Rediscovering life after sports

SYDNEY – New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) guidance counsellor Gearoid Towey advises the organization’s 700 athlete scholars on career-related issues and is a perfect example of a former sports star who found his place in the sun after retiring from active competition.

Last Tuesday, Towey explained NSWIS’ Athlete Career and Education (ACE) program to the visiting La Salle senior men’s basketball coaches in the course of their five-day development course here. Head coach Juno Sauler and assistant coaches Allan Caidic and Jun Limpot found Towey’s discourse extremely relevant. Towey, 36, said he’s involved in guiding not only current scholars but also those who’ve long retired.

Towey said advising former athletes on how to make something out of their lives after sports is a challenge. “We’re concerned about athletes in transition because a lot of services are taken away post-competition,” he said. “An example is when an active athlete has a sore finger, five to six people check him out to make sure he’s okay. Once that athlete retires and gets a sore finger, he’ll realize the attention is gone. We’re dealing with human beings and we cater to people with different paths to a career. We understand some will never thrive in school and we take that into consideration.”

Towey said a lot of elite athletes take their education for granted and when they retire, they’re lost. “We’re all trained in mental health first aid,” he went on. “In the transition process, we counsel former athletes who’ve retired because they were cut or are injured or may be coming off a major loss experience. Some may have never been interviewed for a job or prepared a CV. In my case, I had my first interview when I was 31.”

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Towey said an example of a former athlete guided into a productive life after sports was an unnamed rower who finished only up to Grade 10 in school. “He’s quite intelligent but because he was concentrated on sports, he thought he was stupid because he wasn’t successful in school,” related Towey. “We discovered he had a passion for fashion and now, he works in sales and product design of a rowing clothing company. He’s at peace with himself, doing something constructive and fulfilling after retirement.”

At NSWIS, Towey is only two months on the job but he’s already touched the lives of many. “I sit down with our athlete scholars and discuss time management, figuring out how much time is wasted in a day doing nothing,” he said. “I also take up how they should relate with social media. It’s important that they’re aware of the dangers of opening up their lives on Facebook.”

Towey, who is from Ireland, rowed at the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics. He never took home a medal. At the 2001 World Rowing Championships in Lucerne, Towey struck gold in the lightweight pairs. He also won three bronze medals at the World Championships in 1999, 2003 and 2006.

After the Beijing Games, Towey stayed away from rowing and took up acting lessons in London. He even appeared on stage, mainly in Shakespeare plays. He also started a sporting events company Boldly Go. The road eventually led Towey back to Sydney where he used to spend three months every summer to train at the peak of his rowing career. “I used to get paid tax-free by the Irish government to row but now things are different,” said Towey. “I’ve done some acting in Sydney and I wouldn’t mind an acting career. At the moment, my focus is back in sports.”

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Before the Beijing Olympics, Towey and his rowing partner Ciaran Lewis attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a 23-foot boat. It was a race from the Canary Islands to Antigua in the West Indies and 25 teams signed up for the Atlantic Challenge. Towey and Lewis miraculously survived two tropical storms and a hurricane in 40 days at sea when a 10-meter wave overturned their boat. They were rescued in a lifeboat by a Spanish liquid gas tanker “Hispania Spirit.”

A Trinity College of Dublin graduate with a degree in Natural Sciences, Towey worked with the Western Sydney Wanderers as player development director before joining NSWIS. He took specialized training as a guidance counsellor to prepare for his job.

Towey’s work can’t be overemphasized. “We’ve heard of retired athletes not knowing what to do with their lives and some end up in depression, doing drugs or taking alcohol or even committing suicide,” he said. “One of our responsibilities is to guide them through the transition period.” No doubt, this critical aspect of career development in sports should be made available when the National Training Center and the Philippine Academy of Sports are finally inaugurated.