An athlete’s exploration of identity
Kirsten Wiltshire (She/Her) // Staff Writer
Tasha Jones (She/Her) // Illustrator
Alanah Dulong has spent the last 17 years incrementally dedicating her time, energy and focus to the sport of soccer. Now, she stands on the other side of a five season run with the Blues. Over the years through soccer, she found her community. Upon graduation from Seycove Secondary, Dulong was scouted and landed at Capilano University in 2018. She graduated from the Bachelor of Business Administration program in the spring of 2023, but was able to stay on for another season to fulfill her five-year eligibility due to the canceled season in 2020. On Oct. 29, 2023, Dulong played her final game with the Blues squad.
“On Sunday, I realized when we were changing out of our jerseys that this is the last time I’m taking this jersey off,” reflected Dulong, still in a state of processing the team’s abrupt ending to their season in a 3-1 loss to Douglas College at the PACWEST finals.
The success of a team relies on the team’s ability to operate as one unit, making decisions that consider the goals of the team rather than the individual. In high-level team sports, the responsibility of the individual is to consider how decisions will impact the team. A strong team has a collective identity. So, who then, does a player become when they no longer have a team to identify with? “I feel like I’m having an identity crisis,” says Dulong, still processing the team’s final game and the idea of not having soccer as constant in her life anymore, “I’ve tied it a lot to my identity.”
One of the major challenges athletes face when transitioning out of their high level of sport is a confrontation of who they are. Athlete365 Career+, developed by the International Olympic Committee, is a program dedicated to helping athletes enter a new chapter of their lives. According to one of the program’s white papers, athletes spend the majority of their developmental years focused on their sport while their peers are in an exploratory phase. When athletes move on from sport they must confront that exploratory gap. What the IOC focuses on, however, is the transferable skills athletes gain from their experience in their sport.
When Dulong looks back at her younger self, she notices a new kind of confidence off the field, brought on by the responsibilities of her veteran role on the team. “I can kind of take on more, talk to a team of people, organize something or share my ideas and feel more confident in myself, because [now] I just feel more secure.”
Halfway through Dulong’s career with the Blues, she moved from fullback—a defender position—to midfielder, a dynamic position which requires defensive and attacking skills. It was an unexpected adjustment in her gameplay and one that pushed her out of her comfort zone. This past season she broke personal records and led the league with eight goals scored, blowing her previous record of three goals out of the water. “I never thought of myself as an attacker before,” she says. “So now, it’s cool to know that I can do both if I need to.” Dulong developed a new level of confidence she hadn’t seen in herself before “I’ve seen a lot of growth in that sense.”
Any kind of life transition comes with its own set of challenges, but with challenges come new opportunities. For athletes, it’s a brand-new opportunity to get to know themselves in a new way. With a bittersweet affect, Dulong looks toward the future, sharing a determined approach to, “do things because I personally want to, not like trying to think of what other people would expect from me to do… it’s going to be interesting, but I’m excited to see where life takes me.”
