How Much Are You Willing to Lose? Risk Culture and Elite Athletics
Annika Coleman
August 2, 2024
“You can only really appreciate life if you're putting yourself into places that risk it.” – Richard "Milky" Quayle Imagine a bullet. In the Isle of Man, a sleepy island in the Irish sea studded with rocky coastlines and medieval castles, a speeding bullet dares to rip through the warm May breeze at 195 miles per hour. Its path is clean, determined, graceful, powerful. As if immune to the forces of drag or gravity, it flies without apprehension. The bullet is invincible. The bullet is free. Yet, one feature mars its perfection: the bullet has shoulders. “I just caught the rock face with my shoulder. I just snagged it, pulled me into the wall on the right. And then I flew over and hit that [wall] on the left.” Richard “Milky” Quayle is a human bullet with shoulders who dares to race motorcycles at 185-200 miles per hour in the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) races. Growing up on the Isle
watching races since he was a “wee boy,” TT has been a central part of Milky’s life for as long as he can remember. Starting his racing career at 22, he soon became a champion, winning the 1994 Supersport, 1996 250cc Manx Championships, and the Isle of Man TT in 2002. Yet, in the 2003 TT race, he came to learn that bullets aren’t invincible: entering a corner too early, Milky crashed spectacularly into the rocky barrier beside the track, flesh and rocky foundation flying radially in all directions. The crash left Milky with a ruptured spleen and punctured lungs. Milky isn’t the first to be injured in the TT. To the contrary, Milky is lucky not to be dead. Since the event began in 1907, 250 racers have been killed, with six dying in 2022 alone. “The only way of making this event safe is to not do it,” says Paul Phillips, the TT Business Development Manager and Director for the last 15 years. Yet, despite the risk, the flashy collision, and the ruptured spleen, when asked by a reporter in the hospital if he planned to stop racing, Milky responded with clarity: “It's the best thing in the world anyone could ever wanna do. Why would I want to stop it just because it hurt me?” Asta-Sollilja Farrell’s career as a gymnast began at the age of 2 with “mommy and me” tumbling classes. Her career as an injured gymnast began six years later: at eight, she chipped a bone on the side of her foot, resulting in soft tissue damage and a mossy tinge that still taints the skin thirteen years later. At age ten, walking became a challenge: “I started having hip issues. Both of my hips were dislocated and the tendons were messed up. I was in so much pain all the time,” Asta said. “I was in fifth grade.” Since then, Asta has suffered from at least one or two major injuries a year without fail, including an ACL tear, multiple torn ligaments in her left ankle, and six concussions, totalling to approximately 24 major injuries. At the age of twenty-one, Asta has made it, proudly representing the senior class on Brown’s Varsity gymnastics team. 19 years later, the spunky toddler with bouncy brown curls who always dreamed of being a D1 athlete can finally say she is “living the dream. ” Yet, for Asta, dreams have never come without pain. “I have been in constant pain, every day, from the second I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, since I was eight years old. I still have nightmares about retearing my ACL two years post injury because of how much that feeling of crunching replays in my head,” Asta said, her eyes glazed over with resignation. “Multiple doctors have told me that I have to get my foot fused
post-gymnastics. I probably won’t be able to walk past the age of forty. That’s my cut off.” However, Asta is not worried about her body post-gymnastics: “I don’t care what happens to my body as long as I can get through this season. In my mind, this is so much more important to me than whatever happens next. I don’t need things to be amazing afterwards, I just need them to be amazing now.” “This is nuts. You know that right?” says journalist Bill Whitaker during his 60 Minutes interview with Milky. The racer giggles at the comment, his perfectly slicked blonde mohawk leaning in towards the camera, exuding a mixture of agreement and pride. “Well, it’s fun though. It’s fun, Bill.” “Let’s unpack that a bit.” My next-door-neighbor Jasper’s favorite line — usually used comically to reference low-stakes gossip — slowly flickers to the front of my mind. I identify as a
high-level gymnast turned broken gymnast turned diver turned concussed diver turned medically retired, dazed and confused, permanently-in-pain athlete no longer. I have lived teetering on the border between “within” and “without” elite sports for over thirteen years. As a dual citizen to two distinct worlds, living and listening to athletes’ stories — of success, injury, loss, redemption, pain, guilt, in a multitude of different orders and permutations — I have long viewed elite sports with a critical eye. Hearing the experiences of the human bullet and the gymnast have led to several of my lingering questions beginning to crystalize: How does risk, pain, and injury become normalized in sports? What assumptions lie behind the expression that athletes are “insane” or “nuts”? Is participation in elite athletics justified? “Let’s unpack that a bit” says Jasper. Ok, Jasper. I am scared, yet I am ready. Let’s unpack: what lies within the complex relationship between risk, sports, and glory? Watch the Hero Go Past
