Kevin Love is an American professional basketball player of considerable pedigree. Yet, for much of his career, he has been known for inconsistent performance and unspecified illnesses. On a number of occasions, he would leave a game inexplicably, with no sign of injury. Inevitably, he became a subject of buzz and speculation. Teammates griped, several pundits and sportswriters shredded him, and fans vented whenever his team lost a game.
The mystery ended recently, when Love made a public disclosure that he suffers from depression and panic attacks. It is the intense feeling of fright that sends the heart racing and tightening, as though one is suddenly confronted by a life-threatening danger. The trigger can be as benign as a forthcoming meeting with prospective in-laws or shooting a free-throw in a basketball game.
In an interview with a writer for the U.S. sports network ESPN, Love provided this gut-wrenching account of what happened on one of the occasions he mysteriously left the court: “My heart was jumping out of my chest. I couldn’t get any air to my lungs. I was trying to clear my throat by sticking my hand down my throat. It was terrifying. I thought I was having a heart attack. I was very scared. I really felt like I was going to die in that moment.”
It didn’t come easy for him to make that public disclosure. After all, the world of sports is a world of machismo. It is a world of chest-thumping and high-fives, a world in which people brag about their abilities and conceal their disabilities.
Fans expect no less. After all, professional athletes are distinguished by their uncommon skills, agility and strength. They are adored — sometimes even worshipped — like mortal gods. They are not associated with frailty. Quite the contrary, they are expected to perform at peak level — all the time.
In all these expectations, there is just one reality that is missing: athletes are human beings. Sure, they earn a lot more in a year than most of us earn in a lifetime, and some flaunt their riches to let the world know they are it. But none of that shields them from the same travails that beset us all. The worries, insecurities, relational travails, genetic Achilles heels, and vulnerability to myriad afflictions.
Love said there’s a history of depression in his family, and that probably explains his episodes of panic attacks. “It’s difficult to talk about. It’s difficult to confront,” he told the ESPN writer. “I finally had to say to myself, ‘Your whole life these things will affect you, so how are you going to manage it?’”
As it turns out, Love is not alone. The American basketball league that boasts or has boasted the likes of Dr. J, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James and Stephen Curry also has several players who suffer from a variety of mental illnesses. For many of them, life is a struggle, nothing close to the enviable existence that fans presume. Following Love’s example, they are making public their personal struggles.
For Paul Pierce, another standout player for the Boston Celtics, his anxiety and depression were triggered by a stabbing incident at a nightclub. And while he battled the emotions on his own, matters got worse after someone called him with the emphatic warning: “I’m going to kill you.” “So now I’m really paranoid,” Pierce told the ESPN writer. “I don’t want to go anywhere. The police sat in the front of my house for months. I was a mess.”
As a star player, who would soon lead the team to a championship, Pierce was earning millions of dollars at the time. He became so rich, in fact, that he walked away from a contract that would have paid him $21.5 million in 2011.
“I would tell everyone to get the help they need,” he advises, alluding to how he eventually got his mental state under control. “My depression was bad — really bad. I never want to feel that way again.”
Reading such accounts of star athletes’ anguish was a reminder of the folly of envy. It is the reason I never covet others’ status or seeming great life. Regardless of the grandeur and accolades, I never assume that others are better off than I am. In fact, my inclination is to believe that I am better off in my shoes. At least, I have come to know where they pinch and made peace with it.
But that’s easier said than done. For athletes in particular societal pressures are titanic. It is as though people link their lives to the performance of their teams or favourite athletes.
As I watched the tennis sister duo of Serena and Venus Williams play at peak levels in the ongoing US Open, I can’t help recalling when their father, Richard Williams, was being vilified for keeping them from playing in too many tournaments. Sometimes, he rotated them among tournaments to keep them from competing too often against each other.
It was the action of a wise father who understood that the rivalry could ruin her daughters’ close sisterhood and friendship. Yet to hear some sports pundits, Mr. Williams was wacky. He was being too controlling and impeding his daughters’ success.
The real reason for the criticisms was, of course, that people couldn’t get enough of Serena and Venus, whether they were playing against others or each other. And they were ratings winners for television. But what was good for the fans and ratings was not good for the young sisters. So, their father acted accordingly.
Today, his wisdom is self-evident. His daughters’ longevity at the peak of tennis is one of the most phenomenal feats in any sports. And more than anything else, they have managed to remain sister-friends despite their rivalry on the court. Yet, none of those who vilified the now ailing Mr. Williams has acknowledged their folly and apologized to him.
Not that he cares. It is enough consolation that his daughters have proved him right. He never seemed to care about the criticisms anyway, because he knew the principles that guided him. It is a lesson not just for those in sports, but for the rest of us.
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