Using their business education, former athletes are able to move comfortably into corporate work, preserving skills of discipline, teamwork and leadership.

Toby Flood, a former England rugby player, describes how many athletes struggle to transition out of professional sports. Flood later studied an executive MBA at Cambridge Judge Business School, after an 18-year career, he went on to take a corporate role at Okta. His case represents a current trend of ex-sports professionals using their skills in the corporate sector.

Business schools throughout the world are realizing the special value of athletes. Colleges like Cambridge, INSEAD, EMLyon, and Aalto in Finland have programs aimed at enabling past sportsmen to apply teamwork, discipline and leadership to making companies successful. Certain schools even offer sports and business degrees to younger participants who remain in sports.

Research indicates elite sportspeople tend to perform better in businessand end up in senior ranks, leaving higher paychecks to the non-athletes. Most of them have acquired resilience, confidences and a strategic mindset that is of great value to employers in such high-pressure and team-oriented environments as they have gone through.

Nevertheless, the change between sports and corporate life is not that simple. Retired athletes might find it more difficult to find a way into the mainstream work environment and the high-performance attitudes can clash with co-workers who do not work in competitive environments. Flexible programs and mentorship programs, as well as remote courses, are becoming essential in facilitating this transition.

Becoming an athlete and pursuing a business education simultaneously allows many former sportsmen to become useful people in other fields, which proves that all discipline, dedication, and efforts spent on the field could be converted into professional success at another level.