Stress drives, cripples athletes
Editor’s note: This is the third in a weekly series in observance of May’s Mental Health Month.
Like anything, stress in moderation can be a good thing, the driving force behind an athlete’s incredible display of athleticism.
But too much stress, and “for the love of the game” goes out the window, and athletes may choke under pressure, take a break from or quit the sport entirely.
Justin Gregula is an example of the former. Gregula was a record-breaking quarterback at Washington High School and led his team to a perfect record in 2001 and to WPIAL and PIAA Class AA championships. He also led the Little Prexies to a 2022 WPIAL Class AA baseball title.
Gregula was a three-year starter at Old Dominion University, with a career batting average of .286, a .447 slugging percentage and .771 OPS.
As stressful as competition can be the higher in the levels you go, Gregula said, it can also be a reason to elevate performance.
“I think the stress in competition is why I love sports,” he said. “I feel like stress is the emotion or feeling of the unknown. Results only happen after performance. I’d say I can personally relate to this on both sides of the plate, meaning I was better in the moment than projecting playing with fear.”
But for many, the fear of failure beats the drive to perform at the highest levels, making sports stressful in a bad way.
Steve Blass led the Pittsburgh Pirates to the 1971 World Series championship.
After another successful season in 1972 when he made the All-Star team, control trouble began for Blass, who had led the Pirates to four division titles in five years.
St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Rick Ankiel came unglued in the 2000 National League playoffs.
His initial playoff start was simply a meltdown. Ankiel only lasted 2-2/3 innings, walking six batters and uncorking five wild pitches, most going to the backstop. He got two more chances in that postseason, finishing with a 15.75 ERA with 11 walks in four innings and nine wild pitches.
Ankiel was never the same and admitted to being scared while pitching and using alcohol to calm his nerves while pitching in 2001.
He eventually switched to being an outfielder.
Major-league second basemen Steve Sax and Chuck Knoblach developed throwing problems to first base. Catcher Mackey Sasser ended up out of baseball after a long-term problem throwing the ball back to the pitcher from behind home plate.
In an article by sports psychologist Matthew Sacco, PhD, of the Cleveland Clinic, Sacco wrote that “the unique culture of sports can serve as a pressure cooker. The aggressive environment within locker rooms often preys on any perception of weakness.”
Sacco concludes that “the perfectionist mindset of many competitors” is a force that can leave athletes feeling unsatisfied despite positive performances.
He added: “As you work your way up the level of competition, it turns the heat up on some of these factors – and they can become a little bit more pronounced depending on the person.”
Coping with the ‘yips’
This “bad stress” is sometimes called the “yips,” a phrase coined by golfer Tommy Armour and most often used to describe stress-related failure in golf, baseball and football. The yips eventually led Armour to abandon tournament play. The definition of the yips between sports is not the same; however, the outcome is. The athlete fails repeatedly.
Becky Luzier, head coach for Bethel Park High School girls lacrosse team, has spent 22 years – more than half her life – coaching girls lacrosse, and has seen firsthand the effects of stress on young athletes. She said at the youth and high school level, the pressure sometimes comes not from within, but from without.
“I think that a piece of the puzzle is parents’ expectations around their child’s performance. A lot of time, I feel that kids bring more stress to the field about their performance that is not tied to their own feelings about it or my feelings about it, but their parents’ feelings about it,” Luzier said, adding she’s heard parents offer to pay players for every goal scored. “I’ve had experiences where kids are struggling to perform on the field because they have so much pressure coming from mom or dad.”
Creating a culture where athletes compete against themselves, not the opponent, helps Luzier’s players perform at their highest levels even during high-stakes games (BP girls lacrosse has made playoffs almost every year but this one since Luzier started coaching 15 years ago, and the team has two section titles to its name).
Girls practice meditation and other stress-relief techniques; Luzier and her assistant coach Taylor Hendal, a school counselor, have an open door policy and welcome girls to approach them with any on- or off-field issues.
“We preach from the day that they walk into the program that this is a program that has high standards for effort, for attitude and for being a good teammate. We try to take the focus off of wins and losses on the board,” Luzier said. “What we have to do … is get one day better, one game better.”
Ashleigh Manns, a senior goalie, has a routine for leaving her personal life off the field.
“To handle the stress of being a goalie, I put my entire focus onto what I am doing in the game. I start off my warmups by going off to pace by myself or to practice my throws with one of my teammates,” she said in a text. “The stress of participating in the sport for the whole year also allows for me to reflect on what I can and can’t do to perform better and how my efforts affect those around me.”
Averie Moul, a Bethel Park girls lacrosse junior captain who has played lacrosse since third grade, likes staying busy, but when school-sports-life balance becomes a little too much, she runs or works out. Before games, Moul said the team de-stresses by jamming out to a great pump-up playlist.
“We always get rid of the nerves before we go out on the field and we always play together,” she said.
Moul and the other captains serve as leaders and role models to younger players, something important to the high school junior, whose transition from middle to high school lacrosse was eye-opening.
“My freshman year, I was staring on the varsity team. It was a lot because it’s a completely different game and I’m playing with all these older girls,” Moul said. “I just remember not really understanding how fast the high school game actually went. There were a lot of upperclassmen that led me to understand everything is OK, mistakes don’t define (me). I think Becky is the reason we have such good leaders on our team.”
Moul said when she’s stressed and her coach isn’t around, she’ll often remember Luzier’s tips for managing that stress. She also said she’s been very lucky to have coaches who are always there for their players, something that’s key to keeping stress levels down and fun competition levels up.
“I think it’s a very stressful, complicated game. Being a student athlete and having to worry about studies and your sport all at the same time can be a lot. Everyone’s capable of doing it,” Moul said. “It’s all about who your coaches are and who you surround yourself with. On our team, at least, there’s always someone we can go and talk to to help us figure it out.”
Luzier, who also owns and directs Winner’s Edge Lacross and Intrepid Lacrosse Club, said mental health in sports is beginning to be part of the larger conversation, which is helpful to local athletes, but there’s still work to be done.
“I think post-pandemic there’s a lot more open conversation about mental health in general. We’re talking about it a lot more, I think kids are more comfortable speaking about it,” she said, noting a high school athlete recently asked for an extra minute before going back onto the field because she was anxious. “That is not something a kid would’ve said to me 10 years ago. I think more of us have the vernacular … to name what we’re feeling.”
But, she said, “we still have a lot of room to grow as a society.”
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