Sports Afterlives

How do athletes come to terms with the reality of life after sports? What are some of the conditions of this changed reality? What can the afterlives of athletes teach us about the cultural or social situations from which they come? How do we evaluate the cultural and competitive legacies of athletes? And what does our need as fans (or the media’s need) to create hierarchies of greatness and maintain the legacies of our favorite athletes say about the ways we view sports?

This course will address some of these issues associated with the lives of athletes after sports, from the psychological struggle to adjust in the face of diminished physical abilities, to the repercussions of health, wealth, and celebrity in retirement; from the great athlete’s desire to be remembered, to our own investment in remembering and preserving this greatness. We will use writing as a mode of inquiry for entering into these conversations. Over the course of the semester, students will build on the writing skills they already possess by learning to comfortably engage with and respond to these conversations in thoughtful, well-reasoned, and articulate ways.