More and more players have peeled back the curtain to show us the struggles that they face, and the pressures associated with being a star athlete, and helping to change the stigma around men and their emotional well-being.
An overwhelming majority of the United States is of the opinion that we are facing a crisis. But not the crisis that you might be thinking, but rather a mental health crisis. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, modern political stresses, and financial concerns it is easy to see why Americans are suffering. With rampant depression, suicide has been on the rise with nearly 800,000 people dying of suicide every year. Of these suicides, 90% have been linked to either depression or substance abuse (which can come because of depression itself).
Men, specifically, are being impacted by this growing and disturbing trend. Suicide death rates in men are 4 times higher than in women, the second leading cause of death in men, and men are less likely to seek any help for their mental health ailments. The key takeaway is that American men are suffering and are not seeking help. It should not be a surprise then that more and more professional athletes have come forward and admitted that they have struggled with their mental health during their playing days and after retirement. But with their decision to speak up now, they are showing a path forward for men to seek help but also redefining the understanding of the pressures of being a professional athlete in the modern era.
The Unrelenting Pressure
The first instance of an athlete that spoke about his struggles with mental health, that I saw, was former Portland Trail Blazer and number one overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, Greg Oden. Oden’s career and his unfortunate injury history robbed him of ever reaching his potential. The Blazers were hoping that Oden would be their savior, a player to relieve them from three consecutive miserable seasons and bring them their first title since Bill Walton played center there. On top of that, the picks that followed Oden were Kevin Durant, Al Horford, and Mike Conley. Durant of course would go on to be one of the greatest offensive talents we have ever seen, the one that got away from Portland again, the reincarnation of the Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan mistake in 1984. Horford went on to make 5 All-Star teams and 1 All-NBA selection, while Conley was the guiding force of the Grit & Grind Grizzlies and made 1 All-Star selection.
It is essential to understand the pressure that Greg Oden was feeling as he entered the NBA. He was only 20 years old and was immediately sidelined with a knee injury that caused him to miss his first season. Meanwhile, Kevin Durant was scoring 20 points per game in Seattle’s en route to winning the Rookie of the Year award. At this moment, Oden was dealing with the pressure that is heaped on a number one overall pick, the realization that the person picked after you are considered better than you, and that you are letting down an entire city of fans by not being able to play. The Ringer’s Mirin Fader wrote about Oden recently and this excerpt from her excellent piece sums up what Oden was feeling at the time.
“I just secluded myself from everybody,” he says.
Sometimes, he stayed in the house for two weeks straight. He felt too ashamed to go outside. He feared running into anyone from high school. “I felt like a loser,” he says.
In the social media age, athletes are exposed to their fans more than ever, but they are also exposed to their critics. As Oden entered the league, social networks like Twitter and Facebook were gaining in popularity, which allowed a platform for disgruntled fans to air their grievances. Oden was called the biggest bust in NBA history, a wasted draft pick, among other things. The malice towards Oden came because of injuries that were out of his control, and he was abused for it by the fans. Oden’s story is not isolated. Recently former Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel admitted in a documentary that he attempted suicide after being cut by the team. Manziel, a first-round draft pick, also dealt with the pressure of trying to rejuvenate a moribund franchise and failed miserably due to his own shortcomings and the incompetence of the front office that he was presented with. His mental health struggles and eventual turn to a suicide attempt highlight how important the game is to a high-level collegiate athlete and how much can be impacted when they fail to meet expectations.
Committed to the Game
An aspect that is often overlooked when it comes to understanding the psyche of athletes is just how committed professional athletes are to their craft. From a young age, when their extraordinary talent is recognized, these athletes are fully committed to realizing their dreams of making it to the league. This means joining travel teams, compiling highlight videos, and training for long hours, all in the hopes of being recruited by a college program. Then performing in college in the hopes of being noticed by scouts in the pros to eventually get drafted.
Every waking second of every day is in the effort to become a professional athlete. And when that dream is realized, they become fully committed to performing at a high level to stay in the professional ranks for as long as possible. But when that ends, there is a moment of “What do I do now”? Former NBA player Dion Waiters recently commented on this, admitting that he went through feelings of depression when he was out of the league.
Considering Waiters’ path to the league it is easy to understand why he felt lost. Basketball was an escape for Waiters, who was raised by a single mother in Philadelphia. Waiters committed himself to the game in high school end route to playing for national powerhouse Syracuse and then eventually being drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2012 NBA Draft. He then played for 8 seasons for 4 different teams and won a title in 2020 with the Los Angeles Lakers. Waiters explained that his time away from the game made him wonder what he did wrong to have the game taken away from him.
When professional leagues indicate that they have moved on from needing your services, it is a tough pill to swallow. Being an athlete is in many ways what defines many players, and to be told that you are no longer good enough is a shock, to say the least. To deal with this, players have gone a variety of routes. Some have transitioned to broadcasting, while others have gone to lower-level leagues, and a select few moved on to the business world as their next challenge. Regardless of the path chosen, the fall from the spotlight, from something that has been the focus of an entire life, is jarring. This is a struggle that athletes have dealt with for decades, but it seems only now that they are comfortable speaking up about it.
Changing the Precedent
There is an accepted trope for men known as the “strong silent type” to describe men that project self-confidence without showcasing emotion, since in a different time any display of emotion was considered a negative. No profession has been more associated with this emotionally detached narrative than the professional athlete. In many ways, athletes are expected to be robotic, to be grateful that they have been given generational wealth for being incredibly proficient at a game.
This has been the foundation of smear campaigns against athlete activism such as “shut up and dribble”, a tone that has suggested that an athlete has no reason to complain about anything. But that narrative is now under siege as more and more current and former players are speaking up about their mental health. Why this is so important is that athletes are our role models, the people that we grow up idolizing and trying to emulate. By sharing that they too are vulnerable and experience human emotions, there is a relatability for anyone who is experiencing similar feelings.
Will a few players like Dion Waiters, Johnny Manziel, or Ricky Rubio change the way that men in the United States approach mental health? Absolutely not. But by these players speaking about their experiences of loneliness and depression in addition to being advocates for therapy, there can be meaningful conversations that can start. As someone who has been to therapy, there are two things that I understand. The first is that therapy can do wonders regarding evaluating your life and how to process the events that occur in it. The second is that you don’t know that you need therapy until you go to therapy.
Athletes endorse all sorts of products that help fuel the capitalist machine that is America. Everything from candy bars to sneakers has a pitch person who is also an athlete. But what this country needs more than ever are spokespeople for mental health, people who can show us as men that these feelings are normal to have and to seek help when we need it. And that is the true legacy of the modern athlete, that we see them as humans in a way that we never have before.
Michael J McCluskey 