Decorated Olympian Lauryn Williams on how donor-funded resources helped her support fellow athletes
As three-time Olympic medalist Lauryn Williams tells it, she’s always had an entrepreneurial streak. It’s no wonder, then, that when she couldn’t find the type of financial advice she was seeking as she contemplated transitioning into life after sport, she created it herself.
“I was wanting to make good decisions with my money, but I was not feeling very confident that my education was enough to help me make those decisions,” Williams said.
After graduating in 2004, she continued her track talents with Team USA, winning a silver medal in the 100-meter at the Olympic Games Athens 2004. She competed again at the Olympic Games Beijing 2008—finishing fourth in the 100—and then won gold at the Olympic Games London 2012 in the 4x100-meter relay. From there, she began thinking about retirement, and that’s where the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s Athlete Career and Education (ACE) program entered the picture.
Williams tentatively began her transition to life after sport in 2013, but the pull of competing at an Olympic Winter Games drew her back in, and she won a silver medal in bobsled at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014, becoming the first and, so far, only U.S. woman to medal at both the summer and winter editions of the Olympic Games. She officially announced her retirement in 2015, and her next step was to attend ACE’s Pivot program, which helps facilitate athletes’ transitions out of sport by giving them a peer group with whom they can be vulnerable, share hardships and brainstorm ideas for career next steps.
“The Pivot program was great because it gave me the opportunity to be in community with other athletes who were transitioning, to realize that I’m not alone and that there are many of us who are going through this,” Williams said.
At Pivot, she had the opportunity to share her ideas for Worth Winning, her financial planning business, with other athletes in “a room of people who also saw me as opposed to just seeing an athlete.”
“My business was in its infancy when I went to the Pivot program. I had started my transition, and I was a little bit ahead of some of the others, but it was not full-blown, up-and-running—more of a slow walk, maybe even a crawl at that point,” Williams said. “To be able to stand up and say, ‘Hey, this is what I’m thinking of doing and here’s why it matters to me; it’s my way of giving back,’ it was a really cool thing for me to be able to experience.”
She has started offering her services to recipients of the Simon Grant, which awards stipends to Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls for training expenses. She also helped a young athlete set up a 529 investment plan “so she can be training and saving for her son’s future.”
Williams is also grateful for those who financially support the ACE program, which is largely donor-funded, that helped her set her dream in motion.
“I know that I’ve personally benefited from the donors and from programs that donors have given to, things such as the Pivot program. You’re transitioning from sport to life after sport: You need that community, but you also need the flight to get there. It’s not lost on me that all these things cost money,” Williams said. “That could be cost prohibitive to an athlete who has spent every dollar preparing for their sport and is now trying to look for something different but hasn’t quite figured out what that next thing is.
“Donor funds are very, very important in helping us get our footing and get a foundation from now to later.”
You can help fuel athletes like Lauryn by supporting the Team USA Fund.