Disclaimer: Carter Hagenaeur is a student-athlete at Colorado College and a member of the men’s swimming team.
For student-athletes, the decision to pursue collegiate sports is the realization of a lifelong dream or a continuation of a passion for athletic competition. And yet, what happens when that dream transforms into a nightmare and the love for their sport fades? The reasons athletes quit in college are incredibly interpersonal, and there are a multitude of complex factors that lead them to make that decision.
From the swim team alone, around seven athletes have quit since the end of last year. That’s a relatively huge amount, considering the fact that most, if not all, loved their sport enough to pursue it in college. Many reasons for quitting include heightened pressure to perform, coaches, team culture, finding a new calling in college or just losing passion for the sport.
Even at a small, majority-NCAA Division III school where many came for the combination of academics and sports, sports can lead to stress and can control your life. As a student-athlete here at CC, my sport has especially challenged both my mental and physical health. The personal accounts of four former athletes here at CC help to shed light on why athletes quit, the pressures of college athletics and the context that led them to quit.
All former student-athletes requested anonymity to share their experiences without retaliation from former teammates or coaching staff.
One ex-athlete, who quit swimming this fall, specifically highlighted mental health and self-care, saying that when they asked for help from the athletic department, they were “met with certain disregard, which made everything worse.”
They said they had to decide “between self-care and the team and the sport,” which is very real, even at a DIII school. Pressure from yourself and external mental health struggles can derail one’s love for a sport and change their perspective on what they want out of their college experience.
Another ex-athlete, who quit swimming last summer, highlighted the time commitment to the sport, explaining that they strongly disagreed with the “8/8/8” rule.
One of the main things that is pushed on student-athletes at CC is that eight hours were meant for homework, eight more hours for sleep and the remaining eight hours of the day were intended for free time, where athletics should take top priority. The former athlete specifically highlighted the constraints of this schedule, concerned that “I’m not gonna have enough time to do the other things I want to do.” This athlete was especially unsure about competing in their sport at CC, since the time commitment is substantial, especially for an athlete who loses their passion for the sport.
A former spring sport athlete, who quit at the start of the season earlier this academic year, expressed the mental block they faced and the loss of the fun of their sport. They took a break over the summer, hoping to find the love of the sport, but came back feeling more anxious and with more expectations than before.
“Nothing will fix what’s going on. I need to be out,” the student said about quitting.
A former swimmer lost their love for competition and, like the previous athlete, quit at the beginning of the year.
“I was just so miserable the whole time, and usually I like competing and the traveling,” the swimmer said. “I didn’t even want to race, I just wanted to do other things.”
Losing that competitive spirit happens more often than you might think, whether you find love for other activities or fall out of love with racing and competing. They highlighted other factors of consistent injury, balancing school and athletics and the time of practices.
Although these highlighted different main reasons for quitting, there are many overlaps that are especially important. Every athlete said it was their choice to quit, but each had different reasons, mostly personal, with some external factors, such as coaching style or expected time commitments.
I also intend to show that they all remember when it felt like a real possibility to quit. Either after a subpar sporting event or after a change within the team, they all realized it was coming down to their choice to quit. The athletes didn’t quit because it got hard. It was because they had other priorities or needed to quit for their personal health. Every one of these athletes came here committed to their sport, but things happened that made them no longer want to do it.
A couple of interesting similarities came up as well. After quitting their sport, they all emphasized different things. The first athlete highlighted trying to find “what I really wanted outside of the sport with all the time I suddenly had” and feeling like they “had more energy, more clarity and [they] genuinely felt more free.”
The second athlete had trouble “managing [their] time because all of it was spent swimming.” They both agreed on needing more time outside of swimming, hoping to manage their time and find purpose in it.
The third and fourth athletes agreed that the most surprising aspect of quitting their sport was finding friends outside of the sport. The former cross-country runner was surprised by “how open people are here on campus” and by the inclusivity they found outside their varsity team, citing the clique aspects of varsity sports as something they thought would be more present in the social sphere.
The last athlete highlighted that they didn’t expect to find “friends outside of their sport after having main friends set by junior year,” which was an understandable concern, but found that they could still make friends.
There were many recurring themes across the four interviews: they didn’t regret their decision.
There is a lot of stigma for athletes quitting, perhaps being seen as stopping when it gets hard or not being a team player. At the end of the day, especially at a DIII college, sports aren’t the future for many athletes here. They choose to pursue their sport, and it’s okay if they don’t want to do it anymore.
The best way to sum it up is that these ex-athletes really cared about their sport, but it was their choice to care more about themselves than about the team, which is a struggle rarely considered in the moment.
All these athletes enjoyed their teammates, the travel, but the drawbacks of sport, external factors and physical and mental health were too great to justify continuing their own commitment to sports.
Our last athlete summed it up perfectly: “I just had too many lows to justify the highs.”