Tennis athlete Naomi Osaka drew headlines some years ago when she withdrew from the French Open. I took interest in this story for a few reasons. But before I dive into those reasons I want to make clear I have no idea what her story is but I do have an idea of depression and its link to Scholastic and athletic performance.
I used to coach football, and taught in the classroom for almost 30 years. I will never forget asking one of my 8th graders if she ever thought of hurting herself. Her response was bone-chilling, “Yes, every day!”
I was able to refer her to counseling and began looking carefully at my students and athletes. This kid was a straight A student and an unbelievable star athlete.
So more in my classroom teacher role than my coaching role I thought of the pressure of competition. It takes hours of practice to be good in any sport and even more to be great. If one has the mindset to be perfect, one has an internal drive to be perfect. That drive will never result in perfection. Nobody is perfect. Therefore, one is unworthy of perfection and has a drive to be perfect. That could set a person up for depression.
Success breeds success or so the thinking goes. Actually in my experience success creates immense pressure to keep succeeding. So each victory can become a relief rather than satisfaction because that athlete avoided loss.
A demonstration of this I saw in a movie recently about Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. Two actors provided a behind the scenes look at their famous match in the Wimbledon finals back in the 80s. Publicly McEnroe looked like a crazy guy and Borg appeared to be calm and collected. Behind the scenes it was the opposite. The pressure of winning was really evident in Borg’s erratic and often cruel behavior. It was evident with McEnroe too, but in public and showed itself with argued calls and difficult rebellious behavior with anyone in authority.
Okay, so both of these great athletes dealt with pressure in different ways. I do talk to sports psychologists all the time and they tell me of athletes and depression. I try to be sensitive to depression and it should be dealt with by referrals to counselors. Please remember a coach is not a certified therapist and should never overstep their professional boundries and must refer said athletes to counseling! Failure to do so could result in disastrous consequences.