Elite athlete student's Metropolia blog

I work at the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Sports Academy as a high-performance sports coordinator and at the Olympic Committee as a dual career expert for elite athletes. My job involves various tasks. One of them is to be in contact with secondary and higher education partners. I strive to maintain a developmental approach with these institutions to improve the conditions for student-athletes. Wherever athletes study, they need to be supported as well as possible, and this requires strong networking. I work as a supervisor for sports coaches and occasionally meet individual athletes. In certain Olympic Training Center sports, such as men's artistic gymnastics, I am part of the national team coaching staff, responsible for the dual careers of athletes. At the Olympic Committee, one of my tasks is to be in contact with support athletes transitioning from their sports careers and to care for them after their sports careers. Urhea was founded about 20 years ago when the principal and vice-principal of Mäkelänrinne High School set out to support young people graduating from sports high school. At that time, young people often had to choose between school and sports when moving on to vocational or university studies. This needed to change. Metropolia has been involved from the beginning and has developed Urhea as one of the educational institutions. The goal is that after secondary education, athletes have as many options as possible to study their desired field and receive support in combining high-performance sports and studies. My Journey from Sports to Urhea My background is in education, and I have worked as a primary school teacher and as a basketball coach. I have completed the Basketball Federation's training and have worked as a full-time coach in the top league, as a youth coach in a club, as the head coach of the youth national team, and as an assistant coach for the men's national team. My educational and practical coaching background is strong. I was a primary school teacher at Suutarila Elementary School for a long time and a basketball coach at Mäkelänrinne High School. Three mornings a week, I first went to Mäkelänrinne for morning training and then went straight to elementary school to teach. It was a great richness to coach high school students and teach young children. I gained a lot of interaction skills from meeting different children and young people. In 2008, the principal of Mäkelänrinne High School, Seppo Pitkänen, and the vice-principal, Simo Tarvonen, recruited me as a high-performance sports coordinator for Urhea. It was the first year that Urhea received state aid for its activities, and I became Urhea's first employee. It has been great to be part of Urhea's growth story. I came to Urhea with a basketball background, but through my work, my understanding has expanded to the various individual sports and other ball games. I look with open eyes when new sports emerge. We must be able to consider them too: we cannot revolve around old values. Experiences and Observations from HUMKK Audits It has been a great thing that the Olympic Committee took this step. The core of the sports academy system is secondary education, which has an official status. With the help of the Olympic Committee, we first developed the lower secondary phase in addition to secondary education, and now we are promoting higher education cooperation, with a developmental evaluation approach led by Karvi. As an academy operator, I have been involved in Aalto University's pilot audit, Haaga-Helia's audit, and in the audit of the University of Jyväskylä, I served as the chair of the audit team. When this model was developed, I was initially involved with the Olympic Committee's dual career team in developing it but later stepped aside. The Olympic Committee, led by Jukka Tirri, brought the audit model to its current state. My role is to support Urhea's partner universities in their preparation for the audit. One of the most valuable aspects of this audit has been when universities have started to conduct self-assessments. Self-assessment and analysis of where we stand have brought very good insights within universities. At Metropolia, the number of staff related to sports matters has also increased. Initially, for example, study counselors had a solitary work field, and now they have great teams around them. This model is only strengthening, and in higher education, it is a big advantage for student-athletes. Hopeful Outlook for the Future of Student-Athletes Looking ahead, I hope that athletes will continue to train and spend a lot of time achieving their best, growing as individuals and professionals in that environment. It is a great learning platform, and I feel that athletes become professionals in learning. I also hope that students can reflect on the skills they have gained through sports: things that can be validated from their sports careers through the recognition and acknowledgment of previously acquired skills and also through academic credit. These things can relate to general learning objectives. I hope that the understanding of sports will increase. Work and life, in general, are continuous learning, and for an athlete, it is part of their DNA. One must always learn new things, develop, and excel physically and skillfully. Future Support for Professional Student-Athletes Basically, I hope that in five years, sports and athletes will be seen in a more respected light in society. Then I see in the cooperation between Metropolia and Urhea that in addition to supporting students, there would also be a research approach, possibly joint projects that could diversify and develop our cooperation. Sports are also constantly evolving and changing. Those who play professionally may not have long contracts and are also constantly on the edge: it seems to be the same in other areas of society's work life. What if we grow into the idea that this is the future norm: shorter career spans with different emphases, but you build your career in your own way with your skills. I hope that coaches become more aware of all the interests their trainees have. This awareness could help deepen the interaction, trust, and sports results between coaches and trainees. Tips for Preparing for HUMKK Audits The Olympic Committee has prepared an excellent manual for audits. By going through it and evaluating one's own activities, one can develop the operations of a university of applied sciences. At the same time, a developmental approach towards the future is essential: not getting stuck in the fact that we have been audited. Words of Encouragement and Guidance for Young Professional Athletes The first years of professional sports are just as much about learning as studying for a degree. But once you have mastered professionalism, an athlete can free up energy to study alongside it and see it as a means of recovery and detachment from the work role. I encourage athletes to reflect on whether there is room in their daily lives to learn something new as a counterbalance to their sports profession. Lastly As a basketball coach, the most thrilling thing has been working with young people and adults who really want to test their own limits. Everyone's limits are individual, some in the Euro League, some in domestic leagues, but when you have boldly tested your own limits, you get to know yourself better.