Retirement from elite sport and self-esteem: a longitudinal study over 12 years.

This study examined the complex associations between athletic retirement and self-esteem among former elite athletes. With reference to theoretical and empirical work on the quality of the transition out of sport, information was collected from 290 (junior) elite athletes in a retrospective-prospective design: at the first measurement, active athletes assessed satisfaction with their sporting career, athletic identity, and self-esteem. At the second measurement (12  years later), the now former athletes rated transition characteristics of their career ending, sporting career success, emotional reactions to career termination, extent of necessary adjustment required following athletic retirement, duration and quality of adjustment, and self-esteem.