Goodbye To Tennis?

One of my very first sports obsessions was tennis. I grew up watching Billie Jean, Chrissy, Martina, Arthur, John, Jimmy, and others. I begin each year watching the Australian Open, then on to Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and finish with the US Open. But now, I am reconsidering my participation as a fan.

Naomi Osaka, the number 2 seed at Roland Garros, announced before this year's tournament began that she was going to opt out of the mandatory press sessions which follow each match, to preserve her mental health. 

(@naomiosaka, May 26, 2021)

 

With the increasing emphasis in popular media on mental health, her understanding of her own needs and recognition of what she should do to maintain her health shows this to be an appropriate decision. However, the folks in charge responded by muttering something that was vaguely supportive, and then began clutching their pearls and reminding her of her contractual obligations as a player, issuing stern warnings that she would be fined every time she does not meet with the press - what appeared to be a potential financial penalty of $140,000, if she continued through to the final round. Her response was to acknowledge her acceptance of the penalties, and to offer the suggestion that the revenue from the fines could be directed to a mental health charity.

After winning her first round match in France, she spoke briefly with the reporter on the court (the conversation is amplified though speakers so the crowd can hear from the winner and be acknowledged by them). But she did not attend the press conference. And she was fined $15,000, and was warned of possible escalating penalties in addition to the fines. 

 

"(Naomi) Osaka, who said she expected to be fined for not speaking to the media, was assessed a $15,000 fine for her actions Sunday. She was also warned about the consequences of continuing her media blackout, which involve not just greater fines, but also tournament defaults and possible Grand Slam suspensions.

We have advised Naomi Osaka that should she continue to ignore her media obligations during the tournament, she would be exposing herself to possible further Code of Conduct infringement consequences. As might be expected, repeat violations attract tougher sanctions including default from the tournament (Code of Conduct article III T.) and the trigger of a major offence investigation that could lead to more substantial fines and future Grand Slam suspensions (Code of Conduct article IV A.3.).

The statement said the mental health of the players is a top priority of the Grand Slams, but chose not to describe any of the "significant resources dedicated to player well-being." The statement also emphasized that the rules are in place to ensure that "all players are treated exactly the same, no matter their stature, beliefs or achievement," and that the Grand Slams feel Osaka's media blackout gives her an "unfair advantage" over her competitors." 

(Liz Roscher, Yahoo Sports, May 30, 2021) 

 

More and more high-profile people are opening up about their mental health challenges, including those in the world of professional sports. For example, when Kevin Love spoke publicly of the panic attack that he suffered during an NBA game in 2017, people praised his courage and offered support. Since then, he started the Kevin Love Fund that prioritizes mental wellness alongside physical health. 

In watching some of the other first round matches that weekend I saw that Grigor Dimitrov was forced to retire from the tournament midway through the third set of his match against Marcos Giron, because of continuing problems with his back. Online sports sites reported his early exit as "unfortunate", with folks indicating concern and compassion toward an athlete who is facing physical struggles. And yet, when an athlete made a proactive decision to preserve her mental health, those in charge of the event chose to pay muted lip service of support while loudly reminding her of the status quo, which is to require all participants to face not only the opponents on the court but also the often barbed interrogation of reporters who frequently question the athletes about their "grit", "focus", "resolve", and so on.

Then, on May 31, this post appeared on Instagram:

This isn’t a situation I ever imagined or intended when I posted a few days ago. I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris. I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer. More importantly would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly. The truth is that I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that. Anyone that knows me knows I'm introverted, and anyone that has seen me at the tournaments will notice that I'm often wearing headphones as that helps dull my social anxiety. Though the tennis press has always been kind to me (and I wanna apologize especially to all the cool journalists who I may have hurt), I am not a natural public speaker and get huge waves of anxiety before I speak to the world’s media. I get really nervous and find it stressful to always try to engage and give you the best answers I can. So here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences. I announced it pre-emptively because I do feel like the rules are quite outdated in parts and I wanted to highlight that. I wrote privately to the tournament apologising and saying that I would be more than happy to speak with them after the tournament as Slams are intense. I'm gonna take some time away from the court now, but when the time is right I really want to work with the Tour to discuss ways we can make things better for the players, press and fans. 

 

(@naomiosaka, May 31, 2021) 

 

 

 

Officials at Roland Garros responded with poor grace, issuing a statement that they were "sorry and sad for Naomi Osaka", and hoped that she has "the quickest possible recovery", exposing their ignorance of depression and anxiety.  

 

In spite of my life-long habit of watching the Grand Slams, I decided at that point I would boycott Roland Garros this year, and did not watch any of the rest of the tournament. I realize the loss of one viewing individual does not matter to the tournament, but it matters to me.

 

While I understand that there is a tradition of having all the competitors meet with the press following each match, I am reminded of NFL running back Marshawn Lynch, who has said that he feels the media dwells on negativity and that his play on the field should speak for itself. Over the years, he has responded at mandatory media events by answering with short statements like "yeah" "maybe" and "I'm thankful". He appeared at Super Bowl Media Day in 2015 but famously set a timer for five minutes and then answered "I'm just here so I won't get fined" to every question posed by reporters. His way of dealing with what he has seen as an intrusive occurrence was received mostly with chuckles, and a year later he was granted a trademark by the US Patent and Trademark Office and sells tee shirts with the sentiment and his image imprinted. But when Naomi Osaka tried to deal with the same issue in a serious and transparent manner, she was punished with escalating fines and berated by the folks in charge. 

