The recent Andre Agassi book has once again raised eyebrows about athletes and their off-field (or in Andre’s case, off-court) sports leadership issues and behaviors. Mike Tyson was also in the news recently for his sports aggression getting into another fight (this time out of the ring), and Theo Fleury reports of regular drinking and drug usage throughout his NHL career, stemming from previous sexual abuse by a junior league youth coach. While none of these stories are connected beyond the irony of all three being about athletes’ personal issues making the news rather than their athletic talents, the stories do prompt us to think about why athletes – with seemingly everything going for them – continue to engage in risky, dangerous, and sometimes illegal behaviors? (
Sports Success 360)Without knowing the intimate details of each of these stories, all any of us can do is speculate about what factors might have been at play that caused, or at least contributed to, each of their recent troubles. For Andre Agassi, after listening to him tell his
story on 60 Minutes, it became clear that being pushed to excel at tennis from a very young age led him to live a very atypical teenage existence, often requiring him to continue playing a sport he may have liked, but not loved (or at least we know he didn’t have the same passion for the sport as his dad did). Could it have been this intense lifestyle that started at a very young age that was the primary cause for his later drug usage?Mike Tyson, someone who is not new to controversy, has also battled drug and alcohol problems, and has a history of out-of-the-ring violent behavior, too. Again, we see that Tyson was a superstar at a very young age, prompting him to learn about a lifestyle, with its own unique pressures and challenges, while at the same time fighting the best boxers in the world. Could all of this have been too much, too soon?Theo Fleurry’s story is also concerning, but for a very different reason. Unfortunately, today we are learning about increasingly more coach-athlete sexual molestation stories, with Fleurry’s story perhaps being the most noteworthy yet. By his own account, Fleurry tells about how the sexual molestation caused havoc in his life, leading him down a road that included risky, unhealthy, unsafe, and illegal behaviors. The trust athletes put in their coaches is often the same as that with their parents, and when that trust is broken it can lead to terrible mental anguish and pain, often resulting in poor coping mechanisms that can include risky behaviors like the ones Fleurry engaged in while dealing with his pain.While these stories are all unique, and the connections between them may not be visible at first, there are some common denominators that can be examined as we look to learn more about elite athletes, their unique lifestyles, and the potential problems they may face without appropriate social support and structure. A few of the commonalities include:· For many young athletes who show great athletic talent at an early age, it is the people around them (i.e. parents, coaches, mentors, etc.) who assume that if a youngster is good at something, he/she must also love doing it. Sadly, this is simply not the case – and in Andre Agassi’s story it certainly appears that the push he felt from his father may have become unbearable at times, prompting him to want an escape (both physically from playing tennis, but also mentally from the pressure to be successful). In fact, Agassi is quoted as saying that at times he “hated tennis,” yet quitting was never an option.· It is also important to remember that kids play sports to have fun (it’s routinely found to be the #1 reason they play sports according to most surveys), and when a sport becomes more like a job, it often loses the “fun” part. When kids feel as though their sport is a job, they often stress about the pressure to succeed, while at the same time experience the frustration of not being able to do many of the same things their friends who are not elite athletes are doing (i.e. going to the mall, swimming at the local pool, etc.). As this stress and frustration builds, it can lead to maladaptive and unhealthy coping as a means of an escape, including alcohol and drug usage.· Most fans don’t think about it, but the life of an elite athlete can be very lonely and isolating. Hotels, road trips, flights across the country and around the world – all of it can take its toll and create a very unusual lifestyle for athletes. Loneliness and isolation are tough to deal with for most people, so it is easy to understand how risk-taking endeavors (like drug usage) can provide a quick respite from an otherwise mundane existence. As hard as it may be to believe, the athletes we watch on television, while seemingly surrounded by millions of people, often live a life that is very private and far different than what fans would suspect.· Young athletes often begin to feel the pressure to succeed at a very early age, and as the pressure increases, the need for a break from the action increases as well. When athletes train full-time with very few breaks, it can lead to staleness, burnout, and even premature quitting of the sport. Drugs and alcohol provide quick “escapes” from pressure, even if it is not healthy to use these substances as coping tools.· Most athletes, including female athletes, exhibit a “machismo” mindset when it comes to athletics, and as a result, often carry this way of thinking over to their personal life with a ‘do it alone” means of dealing with stress. While many athletes can (and do) address their own life issues in a positive and healthy way, other athletes do not, and when pressed to find answers and solutions to their problems resort to things like alcohol and drug abuse, risky sexual behaviors, gambling, and many other thrill-seeking behaviors. Obviously, these coping behaviors usually exacerbate the situation, but in the short-run they provide a means of diverting attention away from something painful and onto something fun and enjoyable.· Perhaps the greatest, and most tragic, early student athlete – coach issue is when the trust between coach-athlete is broken, as in the case of Fleurry’s terrible sexual molestation story with his junior league coach. Sexual abuse can lead to many tragic consequences, including the inability to develop healthy future relationships, depression, anxiety, and low self-worth, to name a few. From reading Fleurry’s horrific story, one can only imagine the pain he felt throughout his career caused by his youth coach that was masked by his world-class hockey abilities on the ice. When young athletes unconditionally trust their coach (as is often the case), it is imperative that coaches act in adult, responsible ways. When coaches act unethically (or illegally), it can lead to terrible consequences for athletes as they grow into adulthood.It should be stated that I do not have any contact with the athletes discussed in this article, and I only know what I have read about with respect to each of their situations. My comments are designed to be broad-based in nature as I commonly see far too many athletes struggle with similar issues due in large part to the points I discussed in this article. The good news is that we are talking about these issues much more regularly today, creating a positive atmosphere for young athletes to learn and respond to things more openly than they might have in the past. Adults are also benefiting by learning about the stories of Agassi, Tyson, and Fleurry as they can now pay closer attention to potential pre-cursors to later problematic behaviors: the lack of “fun” in the sport, a potentially isolating lifestyle, suspicious coach – student athlete relationships, or unusual and atypical pressures to succeed that are unlike what ordinary kids experience. Unfortunately, like many things in life, we have to first learn of the terrible stories others have experienced before we learn about how to make things different and better for the future.
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