‘Those who have always known there is more to life than sport will w find life after sport easier’
ANDY MURRAY is in constant physical pain from a chronic hip condition, but it was his mental agony that touched all of us who watched as the emotion of announcing his impending retirement overwhelmed him this week.
Those who will never know the slings and arrows of elite sporting fortune can only guess what it feels like to give up the one thing that defines you. I have a little vicarious experience of the huge psychological challenge of transitioning to life after sport. For several years I produced a series called What Sport Stars Do Next, presented by an icon who had not long made the switch herself – Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson.
Tanni’s profile gave us access to some of the biggest names who had graced the world’s pitches, courts and tracks – including Dame Kelly Holmes, Sean Fitzpatrick, Sir Steve Redgrave and Sir Matthew Pinsent.
We’d turn up on the doorstep of an Olympian or former rugby or football star and ask them to relive how they made the decision to call it a day.
Of course, in many cases it was a choice made for them by their bodies rather than their minds.
Those who had the benefit of choosing their moment to quit the stage – planning their valedictory race or match and preparing for their sporting afterlife – found it difficult enough. But those whose careers were cut short by injury found it understandably devastating.
Yet they’ve had fame, fortune, adulation... why can’t they just go off and enjoy the fruits of their success? we merer mortals might wonder.
But it’s not quite as simple as that. At a time when most people are peaking in their careers, sports stars must build a new role and identity from scratch – an even bigger challenge in this era of professional sport when every minute of their lives will have been mapped out since their teens by coaches according to the timetable of competition. Suddenly the real world looms with all its lack of structure, schedule and goal-setting.
After sportspeople have hung up spikes, boots or racquets, there’s only so much room on the pundits’ sofa, motivational speaking circuit or Strictly dance floor. And ultimately they’re giving up what they love to do – not always something retirees in more conventional workplaces can say.
So no wonder some sports stars struggling to say farewell have opted for the Boomerang Bye Bye. Basketball colossus Michael Jordan took a Sinatra-esque approach to retirement with three comebacks before the king of hang time final stopped hanging around in 2003.
When Sir Steve Redgrave picked up his oars in Sydney, he must have been scanning the banks for marks- men. Thankfully no-one took his Atlanta “shoot me if I go near a boat again” plea seriously and he went on to win his fifth consecutive Olympic gold in 2000 and retire afterwards.
When we interviewed him for What Sport Stars Do Next he described the physical adjustment of sporting retirement, as well as the psychological transition. After a lifetime of endurance sport Redgrave explained it took him two years to “detrain” his body.
Former England hooker Brian Moore had tears in his eyes when he described to us how he fought against letting rugby go and kept turning out for “one more game”.
But we did speak to some sporting greats who found it easier to move forward without looking back. In 2008 a newly retired Tim Henman was the picture of serenity.
Unlike Murray, however, although injuries played their part, he could plan his perfect farewell, as he explained at the time: “When you start out in a sports career you know what you want your journey to be and what you want to achieve.
“In tennis we’re obviously focused on our ranking system, which now goes down to the top 1,500 players in the world. So when you get your first ranking point you’re on the ladder. Once you’re 1,500th in the world you want to be 1,000th in the world and then 500, 200, 100 and you keep working your way up.
“But when you get to the other end of the spectrum and say ‘I actually want to stop’ it’s really tricky to know how to do that. There’s no book written about it or anyone who can give
you that much advice on it. You have to feel and work out what is best for you.
“I reflected on that – I thought about the scenario of playing my last match at Wimbledon, playing for Great Britain in the Davis Cup. So winning the tie was really special. I look back on that whole weekend and there was no doubt that there was a lot of emotion for me and my family. But I look back on it with such fond memories because I think it was a great way for me to go out.
“After that final match, I woke up the following Monday morning, the girls had gone off to school and I took our two black Labradors out and thought, ‘right, I’m going to have a long walk through the countryside’.
“After 10 minutes, I thought, ‘well, what now?’ There was an amazing sense of relief that an enormous amount of pressure had been lifted. I found it very bizarre because throughout my career I’d never felt pressure or expectation. There was pressure from within, but I hadn’t felt external pressure. But the day after I retired I felt a huge weight had been lifted.”
Wales and British Lion rugby legend Scott Gibbs was another sportsman we spoke to who found the adjustment straightforward. The pocket battleship who demolished Oz Du Randt and danced through the English defence on that wondrous day at Wembley was always something of an enigma.
While he gave his heart and soul for 80 minutes on the field, he says he could completely switch off the moment he switched on the ignition of his car after the game.
After retiring from rugby, he eschewed the traditional route of the former international – media work and the nostalgic dinner circuit – by carving a career in the property business, exploring his love of American music and establishing a new life in South Africa.
He may still be the Wembley leg- end to us, but Gibbs refused to be frozen in time: “Somewhere deep inside I wanted more from my life, because I didn’t want to just be remembered as a rugby player.”
Perhaps that’s the key. Those who have always known there is more to life than sport will find life after sport easier. Those who still have much to offer beyond their sporting talent will also thrive.
Tanni herself is the perfect example – her placing on the list of 20thcentury sports icons in the current BBC project alongside Pele, Muhammad Ali and Billie Jean King is testament to this. Those names have been chosen because they changed the world around them as well as the sport they dominated.
And though he may not bear to look ahead right now there is every indication that Sir Andy Murray will continue to make waves beyond the tennis court, not least in his brilliant advocacy for women’s sport – as Billie Jean King summed up so beautifully yesterday in her message to Britain’s greatest tennis player: “You are a champion on and off the court.
“So sorry you cannot retire on your own terms but remember to look to the future. Your greatest impact on the world may be yet to come. Your voice for equality will inspire future generations.”