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Pressure — it can drive a select few to achieve feats we didn’t know were possible: Canadian runner Andre De Grasse sprinting to gold in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics; NBA superstar Kobe Bryant ailing through a torn Achilles in the waning moments of a 118-116 win over the Golden State Warriors in 2013; or tennis icon Serena Williams dominating the court just six months after giving birth, to name a few. But sometimes — too often — pressure comes from the wrong place. It becomes the lead weight that can cause even the most resilient individuals to cave like a house of cards.
Dozens of high-level athletes have come forward in recent years to talk about ‘caving’ from the pressures of their profession. In 2015, nearing the end of an illustrious career that left him as the most decorated Olympian in history, swimmer Michael Phelps revealed troubling stories about dealing with severe depression and suicidal thoughts in his prime. More recently, Naomi Osaka, the tennis mega-star, stepped away from the court ahead of the 2021 French Open, citing social anxiety and media pressure that led to her own bouts of depression.
Both athletes were showered with support — and struck by a barrage of hate from critics across the globe, calling them weak and soft for succumbing to their struggles. That kind of criticism is a trend that has developed with the rise of social media: boisterous fans — some empowered by their anonymity and unfiltered access to a comment section — feel compelled to pile on the world’s premier athletes about their tribulations in sport and life.
But doesn’t pressure come with the job?
Picture this: It’s Game 7 of the 2019 Eastern Conference Semi-Finals. The Toronto Raptors, who had acquired superstar Kawhi Leonard 10 months earlier in a highly-scrutinized blockbuster deal from the San Antonio Spurs in exchange for fan-favourite DeMar DeRozan, entered a timeout, tied in a do-or-die game and are 4.2 seconds away from the franchise’s second conference finals appearance ever.
The camera panned across thousands of harrowed faces in the stands, then cut to an exhausted Leonard, who had already poured in a game-high 39 points. Before anyone could fully catch their breath, Leonard fielded the inbound at the bottom of the logo in the half-court, raced to the right corner while fighting off a defender, and pulled the trigger on a fade-away jump shot with 6′ 10″ Joel Embiid’s hand in his face.
The ball dramatically bounced four times around the rim’s 18-inch opening before finally touching twine as the buzzer sounded. The win was an instant classic defined by a game-winning shot countless young, aspiring athletes have tried to emulate in their driveways.
This is the type of pressure athletes expect to come with the job. Elite athletes know how to come through in these moments. That’s why they are elite athletes. But social media has brought another type of pressure to light — one that you can’t practice for in a backyard.
Our society places professional athletes on some of the highest pedestals. These competitors, who many view as larger-than-life figures and role models, are held to a standard most of their faultfinders can’t understand.
Many people see elite athletes as “superhumans,” or emotionless gladiators, who should be resilient enough to cope with any level of criticism.
That fallacy has blinded much of the sports audience from understanding athletes are just like them — regular, everyday human beings — despite their extraordinary athletic ability.
“They have no idea,” says John Rush, a former professional football player, about the public’s perception of being a professional athlete.
Rush had a three-year stint with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League (CFL). His run ended when the league returned for the 2021 season after a year-long hiatus owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Still under contract with the Bombers, Rush was expected to return to defend the club’s Grey Cup run in 2019 but take a 40 per cent pay cut to compensate for a shortened season and no fans in the stands.
“I was like ‘Yeah, I’m not destroying my body for $35,000 before tax’,” he says.
The underwhelming wage was less than the league’s typical minimum salary ($65,000) and meagre in comparison to the National Football League’s minimum salary for its practice squad players, which tip the scales at US$165,000.
It wasn’t the first time Rush wavered to return to the game he loved, and the pay cut was enough to convince him to finally move on.
Rush didn’t enjoy his career in professional football. The 28-year-old describes a life without job security, with non-guaranteed contracts, and an indescribable amount of wear and tear on his body. Meanwhile, every move he made on the field was magnified and readily available for a country to critique.
“Imagine going into Saskatchewan, playing in front of 35,000 screaming fans, and being broadcasted to a nation that’s watching your every step,” he exclaims. “Fireworks, reporters sticking microphones in your face, camera crews flying by you — you realize it’s a production and there’s a lot of money on the line.”
The decision to step away from football was an easy one for Rush, not only because of the money but also because of the toll his job took on his mental health.
He could feel the mounting pressure build in his first year with the team when he watched seven teammates get cut throughout the season.
“Grown men in tears,” he recalls.
In his second year, Rush acknowledged the pressure and wondered how he was supposed to feel happy in an environment where one misstep could mean losing his job. Though the feeling of uncertainty is something Rush was used to — less than one per cent of players make it to the pros — playing professionally was different; the stakes were a lot higher.
