‘If a fan can hear that side of an athlete, maybe they’d have a little more empathy’

How do you think your stories around mental health in this sport have impacted fans and other athletes over the years?
What I hope is that it offered them empathy. We treat professional athletes as commodities; we talk about their contracts, their value to a franchise, their stats, and we forget that they’re human beings. If our stories could talk about how they’re feeling, their emotions, they have high days and low days. When you hear that, we realize that we actually have more in common than we think. If a fan can hear that side of an athlete, maybe they’d have a little more empathy. And, hey, if your favorite player isn’t performing as well as you expect them to, maybe there’s a reason, and we can be a little less harsh and a little kinder.

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Bethany`s Notes: We can all use a little more empathy at times. When you see great athletes not perform well don`t make judgments about their performance, coach, or training. Instead, realize that everyone has a bad day here or there and that there is a lot we do not know about them in their personal lives.