This summer I had dinner with some U.S. Ski Team Development Team athletes. As 18-20 year olds, they were excited about pursuing the Olympic dream. But they also asked me few times: “what should I do about college.” I could feel the conflict in their voices. They were living the perpetual tension between living the life of an elite athlete and balancing what do with the rest of their life.
My new job as Vice President, Athlete Career and Education was created to help alleviate that tension, promote athlete success and eventually lead to success as an athlete and in their careers. Let’s look back a bit to address this perpetual tension.
Five years ago, in an initiative led by the USSA’s Executive Vice President, Athletics Luke Bodensteiner, the USSA began to grow its athlete career and education program. Luke chaired a USOC committee that recommended: “The USOC should lead by establishing a culture that values athlete career, education and life skills development as a performance enhancer, and that values successful athlete transition away from elite sport.”
The key premise is that if USSA takes care of the whole athlete and improves their confidence in their personal future, an elite athlete’s performance will improve and the athlete’s will have longer careers. Secondly, the USSA’s mission is to “provide strong leadership” and we want our athletes to initiate successful careers so that they can take the leaderships skills developed as national team athletes and play leadership roles in the next step of their careers. Ultimately these athletes will stay connected to the USSA and help the organization grow over the years.
The athlete career and education initiative has been part of an impressive run as USSA athletes won a record number of medals at Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014. Interestingly enough, very few of those successful athletes have retired. In fact, none of the 17 2014 Sochi medalists retired after the Olympics!
The USSA’s partnership with Westminster College is one of the great products of this initiative. Westminster is “the official partner of traditional university education” of the U.S. Ski Team, U.S. Snowboarding and U.S. Freesking. The partnership began in 2005 with a handful of athletes completing just over 50 credits. Just last year, over 30 athletes were enrolled at Westminster completing over 800 credits – with 23 of those students making the Sochi Team and five of them winning medals!
One of USSA’s four cornerstones of success is “education.” Both Westminster and the USSA are committed to innovation in learning and creating a community of exceptional learners.
I was fortunate enough to have lunch with two of these success stories. Jess Kelley just began as an associate editor of Ski Racing. The Westminster program allowed her to chip away at her college education during her ten years on the ski team. Then the partnership allowed her to reach graduation two years after she retired. “I would not have gotten that job without the Westminster program,” she said. The small classes and talented professors at Westminster taught her the academic skills to match her athletic drive and grit and lead to her next job. Grete Eliassen, a multiple free-skiing medalist in the X-Games and now director of marketing for Wickr told me “I would never have continued my college career without the help of Lauren Loberg and the athlete career and education program at USSA. She pushed me take classes and helped me through the process throughout my career.” Now Grete has a leadership position for a leading social media company and is involved in Ernst & Young’s Women’s Elite Athlete Business Network. Jess and Grete were leaders in skiing and are now leaders in business. Good stuff.
Back to the development team boys: elite athlete development requires tremendous effort. It is full-time job to become an Olympic champion. But part of that job is feeling confident in one’s life path. The stories of Jess and Grete show that we can build that confidence. I look forward to sharing more of what USSA is learning and doing in this field.