Blog

Sharing guidance and lived experience to optimise the athlete journey.

 

 

The American Dream: A Bed Of Roses, Or A Mass Of Thorns? by Catherine Reid

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📸 by Jodi Hanagan



The NCAA experience is one that differs from person to person. You should never take one person's time in America as gospel, as you can guarantee you’ll find something differs in your time there. It is all dependent on your school, your coach, your degree, and obviously, yourself.

My time in the USA was one with many ups, a lot more downs, but an experience I wouldn't change for the world.

University of Georgia, Division 1 NCAA


The Ups

The main positive I would take …

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Top 3 Tips for Balancing Boarding School and Sport by James Taylor

Tade Ojora after a race

Having spent the last five years managing academic commitments at a boarding school (Eton College) alongside the demands of athletics training and competition; I’ve identified three things that I would like to have known sooner.

The combination of athletics and boarding school has led to success for several athletes; Jazmin Sawyers (2023 European Long Jump Champion), who studied at Millfield; and Lawrence Clarke (4th 110mH 2012 Olympics) who attended Eton College. When you’re on the way back fr…

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Living With Athletes? The Good, the Bad and the Messy Kitchens...

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📸 by Jodi Hanagan


Living with athletes may come as a no-brainer to some, to others it might be their worst nightmare. Just like anything, it is important to consider the pros and cons, with these differing from person to person. Drawing on honest first-hand experiences/opinions from a number of athletes, this article will look into the pros and cons of living with athletes or not.

My experience of living with athletes has been pretty straightforward, I can't lie. For someone who loves all th…

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America: Where the Grass is Greener or a Murky Swamp Where Athletes Rarely Prosper? by Harry Kendall

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📸 by Jodi Hanagan


Recently, @The Athlete Place conducted a survey on Instagram asking whether athletes would travel to America for University. The result of this was a 63% majority for the ‘yes’ party. As a follow-up, we attempted to get some answers from athletes on the pros and cons of moving to America to further your training, however, the majority of this feedback was negative, which creates an interesting debate. This is a follow up to the article by Catherine Reid who brilliantly detai…

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How Can Student-Athletes Build Resilience and Prevent Burnout? by Helena Keenan

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Just like 2020, sport can be very demanding and push us to our limits. Adversities, or any negative events, are inevitable in sport. Athletes may experience failures, mental health problems, injuries, homesickness and overtraining [1]. When dealing with these challenges, athletes are often told to just “get over it” or “move on.” We are told that in order to be successful, we must bounce back from adversity, be more resilient, and learn from our failures [2]. Yet these behaviours are not simple …

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