The Mourning After: The Breakup From Elite Sports
(Reading time - 15 minutes)
SUMMARY: A vast majority of elite athletes are unprepared for their inevitable retirement from sport and face years of depression. The 2020 documentary “The Weight of Gold” begins to explore this little-known phenomenon. Below I introduce the metaphor or a one-sided romantic breakup that neatly describes how it feels. I was fortunate to finally reconcile with being a “one-timer, first loser".” (Silver medalist i.e. second place, and then only one Olympics) but many athletes are not so lucky.
THE ROMANCE
You fell in love. She was elusive, distant, exciting. She taught you things about yourself no one else could or did. She took you to amazing places all over the world, introduced you to lifelong friends from other cultures. Years, decades were spent chasing her, growing closer, winning, and wooing her. But, even after entering her warm embrace there was always something missing - held back: a slightly stiffened spine, the latent question always lingering, “are you really good enough?” This whispered hint kept you running, producing fervent efforts to prove yourself, to earn her affections.
Over time the relationship matured, settling into an uneasy balance: occasional punctuations of dizzy delight when things went perfectly and then the opposite, an arbitrary and tempestuous falling out when they didn’t. These episodes created a powerful tension keeping you in her thrall, ever subservient to her whims, always chasing, always striving, always pursing. Ageless, her remote beauty and charms only grew, and as time passed you grew aware of an ever-expanding list of suitors who began to surround her, muscles flexing, until one day it all ended as she loudly and publicly chose another. The moment was sickening: even as she welcomed a new young, fresh lover to her embrace she continued to call out her undying love to you. You, however, were jaded now: you had been through it all before and had made your choice. Too tired, too old, too weak, too lame, too hobbled from injury you decided to walk away from her fickle charms forever.
Her name? “Elite Sport.”
THE BREAKUP
All breakups are difficult, but the worst breakups are those where one-sided attraction still exists even as the other party has moved on and when there is no clean break, the cuckolded husband forced to watch his replacement woo his wife. The separation from elite sport is this sort of breakup. Even as her insatiable demand for perfection forces you from her embrace, her demeanor never changes, she is still there beckoning even as she entertains the latest crop of suitors. And, unlike real romances, the entire charade, parade, and transition is done publicly under flashing lights for all to see without any sense of guile, guilt, or gall. No one apologizes and the averted gazes are only for you: the flawed, aging, weakened suitor.
What preparation are young, passionate, competitive, perfectionist men and women given to guard against this inevitable moment? Little to none as it turns out. Not once in my 17 years competing on various national teams did anyone ever provide guidance about “retirement” from sport. For us, the romantic fallen, the discarded companions, the color of life disappeared and was replaced by grasping black pits of hopelessness that yawned for long periods, occasional white sparks of manic optimism intruding and then fading into long stretches of grey. She is gone. I will never again measure up. There is no replacement for the feeling she brought me. She took my livelihood, my funding, my rituals. She was my identity. And now? I AM NOTHING.
At some point in most normal breakups, the color returns, and a true separation from the “Ex” is made. Old healthy relationships re-assume their former stature, new ones form, and in the blue distance of time and perspective the warm colors of hope and love return. Eventually, for most, new and better relationships are formed and the red drumbeat of life resumes.
But, what if after the breakup no true separation ever occurs? What if the two divorced parties continue to be forcibly joined in endless anti-matrimony with an arbitrary set of rules that look something like this:
1) The exact set of qualities that earned your lover’s attention are replicated and improved upon by the new suitors that have taken your place. They look exactly like you, act exactly like you, but simply put, they are better than you.
2) Your former lover still legitimately needs and wants you, but just as a “friend” since you know so much about her, and she and her friends constantly draw you into the same social circles.
3) Sometimes the only way to make any kind of living is working directly for your former lover serving her new suitors in an odd soup of fading admiration and mild contempt.
THE FALLOUT
If this sounds like a recipe for a bout of depression then you are right. Recent studies suggest that up to 90% of elite athletes experience depression for an average of 10 years. Another study concluded that 80% of NFL players are bankrupt just 3 years after they end of their careers.
You've met them: the high school football star who didn’t get to play in college, the college track star who never made the Olympics. The Olympian who never won a medal. The silver medalist who never won gold. The NFL player that never made the Superbowl. The gold medalist who failed to win again... and all of those who, at some point were forced to retire and in so doing put to bed the one singular intense focus of their entire life in order to move on.
