It was famous U.S.
fashionista Derek Zoolander who said “Who Am I?” as he peered poignantly into a
puddle that bore his own reflection in the 2001 cult hit classic Zoolander,
only moments after losing the Male Model of the Year award to Hansel.
In defeat, he lost his
identity. If he wasn’t the best model on the planet anymore, then who the hell
was he? Now I know the movie jests, but I have seriously asked myself the same
question several times in the last 12 months during ‘the transition’.
The transition I speak of is the well-travelled journey of elite sportspeople from a fast-moving
lifestyle that encompasses plenty of new and exciting, twists, turns and
challenges, to a life of…well…not those things.
Long after the bright lights
fade, and the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of the feverish crowds extinguish, and the body
finally relents to the years of wear and tear, the mind still flickers…
“Who am I now?” It asks.
And it’s in the quieter
moments, usually after retiring or being dropped from something you have worked
your whole life to obtain, that the pressures and struggles of establishing your
new identity gain momentum.
All of a sudden, a huge chunk
of your identity, purpose and sense of belonging has been removed. A life that
took not moments, not days, not weeks, but years of effort and devotion is
gone, with nothing but a set of ‘guidelines’ and a good luck email left to help
you overcome the slippery slopes of ‘the transition’.
Normal, everyday questions
for sports people become obsolete. How much rest time do we have today? Where
is today’s recovery session? I wonder if the game debrief will involve me? Why
did I let that ball go? Who is talking about my performance, and on what social
media platform? Seriously though, rest time is a thing. I still need rest time,
and the ‘boyfriend chair’ at David Jones has become a serious enabler for me
over this last year.
And the questions posed above
usually, and stupidly, arise before we even get started on the intricacies and
important issues of family life, work dilemmas, study clashes, health problems
and everything else life can muster.
Lauren Jackson revealed
earlier this year on SBS's Insight and the ABC's Four Corners the impact retirement had on her mental health. She admitted the sudden change in people's
attitudes towards her while moving from being an elite athlete one day to a
retired sports star the next took a toll on her. She said it felt like she had
been "put out to pasture". I echo her sentiment and wonder what
Basketball Australia is doing now that the cameras are turned off and Jackson
has retreated to her new life.
It is a year
since I last played hockey for Australia, yet I still deal with issues that arose during my time with the program.
I played at the top level
with severe and chronic achilles tendonitis in the latter stages of my career.
I was administered cortisone injection after cortisone injection in order to
play and represent Australia where needed, but away from the televised events,
I limped around the training ground for 18 months struggling from contest to
contest.
I found the cortisone worked
for a few weeks at a time, until the pain finally returned. It wasn’t a happy
place to exist. I was also diagnosed with a generalised anxiety around the same
time I was dealing with the achilles issue, something that can’t be attributed
to my injury, but is well and truly related now.
I still wake up every morning
and walk down my hallway in pain; I struggle to chase my 6-month old puppy
around; I haven’t been able to play basketball, a love of my life, for over a
year; and couldn’t wear Havaianas, Nikes or boots for the entire year Olympic
preparation.
These might seem like trivial
things to some, but one day it’s not unforeseeable that I could replace ‘dog’
with kids. ‘Basketball’ with walking. And ‘Entire Olympic preparation’ with
entire life. I was receiving treatment and guidance for my ailment, but largely
from a very helpful friend and ex-team physio.
Now that I’ve joined the
‘real’ world I expect those ‘mates-rates’ favours eventually to run out.
Services that were supplemented before now cost money, and the reality is I
have to earn a living somehow.
At the moment, I work
casually doing brand development work for my hockey equipment sponsor Voodoo. I
teach hockey to kids at Guildford Grammar School. I am at university two days a
week (I graduate at the end of this year), I recently finished an internship at the
Western Force, and I freelance write a bit.
Thankfully, money has never
been a decisive or driving factor in my life. I’ve volunteered or worked unpaid
at numerous places around Perth, always chasing an experience over a pay cheque.
I returned to
competitive sport in June of this year, playing first grade club hockey for
Fremantle in the Perth Hockey Competition.
Why? Because nothing can replace
or replicate the joy that sport (and in particular, hockey with Freo) brings to
my life. A sense of belonging, a family environment, a brotherhood of mates, a
physical and mental challenge each and every week, and a home away from home.
I am still met with comments
about looking ‘laboured’ or ‘sluggish’ at times. Another clip of the
confidence, and more strain on the body and mind. Lucky I was quite fast before
my injury, so now I just run at more of a regular pace.
I can’t understand or accept
a world where this is normal. Where those types of experiences are deemed
acceptable because they adhere to the sports ‘guidelines’. And there are many
others who have bravely attempted to navigate their way through the transition
before, mostly without help, and without the acceptable level of care from
their respective sporting bodies.
Unfortunately, and as we’ve seen
publicly in the last 12 months, some won’t transition. Former Wallaby and
family man Dan Vickerman took his own life earlier this year, after a long
battle with what we can only assume was his own mind.
Vickerman was a poster boy for professional
sportspeople who had successfully transitioned into life after sport, or so we
all thought.
He chaired a joint Australian
Rugby Union and Rugby Union Players Association committee, and had successfully
carved out a career in property development with promotion to a role of
funds manager.
Dan had arguably got through the worst
of it. He has navigated his trickiest assignment, the initial few years
post-retirement where you attempt to carve out a new life. And not a mediocre
life either, one that hopefully resembles the remarkable and extraordinary
sporting life you lived only years earlier.
The life that teaches you to reach for
the stars; to push the boundaries of what you deem possible; to fight and grind
your way through numerous ailments and setbacks; to endure the heartache of
defeat; appreciate the fruits of victory; and be thankful, not bitter, about
the sacrifices you made to get create those moments. Dan, seemingly, had done
it.
And then the unthinkable happened. Dan
committed suicide, aged 37. Dan, who “always had a plan”, was gone.
So who am I? At the very least, I’m a
guy who doesn’t want this to happen to anyone else. I’m a guy that speaks
openly and candidly, not only about my own struggles, but the struggles of
others, in the hope a more balanced and well-rounded support program can be
developed and introduced by the nations sporting bodies.
I’m a guy trying to educate, inform
and engage people on the serious issues and challenges being posed to an
industry that not only brings us some of the most inspiring and uplifting
stories of our time, but some of the darkest and most disturbing as well.
So although I may not have found my
true identity yet, I am hell bent on ensuring the next generation of
sportspeople know exactly where to look for theirs.
