Handbook: an innovative European sports tutorship model of the dual career of student-athletes

This handbook compiles the experiences of researchers and university staff from five different European universities who understand that the dual career of student-athletes is more than a necessity, it is a right that the student athlete has as a human being. We want to acknowledge the great work done by our European partners in Rome, Malta, Greece and the United Kingdom, as long as they have believed in this project, and for their enthusiasm and professionalism in carrying it out. In the first chapter, we discuss the dual career issue and its importance for the European Union – encompassing projects such as ESTPORT – whose results we present in this book. We start from the idea of the athlete-student as a “centaur”, who must harmonize two high-level activities, one sport (as high level athletes) and another academic (such as university students). To do this, they must have the best conditions to respond to their personal right to be prepared for their future, once they finish their sports career. Following this line, in the second chapter, we present the UCAM Sports Tutorship Model, a pioneering model in Europe to offer a dual career to those high level athletes who study a university career. In the third chapter, we present the enriching experiences of the methodology of implementation of the model “sports tutor model” carried out by the Universities of Rome “Foro Italico” (Italy), Malta (Malta), Leeds Trinity University (United Kingdom) And Thessaly (Greece). From their methodological experience on how to implement the figure of the sports tutor in their universities during an academic course, we gathered important lessons to adapt our universities to sports universities. Therefore, in the fourth chapter we present the “Estport” Model 2.0 version, which arises from the enrichment of the initial model of sports tutoring, with which we have been working at UCAM for more than a decade, after the experiences resulting from its implementation in partner universities as a result of project funding by the European Union. Finally, in the fifth chapter we present the initial findings of parallel research conducted with athletes-students from the five partner universities. We hope that this handbook will serve as a guide to good practices and as a reference for those universities that want to join the dual career model, benefiting from the synergies that our most distinguished athletes give us when they represent us all over the world, and contributing to their own development as human beings.