A Chicago Bears quarterback is pondering the meaning of life during the offseason.
The summer dead period can be a scary time for teams and players. With extra time away from the facility, many players return to their hometowns and can get into legal trouble.
For Tyson Bagent, he’s spending some of his summer in Martinsburg, West Virginia, trying not to think about what comes after life in the NFL a few weeks before he’ll be competing with Case Keenum for a spot on the 53-man roster in training camp.
During a must-listen interview with Mark Carman of CHGO Bears, the third-year quarterback opened up about the thought life of an athlete who is addicted to playing the game of football.
Tyson Bagent thinks about his death a lot
Bagent told Carman that part of what keeps him up at night is thinking about his eventual death and not being able to play football anymore. He’s worried about not being able to transition to civilian life after playing in the NFL.
“I think about me dying a lot,” Bagent said. I think about my death a lot… Not that I think about a certain way I’m going to die, but just the fact that there will come a day where I’m not here and none of us will be here. And that really all I’m craving is to just have a whole lot of success in football.
“And I just get freaked out of will I have the same intensity or knowing that I’ll have the same intensity after football is over, and just worry about what am I going to put that into?”
Bagent is used to the safety of the Chicago Bears regimen
Bagent admitted that he’s “scared” and “worried” about what he’s going to do with his life after football, as the safety of a routine he receives from the league is like that of a person serving in the military.
“I’m so into being just a soldier, and that I’m so scared of what that looks like when I’m no longer a soldier,” Bagent said. “Like, coaching is cool, but I want to be in it. I want to just bathe in it and just be in it. Like, so that’s what I think about, and that freaks me out.
“So, that’s why I run those sprints as hard as I can, just because I just want to get everything out of every rep.”
Bagent provided fans with an inside look at a phenomenon that is common among players in the league but doesn’t receive enough discussion in public.
According to a qualitative study published by Harvard, multiple studies indicate that former players deal with higher rates of depression–compared to the general population–when they exit the league, as former athletes lose connections and a social identity.
Hopefully, by the time Bagent is done playing, the league will have more resources to help its athletes navigate the next chapter of life.
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