The practice jumps of Mikhail Baryshnikov, the preeminent male classical dancer of the 1970s and ’80s and principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, spark but one word in my mind: defiance. His pointed toes flying feet off the ground, his kneecaps locked to straightened perfection, it appears as though the laws of gravity apply differently to his slender body. The power in his quads and seemingly effortless coordination of his limbs is almost unnatural, almost not human, or rather, superhuman. The “superhuman” complex is instilled early and regularly reinforced in athletes by both their athletic community and by larger society. Julia Grace-Sanders, former collegiate swimmer at Texas Christian University, recounts that “from a young age, I was told that I was special.” She continues, “My peers stared wide-eyed when I told them how many times I practiced a week. I secretly enjoyed their surprise, and felt affirmed by the astonished reaction.” As a former high level competitive gymnast, I lived a parallel experience: a deep pride grew within me as my middle school teacher’s face flashed with astonishment after learning I spend 24 hours a week in the gym. I reveled in the wild applause of my classmates when I did cartwheels or back flips in PE. I distinctly remember feeling I had a double identity like Kent Clark or Hannah Montana: civilian-student by day, superhero ninja in a bedazzled leotard by night. By the time they reach the collegiate or professional level, athletes have become accustomed to the deep-seated rhetoric that designates athletes as “beyond human” and often propagate this message themselves. As a freshman on the Brown Varsity Swimming and Diving team, I was stunned when our coach read the final line of our team contract aloud: “You must decide whether you want to be an elite athlete, or just another student who goes to Brown.” While the seeming paradox of placing the words “just” and “Brown student” in the same sentence left me dizzy, the fact that not a single girl in the room batted an eye before signing made it clear how commonplace this “glory rhetoric” is within the athletic community. Beyond the pool or the court, Varsity athletes at Brown also openly refer to students who do not partake in Varsity sports as “NARPs”: non-athletic regular people. Slurs for non-athletes are not unique to Brown, with terms such as “muggles” (Stanford), “normies” (Utah State University), or “civilians” (Eastern Illinois University) floating freely across many college campuses. These derogatory terms function to create division between athletes and non-athletes, who are deemed as the inferior “other.” These divisions are publicly visible in Brown dining halls: it is common campus knowledge that the long-table in the center of the V-Dub is off limits to non-swimmers from the hours of
5:30-7pm, that no NARP flesh shall touch the men’s wrestling team’s headquarters by the exit at the Ratty, and that football can formally reserve an entire dining hall quadrant that will be (literally) roped off with red tape. Parties are similarly segregated, with athletes commonly organizing “mixers” with other Varsity teams in which, as recounted by Brown athletes Michelle Guo (swimmer) and Tevah Gevelber (cross-country runner), team members are explicitly told “don’t bring NARPs.” The subconscious assimilation of the “superhuman” complex may also surface unintentionally. For instance, Milky casually glides over the phrase “watch the hero go past” when describing where fans can sit to watch the TT racers, seemingly unaware of the fact that he explicitly refers to himself and his competitors as “heroes.” In a similar vein, Bill Whitticker’s comment “you’re nuts” indirectly validates this notion of the racer as a superhuman “hero” able to push their body beyond the limits of “normal” human ability. The pride that fills Milky’s smile and bobbing mohawk makes clear that, among athletes, being “nuts” is considered a title of high honor. The Sacrifice of Being Superhuman
“Guts. Grace. Glory.” is the mantra of USA Diving, the governing body of the sport of springboard and platform diving in the United States as recognized by the Olympic Committee. These words, stamped on a white cloth flag next to a blue and red stick figure flying through the air in a pike position, are the first thing to greet me at dive practice everyday. Waving in the winds and rain of California winter, this catchy alliteration instills but one message in soggy, goose-bumped, exhausted children in swimsuits: their “glory” is the fruit of sacrifice. “Glory” is earned from taking repeated bodily risks until hurling yourself off of a 3 meter springboard appears effortless. “Glory” is earned from exuding courage and resilience in the face of fear, pain, and exhaustion. The high honor of transforming into the heroic athlete does not come without a price. This flag and the word “sacrifice” come to mind when I see a soggy, panting man in the gym donning a shirt with the following white block letters screaming off of the black fabric: “PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY.” Originating in the US Marine Corp, this phrase was historically used in recruiting propaganda to encourage youth to enter the US Armed Forces.
