As covid-19 put the world on hold so to speak it’s been hard not having sports. When you’re Outta Da Game you tend to want to watch sports because you really didn’t have time to watch your sport because you’re playing it too. As football players we missed a lot of games because of practice or workouts or games we have ourselves. So as of right now , you’re retired or not playing anymore , you have time to actually watch your sport along with other sport games you’ve missed while being a college athlete. But now all sports are cancelled. You can only watch re-runs of classic sports games, some before you were even born. We can watch film on ourselves or watch old games in which we participated in. Since you’re done playing, you want to watch and evaluate but right now we can’t. Soon we’ll be back to normal but as of right now, stay safe and watch film, re-runs, or game footage of yourself to keep the sanity.

When you play your sport you naturally go on a diet or just simply watch what you eat. When it’s time to get back in shape or when you’re getting ready for your upcoming season you naturally start eating better because you know certain foods will only slow you down or harm you more than it helps you.

But what about when you’re done playing? Some athletes end up eating healthy because that’s all they know how to do. Yes you have your “cheat days” but more times than not they’re watching what they put in their bodies at all times. Personally, I don’t drink soft drinks anymore. I’ve come to find them harmful for my body. I’m always drinking water, or some type of Powerade , Gatorade or anything with electrolytes in it. One of the easiest things to do while you’re not playing is to stay hydrated. We naturally watch our diets, we kind of have to. You can set up a diet plan and watch what you eat that way. A lot of the times as you get older we tend to get away from fried foods, and eventually leading to getting away from meat as a whole. But if you do that you have to find your means of protein else where for your body. Protein is in eggs, fish amongst other foods but those are the easiest to obtain the protein your body desires.

When you retire or “hang your cleats up” as we football players say you tend to not know what to do. A sport that you’ve been playing since you were 5 or 6 years old becomes apart of your life. I hung my cleats up at 22, and I played football alone since I was 5 so naturally you tend to ask the question “what now”. Some athletes turn to coaching to stay close to the game they love, some turn they back on it and never look back. Some retired NFL players go on to be analyst for the sport or commentators for different sport companies. Not just football but across all sports, basketball and football in particular has a lot of former players as coaches, analyst commentators and even owners or presidents of current NBA and NFL teams. When you’re out of the field of play, it’s doesn’t necessarily mean you’re Outta Da Game.

To stay in shape most athletes continue working out after their career is over , even if it’s not as rigorous as the college training. We continue to run, lift weights and train. We do this to merely stay in shape. Our bodies are used to working out and we feel weird not working out once we’ve been away from it for so long. Working out and staying in shape has become part of our lively hood, we can’t just stop working out and do nothing because our mind and bodies won’t let us. It’s weird , I know. We can take a month off and then look in the mirror and say “no this isn’t me, I have to get back in the gym.” A lot of athletes workout on their own but some go to CrossFit training because they’re used to someone making their workouts for them and coaching them through it. Nothing is wrong with that, as athletes we are trained so having workouts like this is easier to do.

Injuries can take a major toll on you . Not just the injury itself but also a toll on your mind. It can mess with your mental tragically. It can have you thinking you’ll never play your sport again, and in some cases that’s exactly what happens. Some athletes have career ending injuries, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Think about it, you’ve been playing this sport your whole life and it’s cut short because of an injury that happened to you that you have no control over and didn’t see happening to you. It hurts.

The best way to cope with your injuries is to to talk to God. The more you talk about it the easier it’ll be. You have to attack your rehab sessions with aggressiveness to get back to your craft. You have to be willing to put in the hard work to come back because after your injury you won’t be the same player so you have to go 10 times harder than you did before. You have to work from home also, do not only work on your rehab at rehab, go home and get ahead. You may not be able to do everything from home but you will be able to do somethings.

Injuries are natural of any sport. If you played sports for long as I have you will obtain a few injuries. You will have a few knicks and bruises along the way. Whether the injury is major or if the injury is minor you’ve had at least 1 injury because you literally put your body on the line on every play and every down. You may have to have surgery, or you may just have to ice it but an injury in the game of football and sports period is inevitable, you can’t avoid it. I’ve had shoulder, finger, ankle, and back injuries throughout my career and I’ve had to sit multiple games and missed a whole season because of a broken finger that required surgery to fix.

Most recently I had a torn labrum in my shoulder that required surgery. This particular injury will take the longest to recover from. At least 9 months of rehabilitation to come back at 100%.

What can you do outside of the game? The first thing many former athletes do is rest. They let their bodies catch up and rest up so they can feel like themselves again. After all the the hard work they put in over the years, your body doesn’t truly get a break. So once your career is over, the first thing to naturally do is take some time off and get away from the grind of practice and constant workouts. The “break” doesn’t last as long as you would think though. A former athlete may take 2 weeks up to a month off of workouts before their body starts to feel weird and want to get back to it. Our bodies become used to doing things around the same time every year. Every spring a football players body starts to feel like playing football again because the body knows it’s March and it’s time to put your helmet back on and go to practice.

“If something isn’t hurting then you’re not playing the game right”.

That quote is known by everyone who played football in life. At some point during the season you’ll have at least one thing that’s been nagging you lately but you keep playing. You have one goal on game day and that is to win the game. So as long as you can go you’ll go. No matter how you have to do it. If you have to be in the training room at 6:00am because you go to class at 7:30 then you’ll be there for 6 getting treatment on what’s bothering you. The will to win is what drives us as athletes, you might even know someone who was always in the training room all the time.