he says. “If we’re not going to speak about it, then the powers-that-be won’t necessarily know how to deal with it. That is, the transitional development. Let’s look after our people, because they do make a full circle and come back into that cricketing system.”
That, certainly, would be taking a more ‘holistic’ approach and a step towards transforming sportsmen and women “into exceptional human beings”, as Coetzee suggests, with a smooth transition into retirement and a successful second act for the player, once that final whistle blows.
Dylan Rogers
