The Two Elevators: What Howie Long Understood About an Athlete’s Race Against Time

There are certain things you hear as a kid that stay with you for reasons you cannot fully explain.

For me, one of those things came from something Howie Long said.

I remember watching an NFL Films feature hosted by Steve Sabol when Long offered an analogy about an athlete’s physical and mental development.

He described them as two elevators.

When an NFL player first enters the league, Long said, the physical elevator is through the roof while the mental elevator is still somewhere near the basement.

Then something fascinating begins to happen.

As the player gains experience, studies opponents, recognizes tendencies, understands the game, and develops wisdom, the mental elevator begins rising.

At the same time, the physical elevator begins heading in the opposite direction.

Long put it this way:

“I truly believe that when you get into the NFL, your physical elevator is through the roof; your mental elevator is in the basement. And as you go through your career, these two elevators are going in opposite directions.”

Then comes the part I have never forgotten.

“The mental elevator you can speed up. You can’t do anything about the physical elevator.”

As a kid, I simply thought it was a brilliant sports analogy.

As an adult (and especially as I have built Athlete5) I think it says something much bigger about the athlete experience.

The Strange Reality of an Athletic Career

There are very few professions in which someone can be considered old in their early thirties.

In most careers, your thirties are when experience begins becoming an advantage.

You understand people better.

You make better decisions, and you have seen enough mistakes to recognize them earlier.

Your network is stronger. Your judgment improves. Your professional value should theoretically be going up.

Sports can work almost exactly the opposite way.

An athlete may finally understand the game at a level they never could at 22, while simultaneously discovering that their body cannot execute everything it once could.

The mind becomes more valuable while the physical advantage becomes harder to preserve.

That is what makes Long’s two elevators such a powerful metaphor.

Wisdom rises. Physical capacity eventually falls.

And somewhere between those two elevators is the finite career of an athlete.

The Hardest Part Is That Nobody Knows Their Floor

There is another dimension to Long’s analogy that I have thought about often.

The athlete does not get to choose exactly when the physical elevator stops.

Sometimes the doors close slowly…

An athlete notices declining playing time. Their contract is ending. A teammate begin taking more snaps. They understand that the final season may be approaching.

Other times, the elevator stops without warning.

An injury, roster decision, coaching change, medical diagnosis, scholarship ending, or a phone call nobody expected.

One day you are preparing for another season, and the next day you are trying to understand what the rest of your life is supposed to look like.

Research into athlete career transition reinforces just how important that distinction can be. Reviews of the literature have found that athletes who prepare for retirement tend to demonstrate greater emotional, cognitive, and behavioral readiness for the transition. Abrupt or involuntary endings can be particularly difficult, especially when the athlete’s identity has been built almost exclusively around sport.

That is why waiting until your career is over to think about life after sports is a dangerous strategy.

You may never receive the warning you are expecting.

Build the Mental Elevator Faster

Long’s conclusion was essentially this:

You cannot control how long your physical advantages will last.

But you can control how quickly you become smarter.

I think that idea deserves to extend beyond the game itself.

Athletes spend enormous amounts of time developing the mental side of their sport.

Film study, playbooks, strategy, recovery, nutrition, opponent tendencies, technique, etc.

All because becoming mentally better can extend the usefulness of the physical gifts they already possess.

But what if the same urgency were applied to life beyond sports? What if athletes began asking questions like these while they were still competing?

What am I naturally good at beyond my sport?

What kind of work actually interests me?

What relationships should I begin developing?

What skills am I building that will transfer somewhere else?

What kind of life do I want after competition?

Who am I if the jersey comes off tomorrow?

Those are not retirement questions, they’re development questions, and they are worth asking long before anyone knows when the final game will be played.

Do Not Wait for the Elevator to Stop

There is a natural temptation for athletes to postpone these conversations.

I am still playing.

I have another season.

I will figure it out later.

Maybe… but nobody actually knows. Preparing for the future does not mean becoming less committed to the present.

Infact, I would argue the opposite.

There is freedom in knowing that your entire identity, purpose, and future do not depend on how long your body allows you to compete. You can give everything you have to the game without asking the game to provide everything you need for the rest of your life. That is a healthier relationship with sport.

And ultimately, I believe it creates a healthier athlete.

Start Before You Need To

The Athlete5 Blueprint was built around that idea.

Not retirement.

Preparation.

It is designed to help an athlete understand who they are beyond the obvious answers.

Their strengths.

Their motivations.

Their priorities.

Their relationships.

Their health.

Their purpose.

And ultimately, where those characteristics might create opportunity after sports.

The goal is not to rush an athlete toward their next career. It is to make sure the first time they seriously think about their future is not the morning after their playing career unexpectedly ends.

Howie Long understood something important decades ago.

The physical elevator has a mind of its own. Eventually it will start moving downward.

The mental elevator is different. You can push the button, you can accelerate it, and you can prepare.

And when the doors finally open onto whatever comes next, you can step out knowing the best parts of you never belonged exclusively to the game in the first place.