The desires and requirements of elite sport are insatiable: at some point, everyone fails to measure up. Nothing and no one can satisfy this lover, this ungrateful achievement whore who demands perfection every time and rallies the voices of the world to judge. Michael Phelps? A failure for only, ONLY winning 19 Olympic medals. Simone Biles - fail. Bode Miller – failure. Lindsay Vonn- fail. USA basketball – fail. USA Hockey - fail. Only a few seem to escape the trap by breaking up first - exiting on top and declaring their undying love to some new lover (even if no one believes it). Perhaps Apolo Ohno appears to fall into this camp, or perhaps he’s still riding the coattails of his mistress and doesn’t yet know what awaits.
MY BREAKUP
When I broke up with sport it was heartbreaking. It was my second Olympic trials and weak, old, tired, and slow I failed to qualify for the last final despite having a fantastic pre-season winning the first American cup. I did not have enough points to make a second Olympic team and at 29 years old I also knew I could not possibly go on for another 4 years of income-less training to try again. So, I declared my retirement, and the competition’s announcer, shared it on the loudspeaker of the Lake Placid Olympic Rink. Immediately after in the echoing hallways of the arena I sobbed like a child, terribly embarrassed when my teammates saw me. That evening I sat on the steps of the Lake Placid OTC with Apolo Ohno (who had also failed to make his first team) and commiserated.
I cried on and off for days. Skating was the rhythm of my life, my reason for being. Despite all my passion and sacrifice, I had failed to make a second Olympic team despite putting every sinew and synapse towards that love affair, and the sense of loss was overwhelming. My friend and cycling teammate Stefan Spielman was a rising star when at age 20 injuries forced him to retire despite 8 surgeries attempting to fix the problem. The loss stayed with him, weighed him down for a decade or more, in fact, he's still not sure he's entirely over it. "I would have paid any price just to be back competing, trying. I was so depressed for 5-10 years, even up to today I do not think I am over that loss."
I was fortunate. I had a new love and one that could actually compete with my former affair – I was in love with a real woman. I also found separation – immediately: that evening after the Olympic trials I moved all my meager possessions into my car and drove 45 hours straight west to get as far away from ice as I could, landing in Phoenix, Arizona with my fiancé and starting a new life. I was also fortunate enough to have a fallback in the form of a pair of college degrees from good schools. I hoped that someone would hire me despite my failures and had to be convinced to even put my sports achievements on my resume.
It may sound odd, but the overwhelming feeling I had for almost a decade regarding my time in sports was one of humiliation. In those years, I lived with an ambient backdrop of embarrassment. I had professed to be something I was not, I had failed. In my head, I was a “one-timer, first-loser.” My romance with sport had become a subsequent source of disgrace. Fellow speedskater and Olympic bronze medalist Alex Izykowski shared similar feelings, "I shared the same 'disgrace'. I had a very similar reaction for about a 2 year period…which came after a year-long denial period."
I refused to watch the next two Olympics and for nearly a decade I didn't talk about the sport, didn’t enter an ice rink, and severed most of my connections with friends from that world. I even postal-mailed the symbol of my “first-loser” status (my Olympic silver medal) to my parents with no insurance and didn’t even see it for a decade. I enveloped myself in the bubble of a new world of work, marriage, and, eventually, parenthood.
RECONCILIATION
It was many years later before I finally began to recognize the gifts that elite sport had given me: discipline, agility, tenaciousness, self-confidence, and perseverance. It was nearly a decade later when the rewards of that original relationship were made plain to me.
It started with a phone call. NBC Olympics asking me to be the analyst for the Torino Winter Olympics. Of course, I could not say no to that and I found myself back at the Olympics. My job was to interview the parents and skaters and give the backstories to the commentator. I knew most of them and they all knew me and I was warmly welcomed back.
Then, on the 16th day of the 17 days of the winter Olympics, a parent of a skater pulled me aside, and changed my life forever in about 20 seconds. We were at dinner, and he asked me to leave the table to talk to him. He looked nervous, even emotional. I said sure and we went to a quiet corner where he began to speak.
“John,” he said, “I just want you to know something. I want to thank you for something." His eyes focused unwaveringly on mine. “I just wanted you to know that we wouldn’t be here, right now, if it wasn’t for you” Confused, I waited for him to clarify.
“You may not remember, but 12 years ago, you came to a little reception in Bay City Michigan, at Steamer’s Pub. You brought your medal and you put it around my son’s neck. Alex was 11 years old at the time,” he continued. “He had never speedskated before, and the next day, he signed up for the Bay City Speedskating Club . . . and tomorrow, Alex is skating in the gold medal round . . . at the Olympic Games.” Suddenly, the noise and sounds of the restaurant faded as his words registered.
