Anxiety in Athletes

Interesting New York Times article on golf pro Charlie Beljan's panic attack during his win at a PGA Tour event. This situation-specific anxiety is probably vastly more wide-spread than we think. Our world is awash in idolatrous jock-worship and so much sports writing focuses on drive, work, physical prowess and, when the athlete is successful, their mental toughness. I wonder how many physically gifted people have stepped away from competition because, frankly, it can be emotionally fraught.

Personally, I think I know what Beljan might be experiencing. As a teenager, I was a modestly-talented skier (back when Jean-Claude Killy ruled), skied regularly as a ski patrolman with a coach for the Olympic B team (very helpful to my skills) and a small New England college talked to me about joining their team. Given my limited interest in athletics overall, I gave it all a pass. Even at the time, I had what I think was a fair understanding of how competition wasn't going to be good for me. First, attention and concentration issues meant that maintaining 100% focus in a race course was tough (disastrous in slalom, deadly in downhill). But the killer was anxiety, something I had experienced much younger in chess matches. If you suffer from the smallest imbalance in the sympathetic nervous system, competition (effectively the fight side of fight-flight-freeze) can be way too charged. Skiing is not a risk-averse sport in general, with lots of speed, height and danger. For me, that was peachy (after all, I had an adolescent brain)—it was the competing that sucked. Maybe an anxiolytic could have helped, and apparently the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) doesn't include them on the banned substances list. (Ah, what might have been.)

Also intriguing is how Beljan managed to make it this far in his career without his anxiety overwhelming him. One player interviewed in the article wondered why such scenes don't happen more often. I suspect, from my experience, that nearly all people select themselves out of sports fairly early. Take it from me, the body and mind send signals starting at a young age that you aren't suited for this kind of stress, no matter if you are capable physically.