Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20

www.elsevier.com/locate/psychsport

Career transitions in sport: European perspectives

P. Wylleman a,∗, D. Alfermann b, D. Lavallee c
a
Faculty of PE and Physiotherapy, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, Brussels, Belgium
b
University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
c
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Received 22 March 2002; received in revised form 16 August 2002; accepted 18 September 2002

Abstract

Background and purpose. The concept of transitions has, during the past decade, become a well-delin-
eated topic of study among the sport psychology community. This introductory article provides an overview
of the major developments within this thematic field of research, as well as a description of interventions
used with athletes in transition. Avenues for further research and developments are proposed.
Methods. Literature review and integration.
Results and conclusions. Analysis reveals that the concept of transition is currently viewed in a holistic,
life-span perspective which spans the athletic and post-athletic career and which includes transitions occur-
ring in the athletic career as well as those occurring in other domains of athletes’ lives. This ‘beginning-
to-end’ approach is illustrated with a developmental model on transitions faced by athletes at athletic,
individual, psychosocial, and academic/vocational level. At the level of interventions, analysis suggests
that the focus on interventions has shifted from the use of traditional therapeutic approaches to cope with
the possible traumatic experience of the termination of the athletic career, to that of career transitions and
athlete life skill programs aimed at providing support and education to athletes making athletic and non-
athletic transitions. Finally, suggestions for future conceptual developments include the need to extend the
available knowledge on the characteristics of specific transitions (e.g. non-normative transitions, in-career
transitions), on the influence of sport-, gender- or cultural-specific factors on the quality of the transitional
process, as well as on the user-friendliness and applicability of sports career transition interventions and
programs across the range of athletes.
 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Career; Transition; Retirement; Intervention; Europe

∗
Corresponding author. Tel.: +32-2-629-2744; fax: +32-2-629-2899.
E-mail address: paul.wylleman@vub.ac.be (P. Wylleman).

1469-0292/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S1469-0292(02)00049-3
8 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20

Introduction

The concept of ‘transition’ has been related during the past decades to a variety of topics
including individual life span development (e.g. Erikson, 1963), occupational planning (e.g. Hop-
son & Adams, 1977), educational processes (e.g. Newman, Lohman, Newman, Myers, & Smith,
2000), social support (e.g. Cutrona & Russell, 1990), and the processes of aging, retirement, and
dying (e.g. Cummings & Henry, 1961; Kubler-Ross, 1969). In general, a transition has been
related to the occurrence of one or more specific events which brings about not only in an individ-
ual ‘a change in assumptions about oneself’ (Schlossberg, 1981, p. 5), but also a social disequilib-
rium (Wapner & Craig-Bay, 1992) that goes beyond the ongoing changes of everyday life (Sharf,
1997). In the field of sport psychology the concept of transition was introduced in the wake of
psychologists and social scientists’ interest during the 1970s–early 1980s in how (former) athletes
coped with the event of retirement from high-level competitive and professional sports (e.g.
Haerle, 1975; Hallden, 1965; Mihovilovic, 1968). Since then, the focus of research has evolved
in different phases: while the athletic career end was originally seen as a singular event,
researchers re-appraised the termination of the athletic career as a transitional process. As the
following overview will show, this transitional approach was later implemented to other phases
and events occurring during the athletic career, and resulted in the current holistic, life-span
perspective on (athletic as well as non-athletic) transitions faced by athletes.

The athletic career end as a singular event

In the wake of popular reports on the incidence of distress experienced by athletes when termin-
ating their involvement from organized sports, sport psychological research was conducted on the
retirement from elite sport and the drop out from youth sport. Both types of termination of involve-
ment were initially explained in terms of a singular, all-ending event. Early studies included
generally well publicized negative or even traumatic experiences among athletes retiring from
elite sports. For example, Mihovilovic’s (1968) survey of 44 Yugoslavian former first-league
soccer players showed that not only 95% ended their soccer career involuntarily and suddenly, but
also that this end was perceived to be very negative by those players without another profession on
retirement. Other studies also expressed concern for the number of athletes who experienced
traumatic effects upon athletic career termination, including alcohol and substance abuse, acute
depression, eating disorders, identity confusion, decreased self-confidence, and attempted suicide
(Blinde & Stratta, 1992; Ogilvie, 1987; Ogilvie & Howe, 1982; Sinclair & Orlick, 1993; Svo-
boda & Vanek, 1982).
Paralleling the ‘end’ of the athletic career to that of retirement from the work force, or even
to the process of dying, sport psychologists drew from the fields of social gerontology—the study
of the aging process—and of thanatology—the study of the process of dying and death (for a
detailed overview, see Lavallee, 2000). From social gerontology, for example, ‘Subculture’ theory
was used which asserts that prolonged social interactions among individuals leads to the develop-
ment of a group consciousness, and that people can be less active and well adjusted during retire-
ment even if the situation is different from overall social norms (Rosenberg, 1981). While athletes
have fairly distinguishable (sub)cultural characteristics, and although it assists in revealing poten-
 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20 9

