The Importance of Mental Health in Sports
The stigma surrounding mental health has been challenged heavily in recent years, and while a lot of progress has made in raising awareness, acceptance, and education about mental health disorders and struggles; I believe even more must be done for the world to fully understand the complex issues a lot of us experience mentally. Our minds our powerful tools that we aren’t given an instruction manual for how to use, yet there is a bevy of resources available to us that we need to be more aware of.
In particular, the conversation surrounding mental health needs to be of higher concern in professional sports, in my opinion. Professional sports are a unique form of entertainment in the sense that fans and athletes alike forget that sports are entertainment. Our passion for the games we love extend far beyond the realm of entertainment into a far more important ‘way of life’, where winning or losing and succeeding or failing are far more significant and complex results to our happiness. As a result, fans and media will ruthlessly criticize athletes who they do not know outside of their job, and the athlete has ultimately gotten used to that. All of us tend to forget that athletes are human beings too, which is dangerous.
Ja Morant is one of my favorite athletes currently, and in my opinion, is the most exciting player to watch in the NBA. He has one-of-a-kind athleticism, a tremendous feel for the game, controls the ball like it’s on a string, and plays with a fearless and energetic attitude that will have you on the edge of your seat every time you see him on the court. Yet, in recent weeks, Ja’s name has circulated in the news for the wrong reasons. From accusations of pointing guns at opposing teams’ busses, to rumored fights with a teenager, to his most recent controversy of brandishing a firearm on Instagram live that got him suspended for 8 games; the world of sports has turned their back on Ja Morant and now look at him as a thug, an idiot, or a bad role model.
I’m not making any excuses for Ja’s actions; in fact, I was extremely disappointed in him and fully believe he is solely responsible for any punishment, negative consequence, or other repercussion given to him. However, when it came out that Ja entered himself into rehab to seek counseling, it definitely changed the tone of the situation for me. It showed me that he’s been going through something, that he needs help navigating cloudy thoughts that go through his mind. In an interview with Jalen Rose, he opened up about his struggles to manage the stress that comes with being an athletic superstar making millions at the young age of 23. He owned up and denounced his mistakes, and made his own decision to take the steps to fix himself. Anyone who knocks that is extremely weak and ignorant, as we can never fully understand what others are going through and how it affects the way they see their world and make actions. Sure, you can’t excuse the actions if they are harmful, but you also must be quick to forgive and recognize what it means when someone seeks treatment for their mental health.
Many of the athletes we watch and talk about every single day, especially male athletes, grew up in a culture where they were considered soft if they opened up about their emotions or struggles, and thus were forced to bottle in trauma, stress, and built-up anger, anxiety, or sadness and carry on in their god gifted craft so they could continue to appease their peers. The tide has only began to shift recently, highlighted by a powerful 2018 article by Kevin Love where he opened up about his struggles with mental health.
Love, currently playing for the Miami Heat, suffers from anxiety and depression disorders. He has discussed experiencing a panic attack during a game in 2017 and feeling ashamed and embarrassed for seeking help. He also shared how he had suppressed his emotions and feelings for years, which ultimately led to him feeling like he was "carrying around a bag of rocks." Love emphasized the importance of seeking help and speaking up about mental health, especially for men who may feel pressure to hide their emotions. He also discussed his efforts to prioritize his mental health through therapy, meditation, and self-care practices.
Of course, Kevin Love never got into any dangerous off-court controversies like Ja did, which is why he was so widely celebrating for sharing his experiences in comparison to Morant. However, you can see the similarities in the descriptions of the feelings both men have dealt with when it comes to their mental health, which is why it’s important to understand that mental health issues can manifest in many different ways for different people. As a result, the way an individual reacts to feeling trapped by the stressors in their lives that cause negative emotions can range from a wide variety of actions, some more or less dangerous than others. The point is, athletes who are constantly in the spotlight and in the world of social media are prone to be a lot more susceptible to these stressors than you may think. Sure, they make millions of dollars playing a game, but that doesn’t mean they don’t experience the same emotions as me and you. Kevin Love and Ja Morant aren’t the only athletes going through this.
Staying in the world of the NBA, I want to point out a few examples of occasions where the fans and media tend to completely disregard the human aspect of discourse about the athlete, which adds to the pressure, stress, and mental toil I’ve described that can negatively affect a player’s mental health. Sure, healthy and respectful criticism of players is a part of the business, but these are some cases that genuinely worry me when it comes to putting myself in the shoes of the athlete.