He then concluded, “Gold, silver, bronze—it doesn't matter. No matter what happens, we'll be happy just to have been here and be experiencing all this—and, thank you—thank you, John.”
His eyes had tears in them, and I looked around in bewilderment. For a moment, I tried to think of a humorous deflective answer, but his eyes would not let me go, and I was forced to face—and accept—this heartfelt thank you for something I didn't even remember doing.
But . . . then I did. I remembered going to that small gathering and being proud at that moment of what we had done, proud to share that unique talisman of the Olympics—the ever-sought-after weight of an Olympic medal. And the weight of the metal—and the medal—began, finally, to sink in. And I decided, finally, to accept it as the honor it is.
This conversation changed everything. For the first time, I was proud of what we’d accomplished. For the first time, I was proud of my silver medal as an achievement, as opposed to representing a failure.
Upon returning to the United States, I finally retrieved it from my parents. I re-immersed myself in the sport and encouraged my daughter to start speedskating, which she did for five years. I began coaching several Chicago area clubs, announcing competitions, and the biggest change—for the first time ever I spoke about it. For nearly a decade, I had never talked about it, didn’t watch it, and had changed the subject when it came up. I started to share my story. And now, this is ALL I do. I am a keynote speaker traveling the world sharing THIS story. It all started with that 20-second conversation.
The evening of our conversation, I wrote Al, the father, a long rambling letter, recognizing the impact he had made with his words and how it would change everything. He didn’t respond until he returned home, and when he did the floodgate to my tears opened up:
Subject: The Circle of Life
John,
I am deeply touched and moved by your words and reaction. After I read your email I went up to Alex’s bedroom and looked at his bulletin board that holds only the most meaningful awards and memories of his childhood and skating career.
Pinned near the right border in a Ziploc bag is a napkin from Steamer’s Pub with your signature on it dated 1994, along with the picture of you with Alex and your silver medal. I then went to our Italy photos and found the picture of you with Alex and his bronze medal (which he won the very next night). I printed it off and returned to the bulletin board and carefully opened the bag, gently slid the new photo in, resealed the bag, and pinned it back in the exact same hole.
I stepped back and contemplated the many things that had to have taken place in so many people’s lives in order for those two photos to be in that bag together, hanging on a bulletin board in a boy’s bedroom where he only dreamed of such success. As I stood and stared, I was overwhelmed by emotion as I again attempted to comprehend the awesome unifying power of the Olympic Games and values. Thank you for sharing your success with us 12 years ago, and thank you for including Alex (and me) in this circle of success 12 years later.
And then he concluded his letter with words that have been burned into my psyche
I guess you never know what role you may play in someone’s life or just how important the things you choose to do or say, or choose not to do or say, may turn out to be.
EPILOGUE:
It was mid-April, 2017, and I was still in bed when the phone rang. It was Alex. Over the years, we had become fast friends. Even in my groggy state, I could hear the excitement in his voice. I sat up. “What’s up?”
“John, I have two things to share. First, April and I are getting married in July and hope you’ll be there,” he said, pausing to let it sink in. “Of course I’ll be there!” I said. Then he paused again and went on.
“Second, I wanted you to be the first to know, I’ve just accepted the position as the head coach for the US Olympic speedskating team. I’ll be leading the team to the next Olympics.” He paused, and then I said, “Of course! I will be there.” And I was.
THE END
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PS: I do wonder and worry for the coaches of elite sport. I see so many of my peers during those years still traveling, still on ice, still chasing a revised version of that dream. How many of them are still pursuing the same unrelenting mistress and translating their energies into vicarious living through their athletes, trying to sustain what, in hindsight is impossible – a marriage to sport until “death do us part.” It does put into perspective some of the incredible passions displayed by some of my coaches through the years. It was almost as though they wanted it more than us…
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PSS: There is an even more uncomfortable wrinkle to this tale. What if someone’s breakup with sport occurred during the transition to an era of cheating and performance enhancing drugs. What if an early retirement from, say, cycling, occurred right as the elite of sport took to illegal substances to improve their performance? What might have this crop of legitimate athletes have accomplished? Cyclists Scott McKinley, Mike McCarthy, Marty Jemison and others on the cusp of greatness, winning the world’s toughest events and then suddenly marginalized – only to learn a decade and a half later that maybe, just maybe it wasn’t their limbs that failed them. It is hard to imagine what was stolen from these incredible athletes and and hundreds of others by the cheating scandals in cycling and other sports. Cheating is the perfect word – the heartbreak resulting from the betrayal of true love is perhaps the saddest outcome and these athletes can only wonder what “might have been.”