leveling up after the game ends
Russ Hinder “Unless you’ve walked into a room where 15,000 people are chanting your name, you’re never really going to know what that feeling’s like,” says Russ Hinder. After spending a bit of time at the University of San Francisco and then over a decade playing pro basketball in Australia’s National Basketball League, Hinder had never put much thought into what he might do after retirement. When his wife said she wanted to move back to the United States to be closer to family, Hinder felt even more lost. The routine and thrill of competing for a living was hard to find elsewhere. When the couple landed in the U.S., Russ’s wife, Jen, found a job at the registrar’s office at ASU and quickly discovered the tuition-reduction benefits included with the role. When she saw the name “Global Sport Institute” mentioned in a campus email, she passed the information along to Russ, thinking this might be the missing piece of the puzzle that would help him get on the path to completing his degree. Hinder met with our team and shared his story, which was not at all uncommon: a young athlete in an unfamiliar space, a focus on sports rather than academics, and an educational pathway with a few starts and stops. Our team was able to direct Hinder toward resources within the university who were eager to become his advocates and find a solution that worked with both his current life situation and his future goals. Hinder ultimately chose to tap into his interest in history, geography and other cultural studies, enrolling in a Liberal Studies program. “The Global Sport Institute team was great, they had a better understanding of the mental struggle with what I was about to embark on, and they were just there as support for me,” Hinder said. Going back to school wasn’t solely a career move. Hinder stayed employed full-time and helped raise a family while earning his degree. Enrolling at ASU was a means of reintegrating
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A N N UA L R E P O R T 2020–21
Russ Hinder with his family. Photo courtesy of Russ Hinder
routine into his life while showing his children the importance of education. It was the beginning of a process by which Hinder found new meaning in his life for the first time since retirement. “It’s so hard to stop being a professional athlete,” Hinder said. “Unless you’re part of the .001%, most guys will never be on TV again, will never walk through the grocery store and have someone stop them.” Since graduating from ASU, Hinder remains a friend of the institute as well as a vivid example why it is vital to treat an athlete’s life as a dynamic and long-lasting plant to be watered and tended to. He continues to run a pool maintenance company in the local community. Athletes typically leave the popular consciousness when they leave sport only to pop up again if tragedy strikes. But just as important is the transition from seeing oneself as “only an athlete” to a greater sense of self-worth that will last a lifetime.