Ben Simmons
There’s no professional athlete I worry for their mental health more than Ben Simmons. The highly touted “next LeBron James” had initial tremendous success, earning himself an opulent contract and esteemed accolades. However, he was always clowned for his serious lack of an outside jumpshot and free throw, and had a memorably disappointing playoff series against the Hawks and 2021 which led to his ugly divorce with the 76ers organization and subsequent trade to the Brooklyn Nets. During this time Simmons said he needed to take time off to focus on his mental health after all the hate he endured from the media and fans. Instead of the NBA fanbase hearing about this and coming together in support of Simmons, most people looked right past it, and the tormenting became even worse after Simmons struggled even more in Brooklyn. Now, he’s been shut down for the rest of the season due to a back injury that’s been bothering him for over a year now.
The reason I worry about Ben Simmons isn’t necessarily because I think he can’t handle it; in fact, I think he’s a strong man capable of ignoring the noise that surrounds him. However, how can I say I know that for sure? There are very few people in the world who can even conceive of having even a little bit of experience of being in the same shoes of someone like Simmons, so there’s no way of even imagining what it feels like to only see constant negativity be brought up when someone mentions your name. On top of that, even if he can handle it, he shouldn’t even have to in the first place. Ben Simmons has proven himself as a great basketball player, even if he continues to decline and never is able to get back to his highest level of play. Even if he handled his business incorrectly in Philadelphia, at some point you got to forgive the man for his mistakes and move on without dragging his name through the mud. At the end of the day, it's just basketball. It’s just a sport. It’s just entertainment.
“The Laker Effect”
We all know that the Los Angeles Lakers have the largest and most vocal fanbase in the NBA. The combination of residing in the 2nd largest city in the U.S. and having a historically victorious franchise led by the greatness of the likes of Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Shaq, Kareem, and now LeBron James has given the Lakers fanbase, and the whole NBA fanbase for that matter, extremely high expectations for the team and its players’ success. As a result, there’s been many well-respected players have their names get excessively dragged through the mud upon arriving in LA and performing even a little bit below expectation. There’s no better example of this than Russell Westbrook, who was a former MVP when he was traded from the Wizards to the Lakers in a big transaction in which the Lakers had to give up key pieces in Kyle Kuzma and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, two players who also was subject to heavy criticism from the Laker fanbase. Westbrook didn’t perform up to his standards, and he certainly had his low moments worthy of questioning. However, a look at his numbers shows that he was still solid, and it was more so his poor fit with the Lakers’ roster and style of play that led to the lack of success he endured in LA. Still though, the fans were ruthless towards Westbrook. Whether it was on Twitter or in the post-game press conference, after every loss or poor Russ performance
Westbrook was constantly seeing and hearing people talk about him like he was a bum off the streets rather than the future hall of famer that he is. What was supposed to be a joyous time playing for his hometown team next to two NBA legends turned into a time full of drama and turmoil, and you could visibly see it weighing on Russ’s shoulders during the time he was there.
This “Laker effect” isn’t limited to just stars like Westbrook, nor is it limited to the Lakers fanbase specifically; there are guys like the aforementioned Ben Simmons who has played for other teams that this type of thing happens to, so I’m not trying to make this sound like an attack on one team’s fanbase. However, I do think it highlights a general problem with fans struggling to separate the player from the human. Just today news surfaced, that Wizards guard Bradley Beal is being investigated for battery after a fan heckled him for not fulfilling a prop on his parlay. I’m not saying Beal isn’t to blame if he did indeed harm anyone, but it’s yet another example of a professional athlete showing out of character, negative behavior as a result of negative backlash from being in the spotlight simply playing a game at the highest level.
Markelle Fultz and Danny Green, two more players who have been susceptible to negativity; whether it be Fultz not living up to the expectations of a #1 pick, or Green receiving death threats for poor play with the Lakers
To conclude, athletes are humans too. In the case of basketball players, they are humans that make mistakes both on and off the court, and get constantly scrutinized by millions of people who don’t even know them. While certain off court mistakes, like in the case of Morant’s, are inexcusable, we as sports fans and media cannot be so quick to disregard the possible underlying stressors that could cause these high-profile athletes to carry out such negative actions. More importantly, we should extend this philosophy to how we view mental health in society as a whole. We as a people need to be more empathetic and understanding of each other’s struggles, and end the stigma associated with reaching out for help when you need it.