Taken up by the fitness industry, this line is now found on sports shirts, appealing to the “no pain, no gain” mentality deeply embedded in sporting activities. The “three G’s of diving” alongside the screaming T-shirt serve to exemplify how the aforementioned establishment of a superhuman identity functions to glorify risk taking, normalize pain, and stigmatize weakness. As stated by Michael Atkinson, Professor of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto, in his book The Suffering Body in Sport, sport “socializes young athletes to nearly blindly accept the risk of pain and injury inherent in sport participation,” embracing “pain, injury, and risk as a ‘badge of honor’” that “serves as an important social indicator of one’s commitment to sport excellence.” This culture of risk in sports results in characteristic behaviors in athletes facing pain that include consenting to play while injured, concealing or refraining from reporting injury, and experiencing feelings of pride when training or competing through considerable pain. Asta recounts having done all three by age 14: “The week before nationals, I busted my ankle and could not walk. I was crutching around the house.” Yet, to Asta, raised from the age of two to be a “warrior girl” who perseveres in the face of pain, missing the competition due to injury was not an option. Instead, Asta’s reaction was instinctual: “I started taking six Advil a day on an empty stomach for three months. I had a lot of trouble eating. I did not care. I would take eight if I needed to just to get through the day.” At the competition, she “crunched” her ankle again on vault, twisted it on floor, and distinctly recalls thinking, “my ankle is going to fall the fuck off.” Walking between events, Asta pinned her eyes firmly to the ceiling to hide her tears from the college coaches in the audience looking to recruit their next freshman class. Yet, despite it all, Asta finished the meet, even placing on bars. After her final dismount on beam — which she landed on one foot — her emotions overwhelmed her: “I was so proud of myself. I had gotten through the whole meet and had done moderately well. Who cares if my ankle hurts? I just got eighth in the nation on bars.” To Asta, the immense glory of standing on the podium donning her medal justifies sacrificing the integrity of her soft tissue. To the superhuman-athlete, immersed in the rhetoric of “Guts. Grace.
Glory” and “Pain is weakness leaving the body,” exerting your body to the point of near self-destruction is not “nuts”: It is a given. A Coach. An Enforcer.