tial adjustment problems experienced by athletes in ending their athletic career, the use of this
theory was questioned because retiring athletes are moving out of, and not into, the proposed
subculture (Gordon, 1995). Although, at first hand, other gerontological theories seemed to enable
sport psychologists to explain or even predict the quality of athletic retirement, they were found
to fail as, in comparison, to occupational retirement (a) athletes retire at an earlier age, (b) retired
athletes will generally continue into an occupational career, and because (c) career termination
need not be an inherently negative event requiring considerable adjustment. From thanatology,
for example, the ‘Social death’ approach was used to explain that after their sports career termin-
ation retired athletes are treated as if they were dead even though still biologically alive, bringing
about the loss of social functioning, isolation, or even ostracism. This approach failed, among
others, due to the obvious fact that athletic retirees continued functioning in society, albeit in a
different social role. A more popular use of thanatology involved describing athletic retirement
in the series of stages experienced when facing death (Kubler-Ross, 1969), including denial and
isolation, in which athletes initially refuse to acknowledge the inevitability of their career termin-
ation; anger, in which retiring athletes become disturbed at the overall changing situation; bar-
gaining, in which they try to negotiate for a lengthened career in sport; depression, in which they
experience a distress reaction to retirement; and acceptance, in which retirees eventually come to
accept their career transition. Notwithstanding their intuitive appeal, thanatological models were
criticized especially because of the lack of analogy between terminal illness and career termination
(e.g. Gordon, 1995; Greendorfer & Blinde, 1985; Taylor & Ogilvie, 1998). Although gerontologi-
cal and thanatological models were instrumental in stimulating research on career termination
issues, they remained limited for explaining sports career termination due to their non-sport spe-
cific character, their presumption of career termination as being an inherently negative event,
requiring considerable adjustment, and their neglect of life after athletic retirement (Wylleman,
Lavallee, & Alfermann, 1999).

The termination of the athletic career as a transition

Research findings which made relative the traumatic character of career termination—13%
(Alfermann, 1995) to 15% (Wylleman, De Knop, Menkehorst, Theeboom, & Annerel, 1993)
instead of the 70–80% reported in earlier research (e.g. Mihovilovic, 1968; Ogilvie & Howe,
1982; Svoboda & Vanek, 1982)—and the suggestion that the athletic career termination could
serve as an opportunity for ‘social rebirth’ (Coakley, 1983), led researchers to suggest that the
athletic career termination should be seen as a transitional process rather than as a singular event
(McPherson, 1980). Once again, sport psychologists looked outside of the athletic domain for
conceptual frameworks by focusing on ‘transition models’ (e.g. Schlossberg, 1981, 1984) in which
a transition was defined as “an event or non-event which results in a change in assumptions about
oneself and the world and thus requires a corresponding change in one’s behaviour and relation-
ships” (Schlossberg, 1981, p. 5). Transition frameworks used in research with athletes included
Sussman’s (1972) Analytical Model, and especially the Model of Human Adaptation to Transition
as proposed by Schlossberg and colleagues (Charner & Schlossberg, 1986; Schlossberg, 1981,
1984). In this model, three major sets of factors interact during a transition, including (a) the
characteristics of the individual experiencing the transition (e.g. psychosocial competence, gender,
10 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20

