More than seven years ago, Dr. I. Staškevičiūtė-Butienė, together with colleagues, turned the idea of the National Dual Career Center for athletes into reality and still advises athletes and their surroundings on dual career issues. According to the interviewee, it is often necessary to persuade parents, teachers, coaches, and sports organizations that it is very important for an athlete to have another path so that they feel safe and confident. Equally important is helping the athletes themselves understand that it is not necessary to strive for “120 percent” in all areas of life – the most important thing is to find a balance that provides inner peace. Moreover, people who always seek victories do not always understand that sports provide many valuable skills for the labor market – resilience to failure, persistence, and the ability to operate in difficult circumstances.
– You talk a lot with the sports community about dual careers. How well do they understand today what this concept really entails?
– When I have to work or talk with sports federations or organizations, not about athletes, dual career is usually understood very narrowly, as studies and sports. Moreover, sports organizations often do not understand what their role is in dual careers. We help organizations realize that the environment surrounding the athlete and cultural formation are very important.
For example, recently we talked about dual careers with one sports organization, and its representatives were surprised that one part of dual careers is talent development. People do not really understand or delve into this topic. “Dual” is probably an incorrect Lithuanian word; maybe it should be bilateral or something similar. It is often not understood that sometimes there are even four directions when a person balances four things at the same time, and sports are equally important alongside other parallel activities. Therefore, most of the time I increase people’s understanding of what dual career is, that it is not just about getting a diploma and putting it in a drawer.
– How do you practically help athletes combine sports, studies, and career choices?
– The main work of the Lithuanian Sports University, which has the National Dual Career Center for athletes, is to help coordinate and ensure that athletes do not drop out of studies. This usually happens in the final years of study – when there is no time to write the final thesis, the athlete says “I will write it tomorrow,” and this continues year after year and never ends. So one of our main tasks is to prepare an individual study schedule.
Equally important is working with career counselors in schools. We talk about children, adolescents, and youth who make career decisions. When young people make a decision, they have a great expectation to make a big career in sports, and then school completely takes a back seat. However, after some years, these young people return to school or do not return due to various misunderstandings of moral and social norms. On the other hand, sometimes they decide to quit sports because they think they cannot make a living from sports. Career counselors are people whom children come to, and if they cannot help children understand or do not assess their possibilities, things can happen that we talk about. We all somehow still come from Soviet times, where a career is something you choose for life. But today, for example, a person who has finished medicine can quit it and move to a completely new field.
– What changes have you managed to achieve working with educational institutions and sports organizations?
– One of the main things we have worked a lot on and have today is that most schools understand the importance and benefits of dual careers, and we have long-term cooperation. I traveled to schools, talked a lot with children in schools or sports classes, teachers, career counselors, and this grew into a long-term relationship with schools and some sports organizations. They believe in it and even create dual career strategies. Sports organizations are beginning to apply good practices.
– And what are the biggest challenges you face working in the field of dual careers?
– Probably the main challenge is to meet people who are not related to sports because they think sports is not work, it is a hobby. This is a typical stereotype about sports. When you tell people you work with dual careers, they ask what it is. When you explain, they ask why it is needed because, in their opinion, it is as simple as knitting. Then I try to explain. I say, for example, why a person can go to music competitions and everything is fine, but if a person goes to an international training camp for two weeks, it is not so good. It seems that people understand musicians, artists, or students preparing for math olympiads better.
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This is the main challenge – breaking stereotypes. It is necessary to help understand that sports is still work, a profession, and that athletes have to “work off” a lot because physical fatigue really interferes with other parallel areas or balancing things. The hardest is to convince teachers.
Speaking about athletes, if young people do sports, they usually have rosy dreams and think everything will be fine. This is probably a characteristic of the age group. When you talk to adult athletes, then the challenge is not studies but work or even a third activity – studies, work, and sports because usually these people finance sports from the salary of another job. Not everyone receives funding for sports, and then the question arises, what is in first place. Of course, sports are always first, then second is what you earn your bread from – work, and only then, if there is time left, studies. We face the athletes’ misconception that they will come to university, stay a bit, wave their hand, and the diploma will come by itself. We face the fact that people come for diplomas, not knowledge.
– What are the most important lessons you have learned from this experience and how have they helped improve the support provided to athletes?
– The first rule is that the athlete must understand that they have a challenge. This is the first step to change. Also, the main lesson I learned is that athletes do not need to be given answers. You have to grit your teeth and endure until they understand that they need it themselves. It is important not to tell a person what to do but to help them realize and answer certain questions. Those questions usually buzz in their heads, but not all questions can be named or realized.
I view dual career as multi-directional. I think dual career is not just about a person combining sports with work or sports with studies. I think the goal is to find balance in life. If there is no balance in life, it usually affects health, emotions, and all other related things. What usually happens with athletes is that they want to do everything at 120 percent in all areas. Summing 120 percent with 120 is already 240, but life is only 100 percent. It is very important for an athlete to understand that some things can be done not so well, but they need to learn to feel good about it. This is the main challenge. Usually, what we do is try to explain to athletes that they cannot do everything at 120 percent, but it is important to find their own individual balance so that they feel good inside, do not stress at night, and do not wake up drenched in cold sweat because they forgot or did not do something.
Another thing we try to do is pay attention to so-called “transferable skills.” I have noticed that very often people who do sports do not think that sports develop certain life skills that are not always easily learned by a normal mortal or take much longer. These are resilience to failure, doing things beyond limits, getting out of certain situations, and similar things. Such athletes are already prepared for the labor market, but they cannot communicate it because they rarely realize they have those strengths.
– What is needed from the environment surrounding the athlete for a dual career to be successful?
– If the athlete does not have a certain environment, infrastructure that says they can do certain things, they will not do it. It is inconvenient, for example, to study with headphones in a crowd. It is necessary to understand that appropriate infrastructure must be created – no special buildings are needed, a room with a reservation where you can study or read a book is enough. Sometimes athletes live not alone but several in one room. So appropriate infrastructure is the first thing. Second – the coach should not only be the one who cares about sports results but also the one who sometimes asks how the athlete is doing in the other part of life, whether they have friends outside sports. A simple question that is incredibly important. Usually, sports limit contacts, but the ability to communicate with people outside sports and see a different world is also no less important. The coach should be not only a coach but also an educator, one of the mentors.
Speaking about athletes, a safely feeling athlete is one who does not worry about what will happen tomorrow; only then can they give 120 percent of themselves. An athlete can have the best sports equipment, the best infrastructure, but if they know they are not protected in every sense, they will worry about tomorrow and definitely protect themselves. My dual career concept is that the athlete should not worry about how they will live tomorrow.
The National Sports Agency supports the Erasmus+ project “STARS.” The project’s goal is to create an evidence-based dual career mentorship program for athletes to help them successfully combine sports with studies or vocational training and prepare for a career after sports. The interview with I. Staškevičiūtė-Butienė was conducted while collecting material about good practices in different countries.
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