“Kick ‘em out. Curse ‘em out. Embarrass ‘em in front of the gym.” Asta’s tone is matter-of-fact as she describes her club coaches’ strategies for handling gymnasts who were afraid to go for a new skill. “Basically any bad thing you can think of,” she adds, summarizing with her accepting gaze the level of authority and power coaches hold over their athletes. Her words are reminiscent of my childhood: Armen’s screams piercing into Maya three inches from her face after a “sloppy” vault; Jing Jing Zhang’s Adidas sandals flying across the gym to wack 12-year-old Giuseppe for being too “chicken” to go for his dismount off rings; Coach Kelly’s tongue ring banishing my “chicken” limbs to laps around the gym parking lot after crying instead of doing back-handsprings on beam; Sam the literal rubber “shame chicken” being carted around by many 8-12 year old gymnast “chickens” as punishment for any and all expressions of fear. “I was more afraid of my coaches growing up than of any new skill,” Jing Jing always liked to remind us. “At least in this country, you can’t hit children’s knees with sticks.” As stated in Élise Marsollier and Denis Hauw’s paper Navigating in the Gray Area of
Coach-Athlete Relationships in Sports, research has shown that “athlete maltreatment in training and competition is not rare, but instead seems to occur more frequently than expected.” Through commonly documented fear- and/or shame-based strategies such as yelling, intentional denial of attention or support, silent treatment, isolating, or belittling, coaches act as enforcers of cultural standards in sports: policing and propagating the importance of exemplifying bravery and suppressing pain. This so-called “tough love” does successfully teach athletes to perform
high-risk acts with little hesitation, which may aid in athletic achievement. Nonetheless, even without beating with sticks, placing high moral value on bravery and stoicism while simultaneously creating a fear-based power hierarchy between coach and athlete also increases the risk of bodily harm: “You better suck it up, you better stop limping” were Asta’s coaches words at nationals as she “heavy limped” her way down the runway post ankle-crunch en-route to perform her second vault, her actions reminiscent of Olympian Kerri Strug. "I had to go see a doctor in private who told me my shin was going to split in half if I didn't stop training,” tells former San Jose State University gymnast Alison Falat, who was accused of lying and denied medical care by her coach Wayne Wright after suffering a stress fracture. “Despite the negative impact of these [coaching] behaviors…athletes negotiate maltreatment situations by mostly accepting them through their normalization,” report Marsollier and Hauw, bringing me back to Asta’s accepting gaze and matter-of-fact tone. While the normalization of what is now being labeled as abuse in sports has multifactorial consequences for the young athlete, one of the most salient impacts is the internalization of a destructive mentality: To the indoctrinated athlete, heeding to injury in any way — whether it be leaving a practice early, skipping a competition, or even limping – is considered synonymous with failure. From personal experience, I can say that, once engrained, this mindset is challenging to break. Love is Fraught with Risk
Milky: “You can only really appreciate life if you're putting yourself into places that risk it.” Austa: “Gymnastics is more satisfying when you are fighting injuries or mental issues and you are still able to go to a meet and overcome.” “Can you describe to me what you love most about diving?” The writer of my high school newspaper notices how I flinch in response to her question. As a competitive diver, I had became accustomed to answering a certain list of common “normie” queries: → “What’s your favorite dive?” (to which I say 105B off three meter and proceed to get blank stares until I show a video)
→ “Can you do a flip?” (to which I say, in the most courteous way possible, “No, I actually just spend two hours a day walking around the pool.”)
→ “You must love it, don’t you?” (to which I always nod and smile, purposely avoiding further self-reflection) Yet, no one had ever asked me why I loved my sport. After embracing some long avoided self-reflection, here’s what I said: “What inspires me to return to the pool every day is the feeling of the perfect dive. When I rip the water beneath my hands, I am no longer controlled by gravity, I am gravity, accelerating at
-9.8 m/s² towards the earth through the water, as if the water was simply air, until I finally ‘J-curve’ around, finishing right side up. The exhilaration is addictive.” Beyond the glory associated with superhuman status, according to Michael Atkinson, the act of participating in the sport itself can be “existentially rewarding” because it “provides many participants with a means of experiencing physical, emotional, and psychological sensations not provided in everyday life.” In my case, I delighted in the five seconds of momentary weightlessness followed by the sense of power derived from breaking surface tension with my bare hands. The “exhilaration” was enough to hook me into diving despite the objectively
