Yeong-Jun (YJ) Seo spent most of his childhood playing ice hockey – including in the 2018 Winter Olympics where he competed on the South Korean team in PyeongChang. However, the UNC Greensboro kinesiology doctoral student says his biggest challenge wasn’t competing on the world stage but stepping off it.
“As I transitioned out of the sport, I felt I wasn’t really prepared because there wasn’t a lot of support,” says Seo, who retired from ice hockey in 2021. “I didn’t know athletes go through these hard times during that transition.”