Most people earn their living by working (as opposed to inheriting money or winning the lottery). Some have jobs, others pursue careers. The difference between the two approaches has as much to do with attitude as it does anything else.
If you say you have a career, that implies that you have conscientiously chosen this field of work and that each job you take helps you advance to higher and higher levels. Careers involve long-range planning.
This distinction between having a job and having a career is an important one for athletes because too many of them haven't given enough thought to career choices.
Some don't think about careers at all. Some halfheartedly pick something to study in school, but don't really plan to use it. Some focus solely on sports, but don't have a long-range strategy which extends beyond competition.
Why does this matter?
If athletes don't think about careers until their competitive days are over, they aren't prepared for the change. If they haven't lined up something else to do, they may be left with no job prospects.
This does not mean, however, that athletes always have to prepare for non-athletic or non-sports careers. Some athletes (in sports such as golf) may be able to compete for decades. Other athletes may be able to move from competition to sports-related business careers. But it does take planning to extend an athletic career into a lifetime occupation.
Consider the case of three Olympic athletes who competed at the same time. One found out that his intended career wasn't developing as planned. Another spent years preparing for a new career. A third intentionally sought ways to stay involved with his sport.
Spitz did endorsements for awhile, but wasn't very good on camera. (Said his mother, "He wasn't trained to be Mr. Wonderful for TV. He was trained to swim fast.") (1)
After that Spitz moved on to a career as a commercial real estate developer.
He had very little to do with swimming until he attempted a brief comeback during 1990-91 in hopes of making the 1992 Olympic team.
She had already captured the American public's attention in 1970 when, at the world championships, she became the first American gymnast to medal at an international competition.
After the Olympics, she did sports commentary, commercials, and made-for-TV movies.
She decided that if she was going to have a career in entertainment, she needed to take singing and acting lessons. "I started voice lessons and I took [them] for three years before I heard any difference vocally." (2)
It took her another three years before she felt comfortable enough to audition for the lead in a regional production of "The Wizard of Oz." She got the part and received good reviews.
But it was another nine years before she felt ready to perform nationally.
In 1991 she went on to earn a Tony nomination (theater's equivalent of an Oscar) for her role in "Peter Pan."
He went to law school and then returned to compete in the 1976 Olympics. Suffering from a broken ankle, he still managed to finish second.
Then, because there was no professional running circuit at that time, Shorter opened up a chain of running stores and designed a line of running clothes.
Not only did he develop a career for himself, he greatly advanced the sport of running. He was the one who persuaded track-and-field's international governing body, the IAAF, to allow athletes to accept money for competitions and endorsements. "I think if I hadn't stayed in the sport like I did, there would be a lot less for people now and a lot less opportunities and recognition." (4)
Like Shorter, athletes who want to insure that they have an income from sports over a span of thirty or forty years must look for activities which augment income from competition. An example:
Lewis was the designer; sprinter Leroy Burrell was the buyer (Burrell set a world record in the 100 meters in 1994); Floyd Heard was the shipping manager (Heard set a U.S. record in the 200 meters in 1987); and Mike Marsh was the bookkeeper (Marsh won the gold medal in the 200 meters at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics).
According to Burrell, "The business isn't about track and field. The business is about trying to advance ourselves, trying to stabilize our situation economically. It gives us something to do in the lots of spare time we have." (5)