“high-risk” (more on this later). For some athletes, however, enjoyment is not derived in spite of the risk, but rather, as Atkinson outlines, “a significant part of the allure of extreme sports is the degree to which participants place themselves at risk (seemingly irrationally) for the sheer pleasure of being at risk.” Based on Milky’s comment, I would argue that, in the case of TT racing, the pleasure of speeding on a motorcycle at 200 miles per hour derives precisely from the adrenaline of “playing with death” in a way that would not be socially sanctioned outside of the athletic realm. Nonetheless, Asta’s comment highlights that yet a third dimension to the connection between love and risk in sport exists: rather than delighting in the immediate thrill of participation, athletic satisfaction may stem from the delayed pride of having boldly faced and overcome the risk that sport presents. Atkinson describes this phenomenon, saying “the degree to which the body is taxed to its limits (almost sadomasochistically) is meaningful.” Former Brown diver and elite gymnast Carmen Bebbington describes this bodily “taxation”— the post-eight hour practice wailing muscles, overwhelming exhaustion, and deep hunger that drives you to inhale steamed broccoli as if it was a rare delicacy — as “feeling empty.” While perhaps paradoxical, it is precisely this feeling of “emptiness” — the pleasure of endorphins surging through the bloodstream — that I miss most about gymnastics. Even after retiring from competitive athletics, I still consciously strive to push to the point of exhaustion in my daily workouts out of the sheer desire to once again experience the pleasure of “sadomasochistic” physical taxation. For athletes like Asta and myself, loving a sport cannot be separated from the challenge it presents. “Can you describe to me what you love most about gymnastics?” I pose this question to Asta during our interview. As a nostalgic retired gymnast, I biasedly expect her to paint some beautiful description of the joys of flying through the air or the satisfaction of feeling that your jello quads are going to collapse beneath you at the end of practice. Instead, her answer comes as a shock: “Honestly, I really don’t know. It just feels like who I am, and I’ve done it for literally as long as I can remember. I have no memories of pre-gymnastics. The sport kind of sucks: it hurts, it’s scary. But I don’t know, I just love doing it.” While the pleasure of doing the sport can be immense, based on Asta’s comment, I argue that the importance of maintaining the superhuman identity appears to be the most profound influence on decision-making in sports. Whether it be ripping yourself out of bed at 7AM on Saturday mornings to plunge sleepy goosebumps into a chlorinated pool or forcing yourself back up on the beam after an ACL tear, the powerful human need to “know who you are” motivates athletes to continually make sacrifices for their sport. My question remains: can you truly love something that destroys you? The Risk Unseen
“I call it the rescue distance.” Amanda is a loving mother. In Samanta Shweblin’s psychological eco-horror novel Fever Dream, Amanda and her young daughter Nina travel out of the city to the Argentine countryside for a summer vacation. Amidst the slow-sultry days spent frolicking through open fields and bathing sunburns in backyard pools, Amanda remains constantly alert: “Right now, I’m calculating how long it would take me to jump out of the car and reach Nina if she suddenly ran and leapt into the pool. I call it the ‘rescue distance’: the variable distance separating me from my daughter, and I spend half the day calculating it.” Amanda’s calculations have long kept Nina’s chocolatey bangs and supple skin safe from the world’s many horrors. Yet, the horror ensues when risk cannot be calculated. Nina’s supple skin begins to itch and rash and writhe as leeched pesticides seep into her innocent flesh from the soybean field upon which she lays. Pulling her daughter’s poisoned body from the grassy-toxic embrace, Amanda has but one thought repeating over and over in her mind: “The rescue distance: it didn’t work, I didn’t see the danger.” Kendall Menard can’t see. After fifteen attempted 5231Ds turned fifteen forceful