The pressure was causing him to cave.
After growing up roughhousing with his brother in rural Niagara Falls, Rush made his way to the University of Guelph where he excelled as a thumping linebacker for the Gryphons.
Rush remembers 2011, his first year of collegiate football, as a simpler time. The then 17-year-old typically donned a cozy sweats/sweater/toque combo on gamedays to stay relaxed before taking the field. Music and film study made up his pregame ritual. A sign of the times, he used his Blackberry Pearl to best his score in Brick Breaker and occasionally check Facebook.
At the time, it would have been hard to fathom his phone becoming something that could harm his mental health.
“It’s crazy looking back at it now but you never really looked at your phone and now it’s an extension of you,” he says. “You never got attacked on [social media] — the only people I had were my friends and family so anytime I posted, I got nothing but support.”
Rush prides himself on his work ethic, even though he felt inadequate for much of his sports career. He admits he was never the most athletic player, but says he was willing to put his head through a brick wall to make a play. He worked tirelessly in the hopes of one day being drafted into the CFL.
That day would never come.
Rush went undrafted in 2015, following his fourth year of university ball. The news sent him spiralling into a depression. He called his dad, who told him he had a decision to make. He could come back home and figure out what to do with his life or return to school for a final year and a shot at making the CFL.
The pressure galvanized Rush, who started incessantly training for what would be his breakthrough season.
The then 24-year-old went on to win the 2015 President’s Trophy, awarded to Canada’s best defensive player in U Sports, and inked his first professional contract as an undrafted free agent with the Bombers as a do-it-all player shortly after.
While Rush’s prominence grew, so did social media’s role in people’s lives. By the time he left football, he had amassed more than 20,000 followers on Twitter.
As social media nestled into his life, Rush’s routine changed too.
“You wake up and check social media,” he says, “Everyone knows it’s bad to do that, but they do it anyway.”
As a pro, Rush’s game-day routine started to look different. He added watching Netflix and mindlessly scrolling on his phone to the mix. In the locker room, more teammates had their heads down, listening to music while running their thumbs up their screen — a contrasting scene from his college days when Rush remembers players relying on conversation to pass time.
While Rush’s locker-room routine had changed, so had the way contracts were handled for most CFL players. Since 2014, one-year contracts have been the norm, as two and three-year deals didn’t favour the league’s players in many cases. Many players felt they would either outplay their multi-year agreements in the first year, leaving them to miss out on more money in free agency, or underperform and be cut from the team the next year. While one-year signings allow players to maximize their financial leverage when playing well, it was yet another blow to any job stability.
Rush’s love for football began to slowly deteriorate while the secure lifestyle he coveted became a distant possibility.
Distracting himself on social media became therapeutic for Rush as he tried to escape the reality of his job for a few moments. But, over time, like many other athletes, he discovered the darker side of the digital world.
“Athletes will experience more failure than most people will experience in their entire lives. They experience more public scrutiny and opinion about their action, and the people making those comments have never been in those situations so they don’t understand the challenge.”
Dr. Adrienne Leslie-Toogood, mental performance consultant and director of sport psychology at the Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba.
Mental diet
“Mental health and physical health are one and the same,” says Caelin White, a registered clinical psychologist and sports psychologist based in Winnipeg.
White, a former high school athlete who had his rugby career derailed by injuries, has spent the last eight years helping dozens of professional athletes maintain a competitive edge and overcome performance issues, eating disorders, struggles with perfectionism, and injury.
White says each athlete’s case is different, but he often suggests that they are all mindful of the same thing: their “mental diet.” A mental diet asks someone to manage where they’re directing their attention and be selective about which information they’re ingesting.
Things like sponsorships, endorsements, contract negotiations, playing time, and criticism on social media are all out of a player’s control and can distract them from performing their job.
“For people, you have to be aware of the tendency to compare your life to others [on social media] when those comparisons are usually artificially inflated in terms of how good other people’s lives are,” he says. “For athletes, it’s a time vacuum. You probably can be spending time doing other things and you have to manage your vulnerability to being evaluated.”
White says athletes must ask themselves if the time they’re spending on social media is helping them perform. In some cases, that answer is yes, if it’s being used sparingly to unwind or stay motivated.
But in a lot of cases, “it can be a high-risk activity,” White says.
White says entertaining public criticism can open unhealed wounds of confidence and self-esteem issues if the athlete hasn’t developed the ability to get unstuck from things that aren’t in the moment. He says that trait is particularly important to emphasize when training young players.
But even when athletes are being mindful of what they read online, sometimes it’s difficult to avoid the ornery subsection of the internet, known as trolls.
