Observations-Naomi Osaka and her NO to Press Conferences

Naomi Osaka declared her intentions of not doing press conferences during the French Open tournament, a decision which will end up costing her a lot of money. She said she decided to do this to preserve her mental health. She said that it is mentally hard enough to deal with the emotional ups and downs of playing in a major tournament, as well as the usual pressure that comes with being a world class athlete. She mentioned that the interminable questioning by the press on the same topics and being asked the same questions is mentally draining, and that the questions are, more often than not, dwelling on their failures during the matches rather than on their successes, the players already stress over every point, every mistake by themselves, without the additional questioning of the press, who knows nothing of being an athlete under the microscope. To her point, the press seems to delight in playing gotcha with the interviewees as they press them into moments of weakness. Her contention is that being a world class athlete performing at a level that very few people have experienced is difficult enough, their mental energy needs to be focused on the next match and opponent rather than be wasted on repeating mea culpa to a world which already saw the failures, live and in color.

That statement in and of itself speaks volumes about the pressures of being a professional athlete. But being an individual sport athlete in tennis or golf is made all the more difficult because they are on their own and they do not have the luxury of team mates to ease the pressure – you have no one to depend on to bail you out.  In an era where  mental training is emphasized and celebrated, athletes – professional and amateur – are recognizing the importance of mental health and are hiring sports psychologists and coaches to train the athletes to learn to deal with the pressures of their work.

There has been immediate reaction from the Greek chorus of sports fandom of course, it is particularly interesting to see the responses by some coaches I know. These are coaches who coach juniors, they have spent copious amounts of time debating and learning about preparing their players to deal with the pressures of qualifying for the national tournaments, of learning to play  to the best of their abilities despite the pressures placed on them by coaches, parents, and most of all, themselves. These are the same coaches who have committed themselves to guiding players through the process of coming to terms with those pressures, while also seeking ways to relieve those pressures. They also emphasize, to anyone who would listen, that a select sport like club volleyball can be mentally challenging, and that coaches need to be sensitive to signs of stress induced behaviors and care for the mental health of the players. Our society has only recently come to the belief that there is a mental health epidemic going on. At this point in time, this epidemic could partly be attributed to the COVID pandemic, but it can mostly be attributed to the way our society has evolved culturally when it comes to dealing with self imposed pressures and how each person is able to deal with them. Emphasis have been placed on the need to recognizing signs of mental stress on all citizens, but especially the younger citizens. Sports coaching groups and mental health professionals have created programs to help young people cope with external or internal pressures. The spiraling number of teenage suicides has no doubt driven much of this societal emphasis.

Yet, even with the burgeoning awareness of mental health in our society, particularly in the sports realm, the response to Osaka announcement seems to be negatively judgmental. Although there are some empathies with Naomi Osaka point of view, I was surprised by many of the responses: “she's getting paid millions of dollars to play a game so she can at least put up with going to press conferences.” Or: “This is part of their job; they need to help promote the sport.” It is as if these coaches completely reversed their positions on mental health once  the subject is a professional.

If this is a part of being a professional athlete, I ask:  How big of a part of a job is this? Is appearing at a press conference a bigger part of the job than winning? Is appearing at a press conference a bigger part of the  job than being the best tennis player? Is appearing at a press conference a bigger part of the tennis player job than being mentally prepared to play the game? A professional player’s only job is to play well; under intense pressures from everyone: the fans, the tour, the people who depend on the player to make their living, and most of all, pressure from themselves. I understand that the professional contract requires the players to promote the tour which involves being in front of the gathered press.  The question is: does the French Open rather have a strong tournament with all the players at their best, playing their best, and competing at the highest level, thereby giving the advertisers a great show for their sponsorship money; or would they rather have top players not perform to their highest abilities because they are mentally distracted  or exhausted because they have to deal with the incessant volleys of the press pool, each reporter repeating the same questions as the previous reporters, all hoping for different answers or hoping to evoke emotional reactions in order to create click baits?

Tournaments and tours are prepared to do everything within their powers to prevent disruptions in the players preparations, they make the best medical teams available to the players if they are ill or are injured, no expenses spared. The question is: what are they doing for the mental health of the players? Are they doing everything in their powers to prevent mental distress and fatigue? The press conference is seemingly an unnecessary and avoidable distraction. They could alleviate some of the pressures policing the press conferences, but this being France, regulating the fourth estate is a sensitive topic.

