All About Athlete Second (Lexi Blackwell)
Lexi Blackwell is a former soccer player from Midwest City, Oklahoma. She has her Bachelor’s degree in Health and Human Performance from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She has her Master’s degree in Sport Psychology from Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado. As a mental performance coach, she has a brand called Athlete Second that’s focused on the mental health of athletes. In her free time she enjoys hanging out with her year and a half old son, creating TikTok’s and educational content, shopping and cooking. In this podcast we will be talking about her career-ending injury, identity problems related to sports, finding a job as an athlete, and her brand Athlete Second.
Below I have written most of what we talked about but you can listen to the full podcast on Anchor / Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.
Q: How did the hardships you faced in high school affect you in college?
A: Whenever I decided to go to the high school that I went to, I had been told by the coach that we will win state if I transferred there.
When I got there, there was immediate pressure to win state.
There was a point that turned into chaos where my coaches were in my face yelling at me saying we lost an important game because of me.
I felt pressure to be a perfect person and make perfect decisions.
I ended up hurting peoples feelings and a lot of things came about it.
We ended up losing our state championship game and I felt so defeated. It was my first real moment of feeling like I didn’t achieve something that I put all of myself into.
As a freshman, I was thinking that I blew up my whole soccer career. I felt like my sport didn’t love me back.
It hit me so hard at a young age.
My next years of playing I didn’t feel fully there and I didn’t feel happy. I didn’t feel like I wanted to be a part of my sport because I didn’t feel the love for it anymore.
I wanted to have a soccer scholarship and play for college. Once I got to my college, I was just there. I didn’t care much and I was disconnected.
I did have that satisfaction that I was a collegiate athlete and I could say that I was one. I had an injury my freshman year that required surgery.
I was excited to get it fixed and move on. I re-tore my injury almost immediately after being released to go back into training after surgery.
It took me completely out of sports. My doctor told me that if I play I’ll need a hip replacement and it will affect me for the rest of my life or I could sit down and just be done and I’ll heal.
In that moment I had to make a decision and I decided to just step away.
Half of me felt like it was almost a relief after all that I went through.
The other half of me was like wow this is really it I’m really done.
I came to terms with it pretty quickly because I knew that I had to find what was next for me. I couldn’t just sit back and just wait for life to show me what’s next.
I had my emotions when I told my coach that I was done.
Since then I have been complacent with my decision and I have created something new for myself.
Q: What was your injury?
A: I had a torn labrum in my hip. It started my sophomore year of high school.
I knew it hurt at the time but it wouldn’t hurt while I play, it was more like it hurt after everything was said and done.
I put it off until my freshman year of college. I knew I had waited way too long to take care of it because I couldn’t sleep at night because of the pain.
I finally went to the doctor and they could tell I had a tear but they couldn’t tell the extent of it.
In my surgery they found the extent of it was very significant to the point where I couldn’t put any weight on my leg for 2 months.
Q: In what ways have you identified with your sport?
A: For the most part, my identity has relied heavily on my goals.
Since a young age, my goals were solely focused on three main things: I want to be like Mia Hamm and be the best player in the world, I want to win state, and I want to get a soccer scholarship.
Whenever one of the goals didn’t happen, I didn’t cope with it well.
That’s when I would have summers sitting at home being miserable because it’s like, now what?
Then I would set my next goal, go full throttle at it and when it didn’t work out again it would start all over.
Q: What challenges have you faced with finding a job?
A: Whenever I was going through normal schooling, I never had pressure that I had to work.
My parents paid for everything for me since I was focusing on my sport.
I had some jobs here and there but I could only do them for so long until season would start up again.
After I retired sports, it was expected for me to pay for a lot more since I was on my own. I was in a small college town and it’s competitive getting jobs.
I would get to the second or third interview for jobs but I would never get them because I never had the experience.
It became really frustrating because all I could say was I was an athlete and I graduated high school.
Being an athlete comes with a lot of skills but people just see inexperience instead of seeing someone that can multi-task and be able to manage time.
I eventually I got a job that was an hour away from where I lived. I had to do that to be able to have the funds to finish college.
Q: What are your goals with Athlete Second?
A: I created Athlete Second to help break the stigma that you have to suppress your emotions and put your mental health aside for sports.
With my business, I mainly focus on mental performance coaching.
I provide the tools that athletes need to be able to cope with stress, boost their confidence, and help them focus more in games.
From there, I decided that not everybody can spend hours and hours on coaching.
I wanted to focus on things they can do outside of services with me so I created journals. It focuses on self care.
Implementing that in their days to give themselves a mental break from their sport and self regulation to help cope with things they’ve suppressed over the years.
I created one that is focused on a re-vamp on what mental toughness is.
It breaks down what it truly means to be mentally tough.
It also gives athletes the ability to share their stories and be able to share what it means to be an athlete and putting themselves first.
Q: What was one of your favorite moments while competing?
A: We were playing in a tournament and we were in a championship game. I’m defender so I’m pretty far back.
It’s raining and disgusting weather and nobody really wants to be out there.
At one point, someone passes the ball back to mid field and I decided to shoot it.
I had no business doing this but I scored and we ended up winning the championship.
We still look at pictures of this moment. It’s my reminder that there were really happy times playing sports for me.
Q: What aspect of the transition out of sports was the hardest for you? What advice can you give to athletes on what you learned from that?
A: Trying to find a new identity.
I was super consumed in my sport. I didn’t have a secondary identity.
Whenever I got out of sports, I completely closed that chapter and that included the people I grew up with.
They were associated with the sport and in my mind I only hung out with them because of the sport and I thought I didn’t have any other connection to them.
I closed out a lot of people and the happy times I had and a lot of the negatives so it wouldn’t affect the new life I was trying to build.
With that, that was me again suppressing my emotions and suppressing things that have happened to me.
Now that I’m forming new relationships and I’m moving on with my life now things are starting to creep up.
Now it’s affecting how I handle my relationships with other people.
It makes me guarded with jumping into relationships because I’m afraid if I close this chapter I’m going to close them out.
My advice to athletes is to discover who you are without the identity of being an athlete.
It’s important that you turn off that identity at some points in your day so you can figure out who you are and who you want in your life.
Whenever the ball stops bouncing you’ll know who you are and you don’t have to figure that out after your sport stops.
If you have any more questions for Lexi, please leave comments below or contact me. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call or text the Suicide Hotline. It’s toll free and available 24/7 at 988 or 800-273-8255.
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Are you or someone you know currently struggling with what happens in life after sports? Or did you already go through that transition to life after retiring competitive sports and wish you had more resources and support? Have you ever wondered, “what do athletes do after they are done playing sports? What’s next after sports?” Do you feel like you dedicated so much to your sport and you don’t know what to do now that you’re done competing? You’re not alone. Check out the site and join us in the journey. Once an athlete, always an athlete.
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