The Athlete Never Leaves You: How Sports Shape You for Life | From Linda's Desk
- Linda Herron
- 3 days ago
- 9 min read
I have been an athlete for most of my life.
Long before I became the founder of Women Sports USA®, before I spent decades in finance, before I wrote children’s books, before I understood how much the body remembers, I was a young girl who loved to compete.
Sports shaped me.
They instilled discipline in me before I even grasped its meaning. They showed me how to be present even when exhausted, how to heed coaches' advice, how to function as a team member, how to win gracefully, and how to handle defeat without letting it shape my identity. They provided me with confidence, structure, friendships, purpose, and a strong conviction that effort is important.
Having engaged in Division I field hockey, competitive softball, road races from 5k's to marathons, and bodybuilding, I have dedicated much of my life to pushing my body to perform.
I trained. I competed. I pushed. I recovered. Then I did it again.
That is what athletes do.
For years, I carried the mindset that if something hurt, I could work through it. Rest a little. Ice it. Stretch it. Adjust. Tough it out. Keep moving.
But as I have gotten older, I have learned something that many lifelong athletes understand, though we do not always talk about it openly.
A lifetime in sports leaves a mark.
The Wear and Tear No One Talks About
When people talk about athletes, they often talk about the best parts.
The championships. The records. The uniforms. The trophies. The highlight moments. The photos where everyone is smiling, arms around teammates, celebrating what they accomplished together.
And those moments matter.
But there is another side to a lifetime in sports.
Some knees remember every sprint. Shoulders that remember every shot, swing, throw, and lift. Hips that remember miles of running. Backs that remember years of impact, strength training, long workdays, travel, and simply doing what needed to be done.
For women especially, I think this conversation matters.
Many of us were raised to be tough, dependable, and quiet about pain. We were taught to keep going. To not complain. To prove we belonged. To work twice as hard. To play through discomfort because someone was always watching, and opportunities were not always guaranteed.
So we learned to push.
That mindset can build incredible strength.
But sometimes, years later, the body asks for a different kind of strength.
The Morning Everything Changed
About five years ago, I woke up at 4:00 a.m., like I normally did.
That was my rhythm. Early mornings. Work. Responsibility. Keep moving.
But when I stood up, something felt very wrong.
It seemed as though I was standing on a wooden peg leg, with nerve pain radiating through my leg. It was sharp, unfamiliar, and terrifying in a way I was reluctant to acknowledge back then.
My first thought was simple:
This will heal in ten days.
That is how an athlete thinks.
We assume pain has a timeline. We assume that if we are patient for a few days, maybe a week or two, we will be back. We assume we can manage it, push through it, and return to normal.
So that is what I tried to do.
I toughed it out.
But ten days came and went.
Then weeks.
Then months.
And the pain did not go away.
When Invisible Pain Changes Everything
One of the hardest parts was that no one could see it.
Outwardly, nothing had changed for me. I went to work, fulfilled my duties, and maintained my career in finance without missing a single day. I kept it hidden from everyone because I didn't want anyone to find out.
But inside, everything had changed.
Invisible pain is peculiar. You might be in a meeting, strolling through an airport, replying to emails, or smiling during a conversation, all while your body is desperately pleading for relief.
Since people cannot see it, they might not comprehend it.
It's not always their fault. We often excel at concealing what causes us pain.
Athletes are especially good at that.
We have learned to appear calm when things are amiss. We know how to maintain a composed demeanor. We know how to keep going because, for the majority of our lives, that was the expectation.
But this was different.
This was not something I could overcome through effort alone.
What a Spine Doctor Taught Me About a Lifetime in Sports
Ultimately, I found myself in a spine doctor's office, attempting to comprehend what was going on.
At one point, he turned to me and inquired, “Linda, which sports did you participate in?”
I smirked.
I knew exactly where that question was going.
So I rattled off the list.
Division I field hockey. Competitive softball. Runner. All-natural bodybuilding. Years of training. Years of impact. Years of asking my body to do hard things.
When I finished, he looked at me and said something I will never forget.
“Linda, did you think this was not going to catch up with you?”
I smiled.
Not because I loved hearing it.
Yet, in some way, it seemed logical.
It was not about regret. I do not regret a single game, race, practice, lift, or competition. I do not regret the teammates, the coaches, the finish lines, the lessons, or the person sports helped me become.
But in that moment, I had to accept that my body was telling the story of a lifetime spent competing.
And I realized something else.
No one really talks about this part.
Why Women Athletes Need to Talk About Aging
We celebrate athletes when they are performing.
We celebrate the wins, the records, the scholarships, the championships, the medals, the comebacks, and the highlight reels.
But what about 20, 30, or 40 years later?
What about the former athletes who still carry the mindset but now have bodies that need more care?
What about the women who played hard before there were big platforms, big audiences, or big conversations around recovery and long-term wellness?
What about the athletes who still identify as athletes, even when their bodies no longer move the same way?
That is one of the reasons I wanted to share this story through Women Sports USA®.
Because women’s sports stories do not end when the final whistle blows.
They continue in every chapter of life.
They continue in careers, families, leadership, health, aging, reinvention, and resilience.
Training for Rest: Learning a New Kind of Strength
For nearly two and a half years, my world became very small.
Most days were work and bed.
That was it.
Movement disappeared. Training disappeared. The routines that had shaped my life for decades were gone.
For someone who had always measured progress through movement, this was one of the hardest seasons of my life.
I had to learn a new kind of discipline.
I remember telling myself:
I am in training for rest.
That phrase helped me survive the mental side of it.
