A commentary on high-performance athletes’ retirement and mental health: from mental health and transition literacy to athletic retirement literacy

In this commentary we introduce athletic retirement literacy (ARL) as a concept and a novel approach for summarizing and structuring athletic retirement competencies to inform sport psychology practice. Meta-reflections from three recent papers about athletes’ mental health, transition literacy, and transition interventions (Schinke et al., 2024; Stambulova et al., 2025; Stambulova & Schinke, 2025) helped to formulate rationale for a specific focus on ARL. Following the promotion of mental health literacy as well as transition literacy among athletes and their supporters in this commentary we (a) define ARL among high-performance athletes as a set of basic competencies helping them and their supporters to understand the transition to a post-sport career from the individual and ecological perspectives, communicate about it, and make informed decisions and planning; (b) propose a schematic illustration of ARL structure with four major clusters of competencies, and (c) promote ARL-informed interventions. We believe that ARL-informed sport psychology practice will lead to reduced mental health concerns, improved general resilience, and a healthy path forward among retired athletes. © 2025 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.