During this year’s National Careers Week, New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) is celebrating the importance of growing identities alongside sport, and how athletes continue evolving beyond competition.

While sport makes up a huge part of an athlete’s life, it is not the only thing that defines them. Studying, working, pursuing passions, and being part of various communities all help shape more capable, resilient, and well-rounded people.

The NSWIS Athlete Wellbeing and Engagement (AW&E) team – and others in the National Institute Network – understands that when an athlete discovers who they are beyond sport and connect with others, it can help build confidence, perspective, and purpose – both in and out of competition. Our AW&E team – Anthony Quinn, Cara Dobinson, Rachel Bailey, Lucy Green, and Danielle Spitty – bring a wide range of experiences and are always there to support NSWIS athletes through every stage of their journey.

NSWIS Para Unit supported Goalball athlete Jess Clark is an example of an athlete who balances elite sport alongside her full-time role as a paediatric Occupational Therapist at Vision Australia. Jess shares how she discovered her passion, how her career complements her athletic performance, and offers advice for athletes who may still be figuring things out.

NSWIS: So Jess, what’s something people might not know about you outside of your sport?

Jess Clark [JC]: Even though I have low vision, I can complete a Rubik’s cube in under 60 seconds. I think my PB is about 52 seconds or something ridiculous, but I also recently just got a tactile rubik’s cube, so now I can do it with my eyes closed! It’s got a different shape pattern on each colour, so that you can do it without needing to see the colours.

NSWIS: That’ s a great fact! How did you find your path into your line of work?

JC: I knew that I always wanted to help people, and I always wanted to work in areas like healthcare or teaching throughout school, but I wasn’t 100% sure on what I wanted to do. But I actually had occupational therapy – “OT” – therapy as a kid myself on and off. In high school, I needed to do work experience, and I kept putting in applications for different places, but they were all rejecting me. My best friend’s mum who worked in OT was like, “Just come to work with me for a week. You don’t know anything about my job, just come to work with me.” I had never heard of what an OT was before that, so I went and I worked with her in a hospital for five days and it was amazing. I loved it. After that I was like, “Yep, this is what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. This is going be awesome!”

I liked how broad [the profession] was and how many different areas of OT you could get into. It’s not just working in hospital, and it’s not like other jobs where it’s the same thing over and over and over again. You can work in hospital, you can work in private, you can work in disability – kids or adults, there’s so many different areas of it. And I liked that flexibility because I don’t like being knuckled down into one specific thing for too long.

NSWIS: Can you tell us a bit more about the work your currently doing?

JC: So now I’m working at Vision Australia in the paediatrics team. I work with children through zero to 25 years old, and they all have low vision and blindness. I really liked working in that area because I have low vision myself, so I feel like I’ve got that personal experience, that life story for clients to relate to. I’ve got that extra little bit of empathy for my clients, that understanding of things that they might be going through or having difficulties with. A lot of the work I do with my clients is independent skills [like] cooking lessons or teaching teenage boys how to shave their face, that sort of daily stuff that so many people without disability, they don’t even think about it. They just do it on a daily basis. But when you have a disability, especially low vision and blindness, you don’t even realise how challenging that can be for some people.

NSWIS: You also treat some of the NSWIS Para Unit Accelerate Athletes as well…

JC: Yeah, I do actually! I have a couple of clients that come in to NSWIS that play blind sports or other Para sports. So it’s actually really cool when I come in here, even just this afternoon, I came in and I saw one of my clients was like, “Hey, have a good workout. I’ll see you next week!” We’re learning to do cooking lessons at the moment – we made tacos last week! So yeah, it’s really nice being part of that community as well.

NSWIS: How has having something to do outside of sport helped your athletic performance?

JC: It’s definitely a challenge working full time and also being an elite athlete. It’s a lot to juggle. But I think having an identity outside of being an athlete is really important; having something else that you can focus on so that it’s not just 24/7 sport, training, diet, mental performance – all this sort of stuff that can be a challenge and overwhelming. I think having something else to put all your energy into and having another passion, it’s important for me as a person to have something else that I can work towards as well.

NSWIS: Have of your sports strengths helped you thrive in your job, or vice versa?

JC: I think it’s a little bit of both, to be honest. Working in the area that I work in, I have a lot of knowledge about health and wellbeing, anatomy, physiology and all those sort of things. A lot of what I learnt at uni, I can translate into my training – I get a niggle in a muscle and I’m like, “I know exactly what I’ve just done because I studied that at uni.” The same, I think for working in a team sport, I’ve got that team building knowledge and those skills of being able to collaborate with other people to take into my workplace. And working in my job is like a multidisciplinary team – we’re not all the same profession, but we work together and collaborate on certain mutual clients. So I think I could get a lot of skills out of the sport that I play, being in a team with so many very different people, and then taking that into my job, I’m like, “I can work with you guys easy peasy!”

NSWIS: And finally, your advice to athletes who may be still trying to grow a broader identity beyond their sport.

JC: I think something that I would always recommend is finding out what your passion areas are outside of sport. So for me, I love working with other people. I love being around others and helping people. I think I learned that partly through being involved in sport, [supporting] and working alongside teammates. I think finding out what your passions are, even if it is somewhat associated with your interest in sport, health, or fitness, you can turn that into something that can continue after your sporting career. Something I always wanted to do was making sure I had a plan for when I was no longer an athlete. I wanted to have something I could continue with and that would motivate me in life. So I think [it’s about] definitely identifying what your passions are, and pushing to pursue them as much as you can.

Images: Rebekah Kaauwai

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