Rest did not come naturally to me. I knew how to train for a game. I knew how to train for a marathon. I knew how to train for a bodybuilding competition. I knew how to train for work, deadlines, and responsibilities.
But rest?
That felt foreign.
Yet for that season, rest became the event.
It became the work.
It became the discipline.
Finding Purpose Beyond Competition
As athletes, we are wired to need a goal.
When I could not pour my energy into training, I had to find somewhere else to place that determination.
So I shifted my energy into writing.
One children’s book became two.
Two became nine.
Looking back, I do not think writing those books was simply a distraction. I think it was part of my healing.
The athlete in me needed somewhere to go.
Writing gave me a new arena.
It required discipline, patience, creativity, persistence, and the willingness to keep revising. In many ways, it reminded me of training. You show up. You work. You improve. You keep going, even when no one else sees the hours invested in the final product.
The arena changed.
The athlete did not.
Choosing the Right Season to Begin Again
There was another reality I had to face.
Throughout this period, I continued to travel for work. I realized that attempting to recover while maintaining my business travel schedule could potentially worsen the pain to an intolerable level.
I had to be able to board planes, find my way around airports, attend meetings, and carry out my work duties.
So I waited.
Not because I lacked determination.
Not because I gave up.
But because I had to choose the right season for recovery.
When I began working full-time with Women Sports USA®, something shifted. For the first time in years, I had greater flexibility to tune into my body's needs rather than adhering to work schedules.
I could test my limits.
I could challenge myself.
I could handle days when the pain intensified without the concern of catching a flight the following morning.
That flexibility gave me room to try.
And slowly, I began edging my way back.
Walking Forward One Step at a Time
Today, I am walking 2.5 miles.
To some people, that may sound ordinary.
To me, it is a victory.
Every step represents resilience. Every mile reminds me that progress is not always loud. It is not always fast. It does not always come with applause, medals, or finish-line photos.
Sometimes progress is quiet.
Sometimes it is getting out the door.
Sometimes it is trusting your body again after feeling betrayed by it.
Sometimes it is walking a distance that once felt impossible and realizing that you are still moving forward.
I no longer compare today’s journey to who I was years ago.
That comparison would steal the joy from what I have fought to regain.
Rather, I strive to pay tribute to the athlete I used to be, while honoring the woman I have become.
That has been a powerful lesson.
Why Women Sports USA® Celebrates Every Chapter of an Athlete's Journey
At Women Sports USA®, we talk often about honoring athletes, coaches, trailblazers, officials, and women who have shaped sports across generations.
But honoring women in sports means honoring the whole journey.
Not just the young athlete.
Not just the champion.
Not just the visible success.
We also need to honor the woman who worked hard and built a career. The woman who coached others. The woman who raised a family. The woman who kept moving through pain no one could see. The woman who had to redefine strength. The woman who learned that her identity as an athlete did not disappear simply because her body changed.
That is part of the women’s sports story too.
And I believe many women are carrying stories like this.
Stories of old injuries.
Stories of comeback attempts.
Stories of surgeries, setbacks, arthritis, nerve pain, joint pain, and invisible battles.
Stories of women who still feel like athletes, even if they no longer compete.
"Here are athletes whose stories we're preserving."
Those stories deserve space.
They deserve compassion.
They deserve to be told without shame.
Still an Athlete
For a long time, I thought being an athlete meant competing.
Now I see it differently.
Being an athlete is not only about uniforms, races, stages, or scoreboards.
It is a mindset.
It is discipline.
It is resilience.
It is the willingness to adapt when life changes course.
It is knowing when to push and when to rest.
It is learning that strength can look like training, but it can also look like healing. It can look like writing nine children’s books. It can look like building Women Sports USA®. It can look like walking 2.5 miles after years of wondering if movement would ever feel possible again.
The athlete in me never disappeared.
She just had to learn a new way forward.
The Athlete in Us Never Really Leaves
If you have spent a lifetime in sports, maybe some part of this story feels familiar.
Maybe you have an old injury that reminds you of the sport you loved.
Maybe you still carry the confidence your coach helped build in you.
Maybe your body moves differently now, but your competitive spirit is still there.
Maybe you are learning, like I am, that aging as an athlete is not about losing who you were.
It is about becoming who you are next.
That is why I wanted to share this story.
Not to focus on pain.
Not to discourage anyone from playing sports.
I would do it all again.
But I do think we need more honest conversations about the full journey of women athletes. The victories, yes. The joy, absolutely. But also the wear and tear, the invisible struggles, the recovery, the identity shifts, and the resilience it takes to keep moving forward.
Because our sports stories do not end when we stop competing.
In many ways, that is when we discover just how much sports gave us.
They gave us grit.
They gave us courage.
They gave us discipline.
They gave us teammates.
They gave us purpose.
And sometimes, years later, they give us the strength to begin again.
The athlete never leaves you.
She simply discovers a new race to run.
"Thousand of athletes leave the field every year. What too few people prepare them for is that athlete never really leaves them. The competition ends. The mindset doesn't."
💜 From Linda's Desk Question
What has sports taught you in this season of your life? Share your story with Women Sports USA®. We may feature your perspective in a future article.
Linda Herron
Founder & CEO
Women Sports USA®
The Athlete Never Leaves You is an inspiring reminder that sports shape us for life. The article beautifully captures how the discipline, resilience, and confidence we develop as athletes continue to influence who we become long after competition ends. It's a meaningful read for athletes, coaches, and anyone who understands that being an athlete is a mindset—not just a moment.