“When social media was first exploding, we didn’t really understand the effects of it on the brain, but now we know in the general population and in any performance discipline that these things do have a negative effect, depending on how you use them,” White says.
Dr. Adrienne Leslie-Toogood, a mental performance consultant and director of sport psychology at the Canadian Sport Centre Manitoba, says the tricky part for athletes is everyone has access to them.
“If a voice goes often, then we listen to it more,” she says. “Because there’s not that accountability to it, the comments are very biting.”
“Athletes will experience more failure than most people will experience in their entire lives. They experience more public scrutiny and opinion about their action, and the people making those comments have never been in those situations so they don’t understand the challenge.”
Leslie-Toogood has worked in performance coaching since 2000, helping Golf Canada and, since 2019, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. She believes social media can be dangerous for high-level athletes but says it comes down to how they are feeling in the moment.
“If you’re performing well and have the role you want on a team and you’re feeling really confident, it might not affect you as much,” she says.
Leslie-Toogood emphasizes to her clients that mental health, while complex, isn’t a dirty term and isn’t reserved for the weak.
“Having good mental health means being able to live with meaning and purpose, manage emotions and focus and attention — respond and react the way you want,” she says. “Human beings are built in a way to feel overwhelmed at times. Mental health is fluid, it’s not always present, and we’re all vulnerable to issues.”
Cup size
AJ Zeglen, manager of Focus Fitness and assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose hockey clubs, says everyone has a cup size. The cup, used as an analogy, is a reflection of a person’s base strength and athletic ability, which is influenced by things like genetics, nutritional diet, and sleep schedule.
The goal for Zeglen and his players is to “increase their cup size” every day, even if the improvements are minuscule.
Zeglen, who has trained hundreds of elite hockey players since 2009, says he’s noticed that a lot of the crossover between physical and mental health happens in the gym.
“Poor mental health can absolutely affect players in the gym and on the ice,” he says.
Zeglen isn’t a certified therapist — nor does he pretend to be — but says players will confide in him about their struggles.
“They never teach you that it’s part of the job, but it’s a very underrated part of what I do and it happens organically almost every time you’re in the gym,” he says. “All of a sudden they’re resting in-between sets and then something comes up.”
“It’s not even necessarily important for you to have an answer. Just listen.”
AJ Zeglen, manager of Focus Fitness and assistant strength and conditioning coach for the Winnipeg Jets and Manitoba Moose.
Mental issues can be delicate situations with athletes who’re dependent on performing at their best every game. In such a case, Zeglen prioritizes maintaining the player’s confidence and consistency away from the ice.
Take a player who’s just been scratched from the lineup: after working tirelessly their entire lives to play at the highest level, they’re relegated to the press box in a message that says ‘you’re not good enough right now’ — a message that can be worsened by social media scrutiny or pressure from their friends and family.
“The odds are that they’re much more likely to be affected psychologically in that sense than physically,” Zeglen says. “They might start to second-guess themselves on the ice or start overthinking their play.”
While players have other in-house resources like certified counsellors and sports psychologists to help them conquer mental issues, Zeglen wants to ensure they’re still “adding up wins” in the weight room.
“Motivation is going to come and go, but when it’s low we still need to perform,” he says.
Zeglen says strength and conditioning coaches do a good job of making sure players are prepared physically but thinks they can do a better job of maintaining a structure for psychological wellbeing.
He believes his role as a resource for players comes down to two factors: trust and respect.
“A lot of people’s challenges in life come from not feeling heard or respected,” he says. “If you can give them that environment, that usually goes a long way in helping them.”
“It’s not even necessarily important for you to have an answer. Just listen.”
“It’s unhealthy what we put them through.”
Kate Nosworthy, Taekwondo Canada coach.
Perfection
The pressure weighing on elite athletes is undeniable, and while team sport athletes can rely on their teammates to get them through challenging stretches, athletes in individual sports must shoulder the load alone.
Kate Nosworthy, a coach with Taekwondo Canada, has trained some of Canada’s best in the mixed martial arts form since 2006 and managed the national team for Olympic qualifiers twice.
She says the Olympics is the most pressure-packed time of the athletes’ lives, beginning 18 months before the competition even starts.
“It’s unhealthy what we put them through,” she says bluntly. “We put a huge amount of media pressure on them and the expectation to appear perfect is astronomical.”
“With everything else in sport you strive for progression, then you get to the Olympics and anything less than a medal is unacceptable.”
Dr. Patrick Cohn of the Sports Psychology Podcast by Peaksports.com, says perfectionism is a type of self-pressure that can lead to poor mental health and affect the overall quality of a player’s game.
