In a recent article on a well-known website, Wayne Rooney, England’s soccer top goal-scorer, explained how he went from being a young lad living in a high-density area to an international superstar sportsman in an incredibly short time and how he struggled with it. Here he was, a youngster still of school age, playing and scoring in the English Premier League as well as for his country, experiencing huge public attention and adulation, all while doing what he loved.
Two words stood out strongly in his interview – preparation and pressure. Firstly, he recognised in retrospect that he was just not prepared for such a huge leap from poverty to riches, from being incognito to being highly recognisable, from school pitches to international stadiums. “I had never even thought about the other side of being a football player. I wasn’t prepared for that part of life,” he admitted. He then went on to describe the pressure that came with it all – the pressure of playing for one of the biggest clubs in the world, of playing for his country, those are big enough pressures but along with it came other pressures, pressure of facing the press, of receiving greater attention and criticism, of having his whole personal life bandied around the world, of people seeking his favour and money, and more. So, there he was, a youngster, left on his own, as he revealed, “trying to figure out how to deal with it by myself.”
Interestingly but sadly, he was not alone. Two other international soccer players now involved in the media, also opened up about their similar experiences. Both Chris Sutton and Micah Richards shared how they were left on their own to work out how to deal with it all. They could handle the playing side on the whole but it was all that came with it that was toughest – the adulation and the criticism. Sutton said he struggled with being treated like “a laughing stock” while Richards said he often had to put on a brave face and hide his true feelings, confessing being “borderline depressed”. Rooney admitted that he turned to drink in a big way. And now, in the news, Mason Greenwood, the 20- year-old playing for Manchester United and England, on a reported salary of £75,000 per week, plus numerous sponsorship deals worth thousands upon thousands, has been arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault. Was he prepared for all that comes with the success?
How do adults tend to handle it? Evidently, they either bottle it up (as Sutton did) or turn to the bottle (as Rooney did). If adults cannot handle it, how on earth can we expect youngsters to do so? Someone should have prepared them – in fact, they should have done so before it arrived, not just help them to deal with it when it did come.
The reality is that we as coaches and parents do all that we can to help youngsters to be successful but we do absolutely nothing to help them handle the success; we do nothing to prepare them for what may follow as a result. In a similar manner we do all that we can to ensure our youngsters do not experience failure, to the extent that when it comes (as it assuredly does) they just do not know
how to handle it; we do nothing to prepare them for the possibility and reality. These superstar sportsmen admit they just were not prepared; they were left on their own – and many, many youngsters will follow in their sad wake if we do not do anything about it.
We tend to believe that failure is the worst thing that can happen to us. Sadly, it should be noted that success is actually more dangerous than failure. There is certainly enormous pressure on us when we experience failure but the pressure that comes with success is harder to bear – and yet we do nothing to prepare for such eventualities. Have we as school coaches sat down with our players and spoken with them about how to handle a victory over or deal with a loss by their greatest rivals?
Rooney, Sutton, Richards, all recognised that they could and should have been better prepared for all that was to come in their careers. Sadly, Micah Richards concluded that “the football community doesn’t protect people who are vulnerable”. It is time that sports communities, starting with the coaches, do protect those who are vulnerable before they are abused. We must change our sporting communities so that our children do not become vulnerable. Sutton admitted that, looking back, he would have done things differently. It is time that we also do things differently, now.
