“We have a big dream, a dream that was made more accessible through rugby, but certainly not impossible without it.
Our dream is to be anything but ordinary.”
Depression, anxiety and drugs are just some of the ways many retired players deal with the sudden lack of rugby in their lives. Our experience of life after rugby does not involve drugs (unless an unchecked caffeine addiction counts?!), but significant life changes, in general, go hand-in-hand with a tad of depression and a generous serving of anxiety.
Married to rugby
If you don’t know this about me, I married my high school sweetheart, and it’s just as romantic as it sounds. It means that we not only get to grow old together but also grew up together. When life gave one of us lemons, we never had to make lemonade alone. It also means that when I was a doe-eyed sixteen-year-old, I was already swept up into rugby life when I met my now-husband.
As much as I try to remember my school years and varsity experiences, most of what I remember has been intertwined with tackles, travel, lineouts, and life-altering experiences.
So when the time came for my husband to hang up his boots, it felt like I was somehow hanging up my own slightly more aesthetically pleasing pair as well. You might be sitting there with raised eyebrows, wondering, “Why did you decide to stop?” and the classic follow-up, “What are you going to do now?”.
Why choose to stop playing rugby?
To answer the first question, we didn’t. We never had a sit-down and decided we were done with rugby and wanted to pursue other career paths.
Despite what many people think, players have very little say in what happens in their lives. They don’t get to choose whether they play on a Saturday or not. They don’t choose their off times. They don’t decide where they live, and 90% of them sure as hell don’t choose when they stop playing the game most of them dedicate the first part of their life to. International players might have the option to play until they decide to retire. But the rest of the general rugby population, those everyday, run-of-the-mill players who are not on all the posters or get all the sponsorship deals don’t choose when they retire.
Some don’t land another contract and find themselves without any income for months before they finally figure out it’s game over. Others get so severely injured that medical professionals tell them that it’s time to hang up their rugby boots for good. Some have to choose between playing for a few months longer but risk dealing with the aftermath of injury forever.
Almost full-time
As a family, we realised that the end of our rugby life was approaching. My very independent 4-year-old has lived in seven houses in five cities, attended four schools in three languages, and lived on three continents. And yes, I do know that kids are resilient. But the question wasn’t whether my kids could move around for another few years; it was if they should be. Should they be used to everything being temporary? Should they be used to seeing their Oupas and Oumas on Facetime? Should my son be asking when he needs to pack up his toys again?
Another factor we had to keep in mind was that should rugby not end when it did; it would end eventually. And everything we are dealing with now and all the uncertainty we have to overcome when he retires at 30, will still be there when he retires at 32, except we’ll be older and another few years behind on starting normal life.
There are over eight million rugby players across the globe, and in addition to this number rising, the number of budget cuts is increasing, too. The short and the long of the fact is that more and more players are popping up and requiring less and less money. Could my husband have played for another few years? Absolutely. Should he have? That’s entirely subjective.
You’ve stepped away from rugby: What now?
Until now, coaches and contracts have governed our lives. Living in limbo isn’t for everyone, but rugby also allowed us to see beautiful places and meet people worldwide, many of whom we are now lucky enough to call friends. A life of sport means that every weekend is exciting, and you have instant communities wherever you sign a contract. There is no better support network than the people living the same life you are, with the same sources of joy and the same fears.
A Life in rugby
Even at school level, rugby takes priority over much of a player’s life. It determines their eating and sleeping patterns, how they conduct themselves in public, what they post on social media and even the social circles they spend time in. Our life was no different. It’s not a stretch then to say that my husband’s retirement left us with a gaping hole verging on an identity crisis. It forced us to think very philosophically about who we are as people, why we were put on this earth and what we want to do before we leave it.
When rugby ended, we looked at each other and asked, ‘What now?’ but we also asked another critical question: “How can we make an impact without rugby?”.
If there is one thing that scares us both to death, it’s being ordinary. No one should be. Rugby gave us the platform to be extraordinary, but there are other platforms out there. Our ‘what now’ might not shake the world, but it’s anything but ordinary.
So, to answer your second question, we are still figuring out the ‘what now’. Career-wise, it’s been easy to find things we enjoy doing in exchange for money, but as for the rest of those philosophical questions? That takes an entire lifetime to figure out.
Challenges after professional rugby
One of the biggest challenges we’ve had to tackle with was how we were stacking up against our peers. Do other people in their very (VERY!) late 20s also make massive career shifts? Are we the only ones who aren’t ready to buy a house? How long until we also have a well-established support network?
Starting from scratch is easy enough when you’re used to doing it with like-minded individuals, but starting from scratch when everyone around you has already carved out their own little space has, by far, been the most challenging thing to do.
We need to catch up on everything compared to other 30-year-olds. Although it’s easy enough to say that everyone runs their own race, it isn’t easy to run that race when everyone else is cruising by in their cars.
How do retired rugby players cope without it?
Another challenge has been seeing the life we’ve left behind and in addition to asking ‘what now’, we sometimes find ourselves also asking, ‘What if?’. What if we didn’t walk away? What if we could still go back? Seeing some of our friends navigate life in rugby when we are trying to survive without it has been hard.
Retired players who reminisced about the good old days used to make me cringe – now I realise that it’s their privilege to do so, something they get to do after sacrificing their bodies and early lives for a sport they knew wouldn’t last forever.
The need to play is an itch that probably never goes away, but staying active, usually in some very competitive activity, has helped scratch that itch. For us, that looks like training for a half-marathon as if it’s the Olympics or playing padel like it’s Wimbledon.
A beginning and an end
The ending has been bitter-sweet, but all the best things in life are. We have a big dream, a dream that was made more accessible through rugby but certainly not impossible without it. Our dream is to be anything but ordinary.
Our lives have changed drastically; the playing field looks different, and no one is commentating on our excellent skills. There might not be die-hard fans any more, but there is always an audience, and don’t for a second think that the best years are over when they are just ahead of us.
