Introduction: The Problem To Be Solved

Greetings and welcome to my new project, First Ball To Last, A Tennis Mental Health and Wellness Initiative.

Mental Health has been in the news a great deal of late. Teenage rates of anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and self-harm have skyrocketed recently, so much so the Surgeon General of the United States issued a national mental health advisory declaring US teen's declining mental health as the crisis of our time. 

 

In our world of tennis, former world #1 Naomi Osaka had to step away from the game after going public with her mental struggles. Former American tennis star Mardy Fish had a Netflix documentary made about his mid-career anxiety and panic attacks, the mercurial Australian star Nick Kyrgios has  struggled mightily on and off the court with his mental wellness and to a lesser degree, Australian Ash Barty quit tennis as the #1 player in the world, the 2nd time she walked away from our great sport. Someone who trains their whole lives to become the best in the world at something and then quits suddenly, obviously not enjoying her time in the tennis life.

 

Mental health struggles transcend the tennis court. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, we watched Simone Biles, arguably the greatest gymnast in history, inexplicably lose her form. Stories soon emerged of Olympic swimming great Michael Phelps' persistent struggles with depression, to say nothing of the tragedy of Stanford soccer star Katie Meyer's suicide in 2022. 

 

And there was even been a book published by a former emerging US tennis star from the long-gone era of the Tennis Boom, chronicling his struggles with alcoholism, addiction, and bipolar disorder, whose promising career was cut short due to an undiagnosed, untreated mental illness. (picture of me with books, dogs)

 

But when we hear the term mental health, what exactly are we talking about? We all experience anxiety and we all have mood swings, some to the up, others to the down. But when do these most universal of human traits cross a line to become disorders? And how exactly do we know, for mental health evaluation has no determining blood tests, no cat scans or MRIs to give us definitive readings. Science may someday accomplish this, but it hasn't done so yet. 

 

What we do know is if these traits are present, persistent, and remain untreated, they progress, metastasizing to ourselves, eventually progressing to become disorders, disruptive to life, dreams, and all we hold dear while being tremendously difficult to manage once they reach chronic states.

 

I know a great deal about this space. At 18 years old, I was one of the best-rising tennis players in the USA (JDC and UCLA pic)  In April of 1983, I was on a roll. I walked onto a tennis court for the defending NCAA Champion UCLA Bruins an undefeated freshman, having won my first 22 dual matches, tying Jimmy Connor's freshman record while on the brink of setting every single-season record for my beloved UCLA. I was heading for greatness when it all came apart.

 

Just one year later, I had quit the team while dropping out of school, relegated to living in my VW Van, drinking and drugging my life away around the clock. And the obvious question demanding an answer is...

 

What happened? How did I end up like that?

 

Well, it turned out it had been happening all along. 

 

I was pursuing excellence in tennis with an undiagnosed serious mental health condition, a condition I dangerously began to self-medicate at the precarious age of fourteen. And I would struggle mightily with my Bipolar Disorder for much of my adult life, finally getting properly diagnosed at age 37 only to find my wires were dangerously crossed by that time, where it took a series of absurd miracles and likely divine interventions to permit me to stand before you today to share these words. 

 

I got very lucky. But more importantly, I learned an important lesson along the way. Placing a vulnerable person under constant stress, particularly the stress of the elite tennis life not only doesn't make matters better, but it can make them demonstrably and dangerously worse.

 

So the mental health and wellness of today's tennis youth is a topic dear and close to my heart.

 

A quick caveat. What happened to me occurred 40 years ago, when nobody knew much of anything about alcoholism, addiction, mental illness, or mood disorders. But what makes today's alarming statistics even more disturbing as a society is we've never known more about mental health, we've never been more active treating mental health disorders, we've never been more aware of the forces at work that cause mental health conditions, yet we're losing more and more ground seemingly every day. 

 

Are we missing something, or just not doing enough of the right things quickly enough? 

 

(Illustration: Climate Change drawing of guy charging electric car next to a recycling bin with solar panels on the roof with enormous set of bellowing smokestacks in the background)

 

The illnesses of Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar Disorder, and OCD are not new; they've been tormenting our humanity for some time now. With the ascent of social media and the recent pandemic as obvious culprits, the facts that rates are rising faster than we can manage is not surprising. With society becoming ever more complicated by the day, we're having trouble keeping up. And with little to no progress made in predicting let alone preventing the onset of these illnesses, it's no wonder we've reached crisis mode. 

 

So what can we do and how should we navigate?

 

What we do know is mental health issues have two primary sources, Genetics and Environmental. We're still generations away from being able to eliminate diseases through genetic manipulations. But we do have some control over the environment we choose to raise our children in today for the data here is clear. 