age, previous experience with a transition of a similar nature), (b) the perception of the particular
transition (e.g. role change, affect, occurrence of stress), and (c) the characteristics of the pre-
and post-transition environments (e.g. the evaluation of internal support systems, institutional
support). A number of researchers used this model in an attempt to understand the career transition
process of athletes (e.g. Baillie & Danish, 1992; Parker, 1994; Sinclair & Orlick, 1994; Swain,
1991). As empirical findings revealed that the adjustment process to post-athletic life was
mediated, among others, by the voluntariness with which athletes retired and their preparation for
a life after sport (e.g. Alfermann & Gross, 1997; Webb, Nasco, Riley, & Headrick, 1998; Wheeler,
Malone, VanVlack, Nelson, & Steadward, 1996), the focus of research gradually broadened to
the pre- and post career ending phases. While transition models incorporated a wider range of
influence than gerontological and thanatological models, and allowed for the possibility of both
positive and negative adjustment (Crook & Robertson, 1991), they were still found to lack oper-
ational detail of the specific components related to the adjustment process among athletes
(Taylor & Ogilvie, 1994). More comprehensive conceptual models of adaptation to career tran-
sition were consequentially proposed (e.g. Gordon, 1995; Kerr & Dacyshyn, 2000; Ogilvie &
Taylor, 1993; Taylor & Ogilvie, 1994, 1998). For example, Taylor and Ogilvie’s (1998) domain-
specific model which examines the entire course of the career transition process includes: (a) the
causal factors that initiate the career transition process; (b) the developmental factors related to
transition adaptation; (c) the coping resources that affect the responses to career transitions; (d)
the quality of adjustment to career transition; and (e) possible treatment issues for distressful
reactions to career transition. Other conceptualisations include, among others, Kerr and Dacyshyn
(2000) retirement process among elite, female gymnasts as a transition consisting of the phases
of ‘Retirement’ (the actual withdrawal from sport), ‘Nowhere Land’ (period of uncertainty and
disorientation), and ‘New Beginnings’.

Transitions in the athletic career

During the late 1990s, attention shifted from one particular transition (i.e. the career
termination), toward a more life-span perspective of athletic involvement. This shift in perspective
runs parallel with research from the fields of talent development, deliberate practice, and career
development. Early work on talent development included Bloom’s (1985) identification of stages
in the way talented individuals (within the fields of science, art, and sport) developed. This route
of talent development in sports included: (a) the initiation stage where young athletes are intro-
duced to organized sports and during which they are identified as talented athletes; (b) the develop-
ment stage during which athletes become more dedicated to their sport and where the amount of
training and level of specialization is increased; and (c) the mastery or perfection stage in which
athletes reach their highest level of athletic proficiency. From the perspective of the development
of deliberate play and practice, Côté (1999) identified the stages of sampling, specializing, invest-
ment and mastery or performance. While these perspectives could be linked to the transitions
faced by athletes, Stambulova (1994, 2000) actually developed a stage model based upon her
research on career transitions among Russian athletes. Stambulova considered the athletic career
as consisting of predictable stages and transitions, including: (a) the beginning of the sports spe-
cialization; (b) the transition to intensive training in the chosen sport; (c) the transition to high-
 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20 11

achievement and adult sports; (d) the transition from amateur to professional sports; (e) the tran-
sition from culmination to the end of the sports career; and (f) the end of the sports career.

Life span perspective on transitions faced by athletes

As research findings confirmed that athletes encounter different stages and transitions through-
out their athletic career, a more ‘holistic’ approach to the study of transitions faced by athletes
was advocated (Wylleman et al., 1999). While this approach should take a ‘beginning-to-end’ or
life-span perspective, spanning the athletic and post-athletic career, it was also deemed important
that those transitions faced by athletes in other domains of development should be included. The
rationale for this latter point was based upon research findings showing the strong concurrent,
interactive and reciprocal nature of transitions occurring in the athletic career (athletic transitions)
and those transitions occurring in other domains of athletes’ lives (e.g. academic, psychosocial,
professional) (e.g. Petitpas, Champagne, Chartrand, Danish, & Murphy, 1997; Wylleman, De
Knop, Ewing, & Cumming, 2000). Using research data on the career development of pupil-ath-
letes, student-athletes, professional and elite athletes, and of former Olympians, Wylleman and
Lavallee (2003) presented a developmental model which includes normative transitions faced by
athletes at athletic, individual, psychosocial, and academic/vocational level (see Fig. 1).
The top layer represents the stages and transitions athletes face in their athletic development
including the three stages identified by Bloom (1985) and a discontinuation stage added reflecting
the transition out of competitive sport as a process which could have a relatively long duration.
The second layer reflects the developmental stages and transitions occurring at psychological
level, including childhood, adolescence, and (young) adulthood. The third layer is representative
of the changes which can occur in the athlete’s psychosocial development relative to her or his
athletic involvement, including the athletic family, peer relationships, coach–athlete relationships,
marital relationships and other interpersonal relationships significant to athletes. The final layer