forehead-to-water smacks off the 1 meter springboard, Kendall stands on the pool deck with her eyes fixed eerily on her extended right hand. “My arm is gone. I only see black past my shoulder.” Us soggy, swim-suited children try to reassure her that we can see her arm, that it looks normal, that it is attached to the shoulder. She isn’t convinced. I reach out and join our soggy right hands. Suddenly her eyes well with terrified tears as she feels invisible sensations from a limb that she is convinced has vanished. I started diving because it seemed like gymnastics but safer. I started diving because water was marketed to me as soft and forgiving. Yet, horror ensued when I started having headaches. After fifteen attempted 203Bs turned fifteen forceful forehead smacks off the 3 meter springboard, I stood on the pool deck wondering why the sky seemed so hazy. Six months later, stumbling through daily life with invisible concussive symptoms, I had but one thought repeating in my mind: I didn’t see the danger. According to a 2016 study of Division I divers from Midwestern universities, 54.2% of participants report having sustained at least one diving-related concussion during their athletic careers. While concussion may result from a flashy skull-smack into the board – such as in the famous case of Olympian Greg Louganis – what is more concerning is that diving-related concussions more frequently result from the mundane crooked entry. As explained by study author Sarah Kemp, a diver’s body enters the water at around 30 mph. Thus, an incorrect entry can cause whiplash effects on the brain as the body decelerates. While the basic physics of diving-related concussions is easily comprehensible, what is more nebulous is why the extent of this risk goes greatly unseen. Risk miscalculation is not unique to diving. In a 2017 study conducted by Christine Baugh, Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Department of Medicine and Center for Bioethics and Humanities, analytical models suggest that 43% of collegiate football players underestimate their risk of injury and 42% underestimate their risk of concussion. Data out of the UK indicates that injury risk in professional soccer is 1,000 times higher than popularly understood high-risk occupations such as construction and mining. Taken together, these data points lead to a more stratified understanding of the risk unseen: athletes may (a) be simply unaware of the risks associated with their sport (b) be unaware of the likelihood of being affected by such risks or (c) may be unaware of the true extent of the physical harm such a risk may cause. This risk misinformation —combined with socio-cultural factors that normalize pain and injury and glorify the athletic identity — places athletes in a position to make decisions that are not in their best interest. “It didn’t work.” Amanda’s distress plays on repeat in my mind. Her voice calls me to question, how can we make it work? Step one: unblur the risk price tag that athletes read before making a life-changing purchase. Loss is Risky Terrain
I don’t remember much about those first two weeks. All I remember is numbness — seeping into the quads, the hands, the mind. The soul. I had limped from injury to injury for two years straight
— disc fissuring in the low back, fractured foot, strain in the left inner thigh, second back fracture — too broken to compete, barely mobile enough to train, yet incapable of giving up. My coaches, the preachers of pushing past limits, realized that sometimes breaking isn’t temporary. My coaches spoke the words I could not say: there was no path to comeback. I spent many hours staring blankly at the glossy photo hanging boldly in my kitchen: a blonde girl in a bedazzled leotard soaring over a four inch beam in a 180 degree split. Her focus seemed unbreakable. Her grace seemed infinite. The strength gushing from her muscles reminded me that I was once powerful. I didn’t know if I’d ever feel powerful like that again. Tears dwelled silently in the corners of my eyes, yet I was too numb to cry. As outlined by Atkinson, the risk associated with sports extends beyond physical injury: “Risk is a multidimensional construct of athletes’ minds, bodies, selves, beliefs, values, and identities.” Due to the all-encompassing nature of elite sports, athletes become vulnerable to “self-loss, social loss, [and] emotional loss” as a result of heavily basing not only their identity but their mental-wellbeing on their athletic success. Due to this dependence on their sport, athletes develop a vulnerability not often considered: “Being ‘outside of the game’ is risky terrain” (Atkinson). In other words, contrary to the common belief that leaving athletics eliminates the risk of future harm, career termination represents a significant risk to athletes in and of itself. A systematic review of psychological distress among retired elite athletes found that, depending on the study, up to 29% of the sample demonstrated depressive symptomatology post-retirement, with no study finding less than 20% to identify with diagnosable depression. 39% of retired soccer players were found to have depression and anxiety in a 2015 observational study. A 2017 study revealed that 34.5% of former rugby players who experienced “forced retirement” due to injury were classified as “adverse alcohol” drinkers. Finally, a survey of 644 retired NFL players reported 71% of the sample to misuse opioids and 93% to experience significant pain