 

Environment plays a pivotal role in mental health and wellness, with the most obvious examples of growing up in households with the presence of violence, substance abuse, tragedy, or neglect, yet there are many more subtle ones, particularly if the environment we choose to subject our children to is the oft-stressful world of competitive junior tennis.

 

For us much as we love our sport, we must honestly concede. Tennis is stressful. And placing unprepared vulnerable immature youths under extended stress for long periods is simply asking for trouble. Just ask anyone who's lived the life and walked through the fire. 

 

So we must ask an important question. What can we control? The workings of nature and the cosmos are so awe-inspiring in their efficiency. But we humans, with our consciousness and self-will and our capacity for random acts of head-scratching behavior, the forces driving said action lying hidden beneath layers of the psyche. Human behavior is so difficult to groom, let alone predict. The chasm between what we know and how we act; it's like we're double agents sometimes, acting in ways so obviously against our own best interests.

 

But throughout my life's writings/studies/recovery, I've been able to identify certain traits often associated with the strongest and healthiest among us, traits that prove to be performance-enhancing, life-enhancing, if not life-saving in the most extreme cases, providing strength and resiliency against many of the trials and tribulations that put people at risk for mental afflictions. 

 

A building of an immunity system if you will, all fueled by a program empowered by simple daily routines, where we check and strengthen our mental and emotional vital signs regularly to ward off the harmful forces swirling among us.

 

And what are some of these traits?

 

LIST ALL

 

 

1) Motivation

2) Humility

3) Goal-Oriented

4) Gratitude

5) Conflict Resolution

6) Self-Control

7) Adaptability

8) Acceptance

9) Accountability

10) Responsibility

11) Curiosity

12) Preparation

13) Attitude

14) Effort

15) Expectations

16) Focus/Concentration

17) Patience

18) Mindfulness

19) Perspective

20) Optimism/Pessimism

21) Empathy

22) Positive Psychology (Multiple Parts)

23) Limitations

24) Letting Go

25) Sensitivity

26) Character

27) Inner Voice

28) Journey

29) Environment

30) Understanding Roles (Multiple Parts) Player, Parent, Coach

31) Emotional Intelligence (Multiple Parts) Anger, Anxiety, Sadness

32) Pressure

33) Daily Routines

34) Mantras

35) Altar

36) Work Ethic

37) Practice

38) Connectivity/Loneliness

39) Community

40) Service

41) Equanimity

42) Negative Thoughts

43) Daily Program

44) Testing

45) Relaxation

46) Nervousness 

47) Experience

48) Assertiveness

49) Respectful

50) Courage

51) leadership

52) Perseverance

53) Creativity

54) Non_judgemental

55) Hope

56) Kindness

57) Situations..Multiple entries

A daily program designed to be proactive, instilling these traits in us right from the start, from the First Ball if I may. For we've spent too long being reactive, leaving the development of these traits to chance, all the while leaving us vulnerable to attack, resulting in far too much unnecessary suffering. 

 

In sharing my personal struggles as I have, I get asked the same question over and over. Could anything have been done to help me?

 

And my stock answer has been that was 40 years ago when nobody in my life, teachers, parents, coaches, peers, knew much of anything about alcoholism, addiction, or mental health. But what drives my work  today in 2023 is what happens if I were to roll into town today, with all sorts of talent, yet all sorts of trouble, on and off the court. Are the programs, resources, and safeguards in place to keep young promising lives like my own from spiraling so out of control?

 

And sadly, I would have to answer no. Yet the information is out there, but its all dispersed, unorganized, and not tailored toward an easily accessible applicable program like I'm about to show you, a program I'm certain would not only have helped me see my dreams through of becoming a professional tennis player but would have protected me against many of the hardships I would later endure.

 

We've left too much of our emotional development to chance for too long.

 

But no longer.

 

As the writer David Thoreau said: "As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."

 

Again, I return to the Surgeon General National Emergency decree.  National, That means all of us, you and me.

 

Mental Health is all of our problems now.

 

My goal here is to assure that when a player hits their last ball, they will have gotten everything possible out of their talents and career, able to take the lessons learned through this program with them to the next challenges they face, with the ability to commit themselves fully to something they love, and apply that same energy and learned lessons to their education, careers, families, and relationships.

 

But it's not going to happen on its own.

 

Mental Health is now A National Problem

 

That means All of Us.

 

(Celebrity players coming in to do cameos, repeating 'All of Us' in to the camera)

 

Will you join me in this call to action, to make tennis the healthiest sport it can possibly be?