NEW YEAR WORKSHOPS
The year is almost over and we wanted to thank our users with a special holiday treat! We have partnered with some amazing athletes in our community to provide Playoff users with 30-60 minute zoom seminars that will allow you to:
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Engage with current and former athletes from around the world
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Discuss topics related directly to athletes and athlete lifestyle
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Hear from former athletes turned entrepreneurs who are focused on serving the athlete community
Joi Walker - Sports Are Complicated. Business Is Simple
Sunday, December 27th 2pm PST/5pm EST
Summary: Often we talk ourselves out of entrepreneurship because we believe growing a business is too complicated. Many athletes fail to realize the countless parallels between sport and business. Sports require you to make split second decisions and push your body to the limit. Business simply comes down to providing a needed product or service that people are willing to pay for. In this session athletes will discover that starting a business isn't as complicated as it seems.
About Joi: Joi Walker, a native of St. Louis, was a member of the women’s basketball team at South Carolina State University. After obtaining a bachelors and master’s degree in accounting she went on to work in Corporate America.
Walker soon returned to her first love and became a collegiate basketball coach. After leaving corporate and returning to collegiate athletics Walker realized that many student-athletes are often unprepared to transition into life after sport. This discovery inspired her to write her first book entitled The Sweet Sport: Finding Purpose In Life After Sport. Walker is also the host of the Sets For Life podcast which has allowed her to interview over 100 former athletes.
Walker went on to serve in various administrative roles including athletic academic advisor, life skills coordinator, and student-athlete development coordinator. Walker has since taken the leap into full time entrepreneurship. She recently founded the Six Figure Athlete which is a program designed to teach athletes how to build and scale their own business.
Katie Spada - The Fueled Athlete: Be Fueled for Sport and Life After
Date: Sunday, December 27th 4pm PST
Retiring from sport brings about so many changes! One of the biggest ones? Eating and body changes. In this session, you will learn why it can be so challenging to eat as a former athlete and why dealing with body changes in life after sport can feel so frustrating! You'll learn practical ways to start optimizing your nutrition in life after sport and improve body image so you can start feeling good in your retired athlete skin!
About Katie: After earning her bachelor's degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from The Ohio State University, Katie went on to complete her dietetic internship through Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. Shortly after completion of her internship, Katie sat for and passed her registered dietitian credentialing boards, and began working at University Medical Center as a clinical dietitian. In her current role in the hospital, Katie works mostly with the pediatric and neonatal populations. Additionally, she is a graduate student and master's degree candidate through Northeastern University working towards completion of her Masters in Nutrition with a concentration in Sports and Fitness. Outside of her role as a clinical dietitian, Katie is the founder of Spada Strong Nutrition LLC, a nutrition coaching business focused on helping former athletes with their nutrition in life after sport. Katie competed as a synchronized swimmer for 11 years, earning spots on 3 USA National Teams, as well as a scholarship position at The Ohio State University. During her time at Ohio State, Katie was fortunate enough to be a part of 2 National Title Teams, and serve as team captain during her Junior and Senior season. Katie has a passion for helping others learn the fundamentals of nutrition, heal their relationship with food, and be able to fuel themselves for success, guilt-free!
Cory Camp - Transition Training: How to Take Your Athletic Mindset into the Real World
Monday, December 28th 4pm PST/7pm EST
We all know that sports don’t last forever, and that transition out of athletics can feel like one of the hardest breakups we go through in life. Transition training is about showing you how the tools you’ve learned translate to the next chapter in your life. It’s about setting yourself up for success in your next steps and easing the growing pains that come with retirement. We take a deep look into what it means to be more than an athlete.
About Cory: Cory is a personal performance coach for former athletes. He works together with the athlete to improve physical, mental, and emotional well-being through a holistic coaching approach. Cory is a former nationally ranked swimmer, and has spent much of the time following his athletic career researching how to bring the athletic mindset from the days of competing into daily life. He started The Athletic Mindset Podcast as a way to share insights from conversations with the world’s most elite athletes. This endeavor helped Cory discover his true purpose and realize his potential for impact goes beyond just helping people with their physical abilities, that it’s really the mind that determines who will succeed and to what extent. Cory is currently working on a 30 Day Transition Intensive to help athletes accelerate the transition and acclimation into a happy life post sport, this can be found on his website, www.corycamp.com
Christina VandenBerg - How student-athletes can turn their self-talk from negative to positive
Tuesday, December 29th - 5pm PST/8pm EST
As competitive athletes, we often are the #1 critic of ourselves. In this session designed by sport psychology coaches and athletes, you'll learn how you can overcome self-doubt and take control of your self-talk. Hear stories from student-athletes on dealing with negative thoughts, learn the "3Rs" to positive self-talk, and find out how you can put this skill into practice right away.
About Christina: Christina VandenBerg is a former D1 athlete and co-founder of MyHuddle, a new mental health service made for student-athletes. She has been a mentor to varsity athletes at Stanford, leadership coach, and spent a decade working in tech. Now, inspired by her experience as a soccer player, Christina is on a mission to make mental support accessible to every student-athlete at their fingertips. She strongly believes in giving back to future generations of student-athletes and is an advocate for breaking the stigma of mental health in sports.
Mac St. Onge - RISE – A Guide to Conquering Covid
Wednesday, December 30th 4pm PST
As athletes, we like to know what we need to do to improve. We want to know what kind of work we need to put in and how hard to go in order to accomplish our goals. But when we’re sidelined, due to injury or Covid, all bets are off on what that looks like. All of a sudden, aspects of our game are out of our control. How do we manage them? The Sideline Perspective’s RISE framework is designed to guide you through exactly that. RISE is a four-step mentality that creates structure and accountability for a successful return to sport as defined by YOU. It focuses your athletic mindset around the things you can control, ensuring you stay on track both mentally and physically.
About Mac: Mac is the Athlete Career & Education Manager at U.S. Ski & Snowboard and founder of The Sideline Perspective. As a two-sport D1 athlete at Dartmouth College, Mac has experienced what it’s like to be sidelined due to injury and what it takes to move on after over a decade of commitment to highly competitive sport. Mac started The Sideline Perspective as a platform for storytelling and support for injured and retiring athletes. Through stories, interviews, and podcasts TSP has helped to shed light on the hidden challenges competitive athletes face when temporarily sidelined or no longer able to compete.