post-retirement. In combination with depression, chronic pain was associated with difficulties sleeping, managing finances, maintaining social relationships, and exercising. Fast forward eight years and the 12-year-old girl staring at glossy photos in her kitchen is three concussions in and just about to let her newest bodily trauma strip her of a rebound athletic career. Walking solemnly into the “NARP” gym for the first time post-diving, I am confronted with my friend’s gaze of bemusement followed by a phrase I’ll never forget: “you’re mortal.” From the combined experiences of retired athletes across sports, generations, and genders, it becomes clear that “falling back to earth” is a traumatic jolt for the “superhuman” athlete to process. The pain of reconciling with your mortality can become so intense that some athletes in Atkinson’s work define leaving the “total institution” of elite sport as “symbolic death.” Yet, sometimes death is literal. Trevor Labuda dies on November 3rd, 2023, at the age of 24 from suicide. A 2021 Brown graduate and Human Resources Associate at Capital One, Trevor was the captain of the Brown Varsity Dive team, the school record holder for the 1M and 3M events, and the energetic anchor of the Brown Swimming and Diving family. Sitting in a circle in the chaplain’s office, his close friends share memories of Trevor’s raspy voice cheering wildly over the buzz of competition and his bear hugs warming frightened goosebumps after a bad dive. Nick’s voice goes weak as he says, “No one had ever seen Trevor not in an awesome mood.” The tears once again start to dwell in the corners of my eyes, yet I’m too numb to cry. “While no one factor is believed to be the root cause of suicide ideation or attempt, losing one’s identity as an athlete through forced or voluntary retirement is noteworthy along sociological lines” says Atkinson. Trevor was in the process of transitioning out of a fruitful 14 year diving career, symbolically changing his instagram handle from “@trevthediver” to “@trevthedover.” He had a loving girlfriend, a stable job, and many die-hard fans (myself included). No one can define his suffering for him. No one can explain away his death. All I know is that Trevor joins the many revered athletes tragically lost to suicide: Junior Seau (NHL), Rick Rypien (NHL), Kenny McKinley (NFL), Wade Belak (NHL), and Ellie Soutter (Olympic snowboarder) among others. “Grief is the flip side of love,” says the chaplain at Trevor’s memorial, finally breaking our silence dotted with harmonized sniffles. “Love is a risk, but that doesn’t mean you should stop yourself from loving.” No matter the complex establishing factors or the frequently painful endings, one thing is clear: athletes love their sports ferociously. Despite the physical injuries they produce, the sacrifice they entail, and the grief that accompanies their loss, is it justified to prevent people from expressing this love? Should future generations be deprived of their chance to experience it? And Yet.
“Last question: will you put your kids in gymnastics?” Asta does not hesitate: “Not a chance.”
At the age of 21, my body is abnormally weathered and restricted: the bilateral tendon tears in my feet and lower leg spread numbness and burning into my toes as I stand at the sink to brush my teeth. The twisting required to roll out of bed must be carefully executed to prevent the electric surge of SI joint instability from shooting into my back and lower abdomen.
Post-concussive migraines taint physics homework and roommate dinners with fog, fatigue, and sustained eye twitching. I often lie awake at night grappling with the unsettling reality that there is no escape from pain. My mom sat beside me on cold metal chairs as the orthopedist announced that the longitudinal tears in my feet tendons will eventually need to be surgically “tacoed” back together. When I asked him where exactly on a calendar “eventually” is, he replied with a daunting “you’ll know.” Every day I cautiously roll out of bed, awaiting the moment I will no longer be able to walk.
Tears began to dwell in the corner of my mother’s eyes, but she was not afraid to cry. “I wish I had never put you in gymnastics,” she whimpered into my ear. Suddenly the metal chair felt like ice beneath my forearms. And yet shaking, cold, and terrified, all I can think is that I’d do it all again. I’d do it all again for the existential weightlessness of flying over a four inch beam in a perfect slip, I’d do it all again for the burst of pride and adrenaline that surges through the stomach after sticking the perfect vault at regionals, I’d do it all again for the beautiful exhaustion that filled every inch of my flesh after a four-hour Saturday practice, I’d do it all again to hear my teammates scream-cheering from across the gym, I’d do it all again because I can’t imagine who I’d be without ten years dressed in leotards and coated in chalk, I’d do it all again because to this day I still consider myself a warrior girl, and I’d do it all again because despite the burning and despite the aching and despite the twitching, what pains me most is knowing that I will never again do what I loved so ferociously that it destroyed me. “It's the best thing in the world anyone could ever wanna do. Why would I want to stop it just because it hurt me?” – Richard "Milky" Quayle Last question: Is participation in elite athletics justified? It depends how much you are willing to lose.
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