Fig. 1. A developmental model on transitions faced by athletes at athletic, individual, psychosocial, and
academic/vocational level (Wylleman & Lavallee, 2003).
12 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20

reflects the stages and transitions at academic and vocational level, including the transition into
primary education/elementary school, the stage of secondary education/high school, the transition
into higher education (college/university), and finally the transition into vocational training and/or
a professional occupation (which may, however, also occur at an earlier age). This model under-
lines not only the interactive nature of transitions in different domains of life of athletes, but also
that non-athletic transitions may affect the development of athletes’ sports career. While ages are
tentative, this model illustrates, for example, that the athletic transition from initiation to develop-
ment stage, runs parallel with the transition from primary to secondary level. This academic
transition has in fact been linked to the occurrence of attrition in (competitive) youth sports (Van
Reusel et al., 1992): as pupils change educational levels, they generally also disperse to different
schools, thus breaking up the friendship networks which were a primary source of initiation of
sport participation among youth. In another example of the interactive nature of athletic and non-
athletic transitions faced by talented athletes, this model also shows that as young talented athletes
try to transit into the mastery or perfection stage in their athletic career—where athletes need to
perform to their highest level, as consistent and for as long as possible—they also have to cope
with transitional changes at psychological level (from adolescence into young adulthood), at psy-
chosocial level (development of temporary/stable relationships with a partner), and at academic
or vocational level (transiting into higher education or into a professional occupation). Of course,
not all athletes’ sports careers will span all stages. In fact many young (talented) athletes may
already have dropped out during the development or the beginning of their perfection stage. While
this developmental model does not include non-normative transitions (e.g. a season-ending injury,
a change of personal coach, or an unanticipated transfer to another team) or those transitions
which were expected or hoped for but which did not happen (e.g. not making the Olympic
Games)—labelled nonevents (Schlossberg, 1984)—and which also impact the quality of athletes’
participation in competitive sport, it should provide sport psychologists with a framework to
situate and reflect upon the developmental, interactive and interdependent nature of transitions
and stages faced by an athlete.

Interventions with athletes in transition

As the awareness of the importance of career transitions increased over the years, so has the
need for interventions with athletes in transition. The interventions suggested have paralleled the
developments at conceptual level.
In view of the possible traumatic experience of the termination of the athletic career suggested
in earlier research, a number of traditional therapeutic approaches, including cognitive restructur-
ing, stress management and emotional expression, has been recommended as techniques to facili-
tate post-retirement adjustment among elite athletes (Gordon, 1995; Ogilvie & Taylor, 1993;
Taylor & Ogilvie, 1994). Other intervention strategies for practitioners working with athletes in
transition, include the use of projective techniques (e.g. Bardaxoglou, 1997), a psycho-analytic
approach (Chamalidis, 1995), an information processing approach, mentoring, and an existential
psychology approach (Lavallee, Nesti, Borkoles, Cockerill, & Edge, 2000; Wylleman et al., 1999).
One avenue for working with athletes in transition has been account-making, which is the act of
explaining, describing, and emotionally reacting to problematic or influential life events (Grove,
 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20 13