Cohn explains an example of a kid who has a bad game — instead of looking at the things they did well, they dwell on the things they did poorly. Many call this a “championship mindset,” but it’s also important to look at the mistakes as building opportunities.
But for elite athletes, the pursuit of perfection extends beyond the performance on the playing surface.
“It’s incessant,” says Nosworthy. “There is no break from [the pressure]. You can’t ever not be ok because it makes the associations look bad.”
Nosworthy says there’s even more pressure on sponsored athletes now to increase their social media presence, with some required to post 50 times per month to fulfill their contractual obligations.
Since 2011, a large social media following has been a prerequisite of sorts before an organization even thinks about sponsoring an athlete. An obligation to post is now standard practice in most endorsement contracts.
“National Sport Organizations are averse to looking at the negative side of social media because at the end of the day they’re still a business and any publicity is good publicity,” she says.
Nosworthy says national sport athletes are now in an unsettling position where their concerns about social media affecting their mental health could go unsupported.
“As a white male whose voice has never been questioned, it’s my job to advocate for these people [whose voice goes unheard].”
John Rush, former professional football player with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
The wedding dress
John Rush comes from a family where effort and hard work are at the crux of any success in life. His father, a life-long factory worker, would sit at a local Denny’s for hours pretending to eat so he could spend more time with Rush’s mother, who picked up weekend shifts as a waitress to help pay bills.
“That’s how my parents operated,” he says.
Rush’s parents gave him the same support, rarely missing a game.
“Some people won the lottery because they have rich parents. I won the lottery because I have amazingly supportive parents.”
Now that Rush is no longer playing football, he feels a different kind of pressure. His job as a financial advisor keeps him busy but isn’t accompanied by the aches and pains that come from the rigours of an 18-game season.
His social media following has continued to increase through his identity as a vegan blogger. His website, The Rescue Dog Kitchen, shares ideas for a plant-based lifestyle while donating some of his revenue to animal shelters.
Rush uses his large social media following to make a difference.
“Sports has given me that platform,” he says.
On May 31, 2021, in an effort to support the 2SLGBTQ+ community and break gendered fashion norms, Rush wore a wedding dress to his COVID-19 vaccine appointment at the RBC Convention Centre and raised more than $13,000 for the Rainbow Resource Centre.
As he expected, his efforts didn’t come without some pushback. Rush was slandered on social media, called beta, soy boy — a reference to his vegan lifestyle — and several homophobic slurs.
Rush says the comments didn’t bother him, realizing it came with the territory of being a proponent for change.
“As a white male whose voice has never been questioned, it’s my job to advocate for these people [whose voices go unheard].”
Rush estimates he spends a few hours on social media each day. While he admits his mental health would likely benefit from deleting the platforms, he believes they can be used for the greater good.
“I’ve built a business around it now. If you use social media the way it’s intended, you can really build a beautiful community on there,” he says.
Rush believes professional athletes are criticized on social media because they are paid to play. A lack of sympathy, he argues, develops for adults who play a game, despite them competing for the general public’s entertainment.
“I don’t get to come into your office and scream at you for screwing up a file just because you get paid for it,” he says.
“Athletes are human beings. They have human emotions. It’s an unfortunate by-product of the environment.”
There’s an onus on athletes to manage what they subject themselves to, but there also needs to be some accountability among fans. Playfully heckling players is socially accepted in any game — it’s, in part, what pushes athletes to show up in the biggest moments.
But social media’s meteoric rise has created a space for fans to access players off the playing surface. Playful heckling has turned to personal attacks and death threats in an athlete’s direct messages; rather than celebrate a historic feat, comment sections are now riddled with attempts to minimize that accomplishment by highlighting a player’s past faults; posts in recognition of remarkable athletic achievements are now tarnished by trolls who spew irrelevant information in hopes of discrediting a player’s skillset.
There’s often an ego that accompanies the select few who make it to the highest level of sport. Even — at the young, ignorant points in their career — a feeling that they are superhuman. And why wouldn’t they feel that? In many cases, they’re the athlete growing up; the best their team, school, and town has ever seen. Maybe their rise to superstardom has been immortalized in their hometown’s history.
Though, sometimes the beginning of an athletic career starts from a place of insecurity. Rush argues many athletes play sports in search of validation from a parent, coach, or teammates. He believes social media is an outlet for some competitors to find affirmation.
In such cases, athletes aren’t just bearing the name on their jerseys. They carry the weight of an entire city on their backs. They’re paving a path for the next generation and representing their families in a nation’s limelight.
Much of this elite bunch welcomes the pressure on the playing surface, but it’s up to the parents, coaches, fans — the entire sports community — to understand that these athletes are human, and to see how our actions may be playing a part in caving the world’s “superhumans.”