I understand the argument that being a professional means facing criticism, or having their every move analyzed in fine granularity; but, when does that critical analysis turn into harassment and mental abuse? How far should the press go to get at the story? Does the press and general public understand that the professional players a process that meets regularly with their support team during and after each match, every tournament, and every season? That this group performs triage on their failures and discuss methods of ameliorating the problem? They do this without emotional baggage and judgement but with clarity critical thinking. I suppose that is the key difference, the media thrives on emotional baggage’s and judgement: that is what sells papers and magazines, promotes the matches on television, and gather clicks on social media.

Another argument from the Greek chorus is that Osaka’s sponsors are paying her plenty of money to show their labels on television, she should be obligated to obey their every demand.  The question then is: does her sponsors want more than anything to have  that opportunity for the television cameras to catch the teeny logo that is on her attire? Or are they paying her to be a symbol of winning and demonstrating her championship demeanor?  Is the press conference a primary goal for the sponsor’s marketing team? Or is it far down their priority list? I believe that the brand wants to be associated with a winner, that all the advantages that comes from winning and winning with class would rub off on the brand. They don’t need her to be wearing their logo in front of the cameras in a press conference. Indeed, the visual opportunity for the brand is much better when the camera is focused on her during match play than during a press conference.

An inherent issue in this discussion is the way we view professional athletes. When we read or hear the words: professional athletes, what comes to mind? Pampered, spoiled, selfish, self-entered, arrogant, far removed from reality. When we perceive that these athletes are breaking outside of the boundaries that our society places on them, we automatically think: shut and play the game. We don’t want to hear from you, we just want to be entertained by you. We don’t need to know what you think, or how you are feeling, we just want you to be our dancing pony.  We also think, while placing ourselves vicariously in their places, that we would be happy to get paid millions just to play a game or just to wear some nice clothes and shoes. We also believe that we know exactly how we would deal with those pressures if we were in their place. We believe, consciously and subconsciously, that we have the mental grittiness and resilience to handle those things that Osaka is objecting to. In reality, unless you are in the moment as a world class athlete, unless you are under the lights in front of the gathered audience with a camera stuck in your face, you don’t know anything about that situation, and you certainly don’t know how you would react; to say that you do know is to demonstrate Dunning-Kruger effect in its simplest form.

A few points to remember. First, these players did not get to where they are by being mentally weak. They have fought to the top of the pile by being grittier and more resilient than all the other talented players that have been left behind. Their mental acuity is something that they have honed and perfected over a career, getting to that level of  mental focus and keeping it is akin to walking a tight rope, any slight disruption could potentially upset delicate balance, why would anyone deliberately want throw off their balance? Second, a professional athlete's life is limited. They only have a short number of productive years; it is in Osaka’s best interest to take advantage of her productive years to compete at the highest level. She is doing what she feels she needs to do to preserve her mind and body for the center court. She and her team should know what is best for her preparation. If she feels that the best way to focus her energy so that she can be at her best, who can argue with that? Third, the press is interested in grilling only the top players, they could care less about interviewing the qualifiers. It is ironic that the players are expected to give up their preparatory edge when they are at the top of their games, potentially damaging the delicate mental balance for the sake of appeasing the press, all the while knowing that when they become a lesser player, when they are no longer are ranked at the top of the game, they could have all the distraction free preparatory time that they want, because no one would want to hear their press conference.

I admire Osaka for admitting that she is ill prepared to deal with the stresses in her mind resulting from the press conferences; in  so doing, she is admitting her own weakness, her own Achilles heel. She is admitting to the world that  she cannot manage her mental state well enough to handle both the preparation for playing at a high level and dealing with this press conference distraction.

Returning to the central issue: mental health. Let us focus on the developing players, would it be a responsible coaching tactic if we sought to introduce more distraction into their preparation? Is it in the player’s best interest to potentially sabotage all mental and physical work put into their preparation? Is the player’s responsibility to preparing themselves for the game, or is their responsibility to fulfill a tertiary by product of the overall production of the competition? Is it the competition that is sacred, or is it the marketing?

We zealously guard the amateur players preparations as coaches, we would balk at having their preparation disrupted. We also try to prepare the amateur players to deal with pressures of competing. We treat every stress inducing situation as a lesson to be learned, we patiently give them chances to recover and learn. Yet when it comes to professional athletes, we seem to demand that they cease learning and tough it out, much like Gen. George Patton’s process of dealing with soldiers who have PTSD.

Why do we do this? Is it because of our inherent fixed mindset when it comes to anyone who calls themselves a professional? That they should all of this by the time they become professionals? Or it is our inherent hypocrisy?