Money -- the toughest hurdle in sport
Companies help athletes to mix work and playing
By TOMOKO OTAKE
Staff writer
Just as many professional athletes struggle to carve out a second career after they retire, amateur sports players are also confronting some really hard times.
Now, though, some companies are offering a helping hand.
On June 1, Pasona Sportsmate Inc., a 100-percent subsidiary of major staffing company Pasona Inc., began offering job placement and career counseling services for nonprofessional sports people.
Miyuki Yakuwa, president of Pasona Sportsmate, said she came up with the idea of the new company from her own experience as a competitive canoeist.
Pasona's move comes at a time when more and more athletes are finding themselves in the same boat as the canoeists; physically they can still compete, but lack of financial backing forces them to face up to life after sport earlier than expected. This is because an increasing number of Japanese businesses are disbanding their in-house sports teams, many of which date back to the 1950s. Experts say corporate sports teams served as a symbol of company solidarity as postwar-Japan rebuilt its economy, and then took on the PR value from the 1970s onward. But since the burst of the economic bubble in the early 1990s, many companies have been cutting back on sport activities.
"I'm sure a lot of you are feeling more concerned about your future in these economic times," Yakuwa told a crowd of 50 or so who attended the firm's business manner workshop in late May. "But there have been few places you can ask for advice from."
Athletes with full-time jobs, on the other hand, have often felt guilty about not being able to work after their regular hours and on the weekends, Yakuwa said.
Also, with haken jobs, athletes can get a taste of corporate life, and gradually build up their nonathletic skills while still actively engaged in sports, she added.
"We are thinking of forming a career support center for players," said Mitsunori Uehara, president of Osaka Evessa. "Human offers a broad range of vocational programs, in areas such as art and design, business, medicine and so on. So if retired players want to get an education, they have a lot to choose from. We can also give them career counseling, as we have a staffing agency as well."
Human is now hiring players for Osaka Evessa, which will be part of the new professional basketball league, the bj-league, that will debut in November.
The bj-league?!?!
