Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
From green to the blues...
Athletes are reluctant to show any form of weakness, making it difficult to admit to any mental issues, writes TANYA WATERWORTH
APROFESSIONAL sporting career should be a springboard to a successful life for an athlete. However, it is often anything but that.
In the tough world of modern gladiators, the battle with depression and instability can quickly become overwhelming. Especially once a sporting career comes to an end.
South African Rugby Legends (Sarla) in conjunction with My Players – The Rugby Players’ Organisation and The Institute of Psychology and Wellbeing at North West University have launched a mental health helpline for current and former rugby players in need of assistance.
On Wednesday, Sarla CEO and former Springbok and Sharks player Stefan Terblanche said the sudden death earlier this year of Australian lock Dan Vickermann, who was South African born, had put the spotlight on the mental health of rugby players, past and present.
Official reports said there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding Vickermann’s death, with the news later emerging that he had battled with depression.
Terblanche said: “When I started playing, we played rugby because we loved it and we would be studying as well. Now it has all changed and players are being contracted at 16 years old and there’s so much pressure.
“By your early thirties, you are pushed back into society. The transition from locker room to a boardroom, or any life after sport, can be extremely difficult. There’s a need to talk more openly about how depression and other mental illnesses can impact on the well-being of athletes,” said Terblanche.
MyPlayers rugby organisation’s Jonell van der Westhuizen, who is the player career development manager, said as sport became more competitive, so did the stress.
“The drive to win and to be selected for the squad places tremendous pressure on players.
“Players have a certain reputation to maintain, that they are strong and invincible. Being a role model that people look up to makes it difficult to admit that you have personal issues and are struggling,” she said, adding that the end of a sporting career saw a player having to establish a whole new identity.
“Fame brings a whole new dimension to players’ lives. Their identity and self- worth may no longer depend on intrinsic happiness, such as contentment with their family life, but rather on extrinsic factors such as money, fans/ followers.
“Being used to the limelight, with fans wanting to take pictures of you and with you to hardly ever being recognised in the streets, can be a hard knock, especially for someone whose self-esteem is dependent on it,” she said.
The launch of the rugby players’ helpline follows research carried out in 2015 by UCT’s Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine, along with the University of Amsterdam’s Academic Centre For Evidence-based Sports Medicine, focusing on emotional health issues among retired professional rugby players from France, Ireland and South Africa.
These included Sarla, Sarpa (SA Rugby Professionals Association), SA Rugby, the Union des Jouers de Rugby Professionals and the Irish Rugby Union Players Association. They were the first rugby bodies to carry out such a study, which included feedback from 295 players between the ages of 35-48, with preliminary results indicating a wide variety of emotional symptoms including sleep disturbances, alcohol, smoking and poor eating habits, along with other signs of distress and depression.
According to Van Der Westhuizen, the health-line includes a network of more than 20 qualified psychologists across the country, providing assistance to all 14 rugby unions, as well as all retired rugby players.
Kyle Dutton from The Sport Exchange, which manages athletes from many sporting codes including rugby, soccer, cricket, golf, hockey, triathlon, swimming and cycling, said there had been a “severe lack of emphasis put on the mental health of athletes”.
“Most of the time, any real effort is only put in during a playing career and not afterwards. It is really unfortunate that it took the death of an athlete to really bring this to light in the rugby space.
“Players’ associations across different sporting codes are starting to pay attention, but likely don’t have dedicated resources to assist. Structures need to be put in place from the beginning of a professional career and monitored throughout, including postcareer,” said Dutton.
He said male and female athletes competing at the highest levels were very reluctant to show any form of weakness, making it exceptionally difficult to admit to any mental issues, while re-entering a “normal life” post career could be overwhelming.
“Most players focus all of their energy in their sport, but there needs to be a balance because a professional sporting career may well last for less than a decade. Most players don’t know where their passions lie outside of sport because they haven’t had the structures in place to allow them to do so. When they finish their career, they know nothing else and feel they have no purpose or skill set.
“Athletes also find it difficult to replicate the emotional response they experience while playing their sport. How do you replicate the feeling of playing in front of 80 000 people in a final? It’s a very difficult thing.
“We now have a real chance to make a difference in this space and players need mentors and role models to assist,” said Dutton, noting that the welfare of athletes had lagged well behind the rapid progress in other spheres of professional sport, from nutrition to sports science.
“For too long athletes have been seen as commodities by various role players and once they have no more tangible value, they are left to fend for themselves,” he said.