THE CREATIVE ATHLETE

Issue 6--The Price of Success

The past few issues of The Creative Athlete have dealt with competitive and career goals. At this point it seems appropriate to point out that even though most athletes want success, many are unprepared for it:

• Golfer John Daly has had a particularly rocky career since unexpectedly winning the PGA Championships in 1991. "I won the PGA when I was 25. To make some decisions I had to make so fast, I don't think I was quite prepared for that, but I think I did the best I could. The hardest thing was getting used to making decisions on where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do." (1)
  
  
• Another unprepared golfer was Fred Couples, who said after winning the 1992 Masters Tournament, "Everybody wants a piece of you. All I want to do is play golf and hang out with my buddies." (2)
  
  
• Tennis player Pete Sampras wasn't prepared for what happened to his career after he won his first Grand Slam tournament, the 1990 U. S. Open. At 19 he was the youngest men's champion in its history.

" I found out what Michael Chang [who won the French Open at 17] meant when he said being the youngest champion of a slam is like carrying a backpack full of bricks around for the next year.

"The only time I'm really happy around tennis is when I'm playing tennis, and that's it

"After the Open, I didn't reflect on what I'd done and I didn't say no to anything; instead I went off and played a ton of exhibitions and got hurt and then it seemed like I was always hurt.

"What came along with winning the Open isn't all that it's cracked up to be; at least it didn't seem fun to me.

"It wasn't exactly like I felt like a robot, but all of a sudden everybody seemed to know me. I don't see myself as a star at all. I don't know why people want my autograph. People look up to me and I have to admit, I don't like being looked at. I'm in the right business to play tennis, but that's the only part of the business that fits me." (3)

• Tennis player Andre Agassi also found fame difficult to deal with. He ended 1988 (his second year as a professional) ranked third in the world. Then he started to slip and had this to say at that time: "I'm struggling out there a lot and not just on the court. I'm just trying to deal with the pressure, the expectations and the life of it all. The last thing I want to do is get caught up in my lifestyle, but then everywhere you turn, someone wants to do something for you." (4)
  
  
• Lance Armstrong became America's top cyclist when he unexpectedly won the 1993 world road-racing championships. He was then considered the heir apparent to three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, whose competitive career was ending. Said Armstrong at that time: "I'm suddenly put in this position of carrying the sport."

But he was wary of the demands which accompany fame. "You have to remember the things that got you where you are. You have to limit your distractions. If someone wants all your time, you have to tell them the reason you want my time is because I'm the world champion, but the reason I'm world champion is because I rode my bike a lot." (5)

• Rosalyn Sumners talked about her experience after winning the World Figure Skating Championships in 1983. "All of a sudden you get all this stuff thrown at you--the fame, the money. You're thrown into this public image, into upholding 'the dreams of the American people,' and the press is there with all these expectations, and you're 19 or 20 and all you want to do is go to the prom." (6)

By the time she reached the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, where she won the silver medal, she "didn't even want to be there."

• The woman who beat Sumners in 1984 was Katarina Witt, who also went on to win a gold medal at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. She talked about what life was like for her and fellow gold medalist Brian Boitano shortly after their Olympic triumphs: "The whole world thought we were the happiest people in the world. There were a thousand people who wanted to get behind us and be our managers. Everyone was a friend. We were both lonely. We didn't know what we wanted to do." (7)

 

1 Dallas Morning News article, reprinted in the Boulder Daily Camera, August 11, 1992.

2 Associated Press article, reprinted in the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, June 17, 1992.

3 The New York Times, August 26, 1991.

4 USA Today, April 7, 1989.

5 USA Today, September 23, 1993.

6 Women's Sports & Fitness, October 1986.

7 MacLean's, January 14, 1991.

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