There are images that get chiseled into our brains: Michael Phelps, face tilted skyward and looking like some sort of demigod, his Olympic medals around his neck and dangling from both his arms, bicep to wrist.
Or Naomi Osaka, grinning widely, a large mass of curls atop her head, holding up the Australian Open trophy — her guileless charm palpable, and superseded only by her immense talent.
Even if you haven’t seen the photos, it’s easy to conjure them up, because these are the great athletes of our time. They swim really fast or hit balls impossibly hard. They are Aaron Judge or Lionel Messi or Serena Williams — first and last name, because that’s what we do with famous people we sort of know, but not really.
Pro athletes, it all seems to say, they’re absolutely not like us.
Except: What about the time Osaka cried after winning her first grand slam at Flushing Meadows in 2018, the crowd booing after she defeated Williams during a tense and controversial match? Or the flak she got after pulling out of the French Open to deal with her mental health?
What about the days after Phelps’ DUI arrest in 2014, when the most decorated Olympian of all time said he simply didn’t want to live anymore?
What about CC Sabathia or Pete Alonso, or anybody else who’s had the fortitude to publicly say that they’re not OK?
“My loneliness looks like a dark room and it’s closing, and I felt alone a lot in the pandemic,” Phelps said Wednesday as part of the U.S. Open’s mental health forum. “I just want to make sure we’re all doing this together . . . One in four people struggle with some kind of mental health [issue]. How come one in every four people aren’t talking about it?”
Usually, when we talk about pro athletes and mental health, there’s a camp that thinks it’s a vital and necessary conversation, and one that says that these multi-millionaires should suck it up and play. No shock: I’m in the former category.
But there’s more…
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