Student-athletes must tackle the academic challenges of college while prioritizing a rigorous schedule of training, practicing, traveling and competing. Most collegiate athletes also need to prepare for a different career path — the NCAA reports that only 1.5 percent of college football players will go pro, and some sports have even fewer options. “We have equestrian student-athletes, we have rifle student-athletes — if they don’t make it to the Olympics, then they have to consider other opportunities,” said Ray Walls ’12 MEd, senior associate athletics director of student-athlete development. “Our job is to ensure that they are just as prepared for the real world as they are prepared for their sport.”

Walls sat down with TCU Magazine to explain how the university prepares student-athletes for life after sports.

What professional development does TCU offer student-athletes?

We have biweekly educational sessions on something career-related. A recent LinkedIn presentation was an opportunity to team up with Mike Caldwell, executive director of TCU’s Center for Career & Professional Development, and his team. Student-athletes have to take advantage of the networking opportunities they can build on LinkedIn; having that presence is hugely important.

When they have the career networking event on campus for all students, we piggyback on that, and in the evening we host our Players 2 Professionals event.

What about student-athletes who have graduated?

We’re one of the only schools in the country that offers support for our former student-athletes. We offer Players 2 Professionals for our alumni athletes who have graduated and returned to us seeking support.

“We’re one of the only schools in the country that offers support for our former student-athletes.”
Ray Walls

We have guest speakers, we have folks doing workshops on branding, on résumé building, on LinkedIn. And at the end of that event, we have a networking event where we bring in employers. Every other year we offer this program, and we have had amazing success connecting our former student-athletes to employment opportunities during that summit.

What do employers appreciate about student-athletes — how do athletic skills transfer to professional life?

Most employers speak to the drive that student-athletes have, their work ethic, the ability to manage time, the ability to build relationships, the ability to be personable. Those are great skills for anyone.

If you start talking schematically about what they’re doing in their sport, they can speak that language all day, every day. We want to ensure that our students understand the language of doing business. So we try to have events where they can intermingle with folks who can provide the opportunities.

For example, at the Players 2 Professionals event, we do an event called Dinner and Development, where we bring in employers to personally have dinner with our student-athletes and engage in a conversation with them. We also do a ladies’ night out; we bring in business professionals to engage our women student-athletes in a more social setting.

What would surprise people to know about student-athletes?

There’s the misperception that there are student-athletes who don’t belong in college based on academic standards. But we are constantly blown away by those student-athletes who folks say don’t belong — and that’s because they have an opportunity, they have the support, they have the resources and then they just have the people in place who genuinely care about them excelling. The academic support department — they do a phenomenal job helping students navigate their majors and classes, ensuring that there are minimal conflicts with practice.

Our goal in student-athlete development is to help student-athletes understand who they are and who and what they want to become. To help them figure out how they’re going to get there — that’s what we work at every single day.

 — As told to Laura Samuel Meyn

Editor’s Note: The questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Send your career questions to tcumagazine@tcu.edu.