 

The Championships, Wimbledon, began today.  Naomi Osaka is not participating. I have yet to decide if I will be watching.

 

 

 

 

 

This Is Important

Please take the time to read this post, reprinted from Professor Heather Cox Richardson (Boston College). One of the most important essays I have read in a very long time.

March 14, 2021 (Sunday)

By the time most of you will read this it will be March 15, which is too important a day to ignore. As the man who taught me to use a chainsaw said, it is immortalized by Shakespeare’s famous warning: “Cedar! Beware the adze of March!”

He put it that way because the importance of March 15 is, of course, that it is the day in 1820 that Maine, the Pine Tree State, joined the Union.

Maine statehood had national repercussions. The inhabitants of this northern part of Massachusetts had asked for statehood in 1819, but their petition was stopped dead by southerners who refused to permit a free state—one that did not permit slavery—to enter the Union without a corresponding “slave state.” The explosive growth of the northern states had already given free states control of the House of Representatives, but the South held its own in the Senate, where each state got two votes. The admission of Maine would give the North the advantage, and southerners insisted that Maine’s admission be balanced with the admission of a southern slave state, lest those opposed to slavery use their power in the federal government to restrict enslavement in the South.

They demanded the admission of Missouri to counteract Maine’s two “free” Senate votes.

But this “Missouri Compromise” infuriated northerners, especially those who lived in Maine. They swamped Congress with petitions against admitting Missouri as a slave state, resenting that slave owners in the Senate could hold the state of Maine hostage until they got their way. Tempers rose high enough that Thomas Jefferson wrote to Massachusetts—and later Maine—Senator John Holmes that he had for a long time been content with the direction of the country, but that the Missouri question “like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union It is hushed indeed for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.”

Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, but Jefferson was right to see it as nothing more than a reprieve.

The petition drive that had begun as an effort to keep the admission of Maine from being tied to the admission of Missouri continued as a movement to get Congress to whittle away at slavery where it could—by, for example, outlawing slave sales in the nation’s capital—and would become a key point of friction between the North and the South.

There was also another powerful way in which the conditions of the state’s entry into the Union would affect American history. Mainers were angry that their statehood had been tied to the demands of far distant slave owners, and that anger worked its way into the state’s popular culture. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 meant that Maine men, who grew up steeped in that anger, could spread west.

And so they did.

In 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy, who had moved to Alton, Illinois, from Albion, Maine, to begin a newspaper dedicated to the abolition of human enslavement, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob, who threw his printing press into the Mississippi River.

Elijah Lovejoy’s younger brother, Owen, had also moved west from Maine. Owen saw Elijah shot and swore his allegiance to the cause of abolition. "I shall never forsake the cause that has been sprinkled with my brother's blood," he declared. He turned to politics, and in 1854, he was elected to the Illinois state legislature. His increasing prominence brought him political friends, including an up-and-coming lawyer who had arrived in Illinois from Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln.

Lovejoy and Lincoln were also friends with another Maine man gone to Illinois. Elihu Washburne had been born in Livermore, Maine, in 1816, when Maine was still part of Massachusetts. He was one of seven brothers, and one by one, his brothers had all left home, most of them to move west. Israel Washburn, Jr., the oldest, stayed in Maine, but Cadwallader moved to Wisconsin, and William Drew would follow, going to Minnesota. (Elihu was the only brother who spelled his last name with an e).

Israel and Elihu were both serving in Congress in 1854 when Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturning the Missouri Compromise and permitting the spread of slavery to the West. Furious, Israel called a meeting of 30 congressmen in May to figure out how they could come together to stand against the Slave Power that had commandeered the government to spread the South’s system of human enslavement. They met in the rooms of Representative Edward Dickinson, of Massachusetts-- whose talented daughter Emily was already writing poems-- and while they came to the meeting from all different political parties, they left with one sole principle: to stop the Slave Power that was turning the government into an oligarchy.

The men scattered for the summer back to their homes across the North, sharing their conviction that a new party must rise to stand against the Slave Power. In the fall, those calling themselves “anti-Nebraska” candidates were sweeping into office—Cadwallader Washburn would be elected from Wisconsin in 1854 and Owen Lovejoy from Illinois in 1856—and they would, indeed, create a new political party: the Republicans. The new party took deep root in Maine, flipping the state from Democratic to Republican in 1856, the first time it fielded a presidential candidate.

In 1859, Abraham Lincoln would articulate an ideology for the party, defining it as the party of ordinary Americans standing together against the oligarchs of slavery, and when he ran for president in 1860, he knew it was imperative that he get the momentum of Maine men on his side. In those days Maine voted for state and local offices in September, rather than November, so a party’s win in Maine could start a wave. “As Maine goes, so goes the nation,” the saying went.

So Lincoln turned to Hannibal Hamlin, who represented Maine in the Senate (and whose father had built the house in which the Washburns grew up). Lincoln won 62% of the vote in Maine in 1860, taking all 8 of the state’s electoral votes, and went on to win the election. When he arrived in Washington quietly in late February to take office the following March, Elihu Washburne was at the railroad station to greet him.

I was not a great student in college. I liked learning, but not on someone else’s timetable. It was this story that woke me up and made me a scholar. I found it fascinating that a group of ordinary people from country towns who shared a fear that they were losing their democracy could figure out how to work together to reclaim it.

Happy Birthday, Maine.

 

LINK to Prof. Heather Cox Richardson's Faculty page