In an interview recently on the BBC sport website, the exciting 16-year old American tennis player, Coco Gauff opened up about her amazing sporting journey this past year, from playing juniors tennis to competing against and then defeating many top senior players in Grand Slam tournaments. Many have marvelled not only at her extraordinary tennis skills but also at her calm and developed maturity in handling everything that has come her way. Her secret, she revealed, was that, “My parents always taught me to be calm in those moments and remember that pressure is a privilege.” Interestingly, the last point is from a quote by a tennis ‘great’ from another era, Billie Jean King, who said that “Pressure is a privilege – it only comes to those who earn it.” This statement has been paraphrased to mean that doing well produces greater pressure, because few experience it. The test of a true champion is in handling pressure; the test of a great character is in handling privilege.
In another extraordinary sporting achievement of the last year, the journey of the Springbok rugby team to win the World Cup was equally compelling. When Rassie Erasmus took over as coach two years earlier, they lost their first two matches and his job was on the line when they faced the almighty All Blacks, away in New Zealand. Amazingly they won! Their journey to the World Cup Final was not smooth; they lost their first match yet Erasmus saw the defeat as “a great test ground for us handling pressure”. After the tournament he shared his perspective on the matter, namely that pressure is relative. “In South Africa (pressure) is not having a job, (it is) having a close relative who is murdered,” he said. “Rugby should not create pressure, it should create hope. We have a privilege, not a burden.” Erasmus expanded on these thoughts when he added, “We wouldn’t call it sacrifice … we saw it as a massive honour to try and win it.”
The same thoughts, the same words, the same idea – pressure and privilege. Pressure is a privilege. In recent weeks there has been much talk about the need for certain sections of society to understand the enormous benefits they have received from the privilege they have enjoyed, though perhaps the concept of privilege differs in these contexts. Billy Jean King’s privilege comes to those who earn it; for others, privilege is not something that is earned but something that is granted or even grabbed. Whatever the case, those who have been privileged are to be reminded that they need to treat less privileged people with respect. There is in fact pressure in having privilege.
Coco Gauff admits, “I definitely feel pressure but not so much because of my past results, just because I always put pressure on myself on the court.” Putting pressure on herself on court has brought her to the position of privilege. Gauff put pressure on herself but pressure in sport can come from many quarters; sometimes it is the press that provides pressure (be it formal or social media), at other times it is parents or peers. However she managed to maintain the necessary balance in adding that, “Lately it’s not been pressure to win but just pressure to have fun and make sure I play the right way”. She learned that secret, having seen how the pressure to succeed had only made her depressed; she admitted that, “When I let all of that go and didn’t focus too much on numbers that was when … my results really went up.” As did her privilege!
Many people would desire to win a tennis Grand Slam tournament or the rugby World Cup but do not achieve it, so they do not ever gain that privilege. In truth, though, many would love simply to win a match but do not even achieve that. In that sense youngsters need to learn early on that any victory is a privilege, as we have something that another does not have. Of course we need to help
children to be able to handle pressure if they are to be granted the privileges of success but equally they need to handle the pressure to have fun on the sports field and to play the right way.
Sport should create hope, not hype; it should generate fun, not fame. Children need to see that it is an enormous privilege simply to be able to play sport; it is an even greater privilege to win at sport, at any level. It is a massive honour to be selected for any team, not simply a national or provincial or
first team. It is all relative. Only when we acknowledge such is a privilege will we be able to handle the pressure and cherish and respect each other. Only then will we be champions.