Lavallee, Gordon, & Harvey, 1998; Lavallee, Gordon, & Grove, 1997). This technique is used
with athletes to confront their career transition experiences mentally by thinking about it, putting
it aside, cognitively constructing the various components of the transition (i.e. its nature, why it
happened, how one feels about it, and what it means for the future), and then coming back again
and renewing the analysis. This ‘account’ is then partially confided to close others, whose reaction
may help or hinder the individual in dealing with career transition experience. If the confidants
react to the account with empathy, the athlete may move with dispatch to confront what has
happened and deal with it rationally and constructively. Several sport psychologists have rec-
ommended former athletes to rhetorically work-through any retirement-related difficulties (Parker,
1994; Werthner & Orlick, 1986; Wylleman et al., 1993).
Whenever individual counselling is proposed to athletes in transition, it should assist them in
coping with developments in the self-identity, changes in the available emotional and social sup-
port, the enhancement of coping skills, and the development of a sense of control (Murphy, 1995).
The counselling process needs to emphasize the qualities which the retiring or retired athlete
possesses and which are transferable and put to good use in other settings (e.g. commitment,
communication skills). Lavallee and Andersen (2000) suggested that when considering inter-
ventions in working with athletes post-transition attention should be focused on voluntariness of
termination and locus of control, degree of identification with athlete role, extent of foreclosure
on non-sport areas, availability of coping resources, previous transitions experience, continued
sport-related involvement, post-sporting career planning, understanding and use of transferable
skills, achievement of sport-related goals, access to career-transition support services, and new
focus after retirement.
Building upon the transitional approach, career transitions and athlete life skill programs have
been developed which were initially geared toward providing support to athletes making the tran-
sition from an athletic career to life after retirement (Anderson & Morris, 2000). Table 1 presents
a number of career development programs developed by governing bodies and sport institutes
around the world to assist individuals in developing a professional career outside of sport, as well
as achieving their sport-related goals.
These programs are primarily managed by national sports governing bodies, national Olympic
Committees, specific sport federations (e.g. National Basketball Players Association), academic
institutions (e.g. Vrije Universiteit Brussel), and independent organizations linked to sport settings
(e.g. Women’s Sports Foundation). While some programs address the needs of professional ath-
letes (e.g. the United States National Football Leagues Career Transition Program), the majority
have been developed for elite amateur sports participants. They are generally aimed at developing
social, educational, and work-related skills in elite athletes and generally focus on lifestyle man-
agement and the development of transferable skills that can assist individuals in making the tran-
sition from life in sport into a post-sport career including commitment, goal setting, time manage-
ment, repeated practice, and disciplined preparations (Anderson & Morris, 2000; Lavallee, Gorely,
Lavallee, & Wylleman, 2001; Wylleman et al., 1999). Content and target population of these
programs may vary: where the ‘Career Transition Program’ (CTP) was aimed at assisting players
to deal with retirement from the National Football League, the ‘Study and Talent Education Pro-
gram’ (STEP) provides information and teaches elite level student-athletes skills to optimise the
combination of an academic and an athletic career, as well as initiating successfully a post-aca-
demic vocational career. In general, they include values and interest exploration, career awareness
14 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20

Table 1
Selected overview of career transition programs

Program Institution Country

Athlete Career and Education (ACE) Australian Institute of Sport Australia

Program
Athlete Career and Education (ACE- UK Sports Institute UK
UK) Program
British Athlete Lifestyle Assessment University of Strathclyde Scotland
Needs in Career and Education
(BALANCE) Program
Career Assistance Program for US Olympic Committee USA
Athletes
Making the Jump Program Advisory Resource Centre for Athlete USA
Olympic Athlete Career Centre— Olympic Athlete Career Centre Canada
National Sports Centre
Olympic Job Opportunities Program Australian Olympic Committee Australia
Study and Talent Education Program Vrije Universiteit Brussel Belgium
(STEP)
The Retiring Athlete Dutch Olympic Committee Netherlands
Wales Lifestyle Management Program Sports Council for Wales Wales
Whole-istic American College Athletic USA
Association
Women’s Sports Foundation Athlete Women’s Sports Foundation USA
Service

Note. The ‘Olympic Athlete Career Centre—National Sports Centre’ includes ‘New Beginnings: Transition from
High Performance Sport’, ‘Self-Directed Career Planning Guide’, ‘Athlete Registered Retirement from Sports Plan’,
and the ‘Shadow Program’.

and decision-making, CV preparation, interview techniques, job search strategies, career coun-
selling, and the development of generic social and interpersonal skills.
The programs in Table 1 vary also in format (e.g. workshops, seminars, educational modules),
and methods (e.g. presenting information, educating, providing guidance, skill-learning). In gen-
eral, the following topics are covered in these programs:

