This year is the first year that I won’t be suiting up for Fall camp and playing football, a sport I’ve played since I was ten years old.
From the time I decided to move on until now I’ve thought about the different ways that I can speak about my own experience. I’ve asked myself, “how can I tell my story? How can I dive deeper into my own student-athlete experience?”
How can I begin to tell a story that I often don’t have the words for or have too many words for? Stories that paint a broader picture of the student-athlete experience. Stories like being a walk-on, to serving on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), to undergoing three knee surgeries, to the mental health struggles that came with those injuries, to leveraging my position as a student-athlete for my post-playing days and so on and so forth. Throughout my undergraduate career a lot of my activities off the field centered around the student-athlete experience, yet I never properly shared mine.
So, one day I put out a tweet saying I am looking to share my experience and I asked if there were any other retired student-athletes (recently or not) who would like to do the same. It gained some traction and I had plenty of former student-athletes reach out interested in helping or sharing so I decided to create a platform dedicated to sharing these experiences.
I decided to create a space that allows former student-athletes to reflect on their own journey in the form of written pieces, interviews, and podcasts. A space for education and discussion. Throughout this month of August you will hear various stories centered around various topics related to the student-athlete experience. You will hear from me and other retired student-athletes and I am so excited to see where this goes. I hope you enjoy this platform and if you are interested in contributing, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Solomon Siskind