1. Social aspects, including, quality of relationships (e.g. family, friends) in the context of sport
and of an academic/professional occupation.
2. Aspects relevant to a balanced style of living: self-image, self-esteem, and self-identity, social
roles, responsibilities, priorities, and participation in leisure activities.
3. Personal management skills, such as, education, academic skills, skills required in professional
occupation, financial planning, skills transferable from the athletic career, and coping skills.
4. Vocational and professional occupation, including vocational guidance, soliciting (e.g. résumé,
interview, curriculum vitae), knowledge of the job market, networking, and career advice.
5. Aspects relevant to career retirement, such as, possible advantages of retirement, perceived
and expected problems related to retirement, physical/physiological aspects of retirement and
decreased levels of athletic activity (Wylleman et al., 1999).
 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20 15

It is clear that transition programs need to be multidimensional and include enhancement, sup-
port, and counselling components (Petitpas, Brewer, & Van Raalte, 1996). Evaluations of these
programs, such as the Australian Athlete Career Education (ACE) program—which has recently
also been implemented in the UK by the UK Sports Institute across England, Scotland, Wales,
and Northern Ireland—showed that a majority of athletes were generally satisfied with the actual
services and courses they had attended (Lavallee et al., 2001).

Conclusions and avenues for future development

The growing number of publications (e.g. Lavallee & Wylleman, 2000) and congress symposia
on the topic of career transitions is not only indicative of the interest from the sport psychology
community. It also reflects a number of developments which has occurred in the study of career
transitions during the past three decades. A first major development has been the shift in perspec-
tive used in the conceptualisation of the transitions faced by athletes. While researchers originally
focused on one transition (i.e. the career termination), the focus of interest broadened to a life-
span perspective including different life domains relevant to athletes. This has put the spot light
on the role and influence of ‘non-athletic’ transitions which (may) affect the development of the
athletic career, including those transitions at psychological, psychosocial, academic and vocational
level. A second development constitutes the shift from a theoretical perspective on career termi-
nation to the testing and development of conceptual models specifically related to the adaptation
to career transition. These models include career-termination models (e.g. Taylor & Ogilvie, 2001)
as well as career-transition models (e.g. Stambulova, 1994, 2000; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2003).
Third, researchers have gradually broadened their attention from identifying causes and conse-
quences of career-ending transition to the identification of specific psychological factors related
to the quality of career transitions (e.g. athletic identity, transferable skills, transition-related skills)
(e.g. Brewer, Van Raalte, & Petitpas, 2000; Cečič Erpič, 2001; Grove, Lavallee, & Gordon, 1997;
Lavallee et al., 2000; Mayocchi & Hanrahan, 2000; Petitpas, Cornelius, & Brewer, 2001). Finally,
the focus of interest has shifted from the development of career termination and post-career pro-
grams to the evaluation of intervention strategies and career transition programs and services (e.g.
Anderson & Morris, 2000; Lavallee et al., 2001; Perna, Ahlgren, & Zaichkowsky, 1999).
Where could we go from here? At a conceptual level there is a need to extent our knowledge
on specific transitions. While the career termination among (elite/professional) athletes has been
studied closely, it has never explicitly been linked to the occurrence of ‘dropout’ in youth sports.
And yet, dropping out, which also reflects athletes ending their involvement in sport, has been
assumed to be more difficult to cope with than retirement: dropout is seen as a premature or off-
time career termination at a developmentally atypical point in life—the athlete did not reach her
or his full potential—while retirement is generally seen as an on-time event after a long-term
career (Alfermann, 2000). Proposals for re-defining the participatory status of young athletes, such
as the ‘transfer dropout’ (Lindner, Johns, & Butcher, 1991), ‘sport-specific dropout’ (Gould &
Petlichkoff, 1988), or ‘sport transfer’ (Klint & Weiss, 1986; Gould, Feltz, Horn, & Weiss, 1982)
reflect different types of dropouts which could also be viewed in terms of transitions, and more
particularly as ‘in-career’ transitions. In following this conceptual parallel, researchers could re-
visit the concept of transitions from the perspective of the conceptual frameworks on participation
16 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20

and discontinuation, including competence motivation theory (Harter, 1981), achievement goal
theory (Nicholls, 1984), the Sport Commitment Model (Scanlan, Simons, Carpenter, Schmidt, &
Keeler, 1993), or Smith’s (1986) Cognitive-Affective Model of Sport Burnout. Moreover, as exist-
ing transitional models (e.g. Stambulova, 1994, 2000; Wylleman & Lavallee, 2003) are generally
based upon normative transitions, which are part of a definite sequence of sports- and age-related
events (e.g. transition from junior to senior level, from regional to national-level competitions,
from amateur to professional status, from active participation to discontinuation from competitive
sport), sports scientists could look into existing links with research on the processes underlying
participation and discontinuation motivation and the sport socialization process (Greendorfer,
1992).
Second, as research has generally focused on the identification of transitions which are norma-
tive in nature, researchers have paid less attention to the occurrence of non-normative transitions.
These idiosyncratic transitions, which are generally unpredicted, unanticipated, and involuntary,
do not occur in a set plan or schedule but are the result of important events that take place in an
individual’s life and to which it responds (Schlossberg, 1984). For athletes, these transitions may
include a sudden change of personal coach, or an unanticipated de-selection for a major champion-
ship after years of preparation—a transition which is also known as a ‘nonevent’ (Petitpas et al.,
1997). An athletic injury is one of the most important non-normative athletic transitions with
which athletes may be confronted. The unpredictable and involuntary nature of this type of tran-
sitions will require researchers to develop conceptual models which include the mechanisms
required by athletes to cope successfully with these type of transitions.
Third, while existing transitional models are reflective of the athletic as well as non-athletic
normative transitions which occur throughout (and after) the athletic career, they remain too gen-
eral. It becomes therefore important to acknowledge the diversity which may exist in view of
sport-, gender- or cultural-specific characteristics (e.g. Seiler, Anders, & Irlinger, 1998). For
example, while transiting from national to international level is a normative transition which is
present in all sports, the ages at which this transition occurs may be very sport-specific (e.g.
female gymnastics versus male rowers).
Fourth, it remains a must for researchers to provide ways in which practitioners can apply
research findings in their applied work with athletes. While the existing transition models provide
sport psychologists with a theoretical framework to situate the developmental, interactive and
interdependent nature of transitions and stages athletes face, it remains important that the demands
of particular stages and transitions are linked to the resources available to athletes and their sur-
rounding to make each transition successfully. In this way, professionals working with athletes
could assist them in structuring optimal transition experiences throughout their sport career. This
includes first the opportunity to take a new look at the phenomenon of drop-out in youth sports
from a transitional perspective and thus formulate concrete interventions for talented young ath-
letes contemplating quitting sport (e.g. Lavallee & Andersen, 2000). Second, using a developmen-
tal transitional model, sport psychologists should use a life-span approach to work with athletes
in transition. For example, using the developmental model presented in Fig. 1 more attention has
recently been paid to the way in which talented young athletes may be assisted in successfully
transiting from junior to senior level by situating it in the context of non-athletic transitions
occurring in the same period (e.g. transition from adolescence to young adulthood, transition from
secondary to higher education) (Wylleman, 2002).
 P. Wylleman et al. / Psychology of Sport and Exercise 5 (2004) 7–20 17

Sports career transition programs also need to be evaluated on their user-friendliness and appli-
cability across the range of athletes. For example, evaluative research by Lavallee et al. (2001)
has demonstrated that career transition programs need to include several key points to be success-
ful (e.g. group-specific targeting and promoting, emphasis on the education of athletes of the need
for long-term planning, diversification of career transition services). A clear need remains to
examine the effectiveness of the service provided by these programs in terms of outcomes (e.g.
job placements made) or changing behaviour, not only in view of furthering our understanding
on how best to help the personal development and performance of athletes through the provision
of sports career transition services, but also in view of accountability. From this perspective, we
need to consider the inclusion in career transition programs of experts which are also significant
to the athlete’s successful coping with career transition. This includes experts in the fields of
sports medicine, sports physiotherapy, financial management, human resource and personnel man-
agement etc.
Furthermore, there exists a clear need for the development of a specific methodology to evaluate
athletes’ perceptions of the transitions occurring throughout their sports career. Finally, while the
focus on transitional research has been put in athletes’ development, it becomes important to
acknowledge the development of the athletic career with the role significant others, including
coaches and managers, play. Future research may therefore be directed towards the identification
of not only the career development of coaches and managers, but also of the relationship with
the development of the athlete’s athletic career (Wylleman et al., 1999).

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