Pressure To Perform: The Trouble Facing Today's Athletes

Article written by Vivek Wallace for 8countnews.com

Last Saturday, it was the news of Alex Rodriguez testing positive for banned substances back in 2003. Tuesday, it was the culmination of the wrap-gate scandal in the sport of boxing.

Prior to those two incidents, it was the allegations directed towards Shane Mosley, and before that it was the Barry Bonds chatter that covered the baseball landscape. Ironically, Henry Chadwick (who some call the “father of baseball”) designated the letter "K" as the official symbol for a strikeout, citing the fact that it was his sport’s answer to the sport of boxing's knockout (TKO).

As we look at the recent incidents involving the two sports, a century later and for the wrong reasons they have found a way to draw yet another parallel.

Somewhere at the center of the issue is a very fundamental flaw that stops an athlete from bridging the gap between winning clean and winning at all costs, including the crossing of ethical lines. When you consider athletes like the Margaritos and Rodriguezes of the world who tipped the scales in an effort to live up to public standards, you then think of athletes like Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Bernard Hopkins, who have been able to get the most out of their talents by simply being disciplined enough to develop properly.

Everything comes full circle when you instantly realize that the only thing which separates the two types of athletes is one key element…discipline. Many fight fans have heard the stories about how Hopkins routinely hits the pillow by 10 p.m. or how Mayweather respects his body so much that he refuses to even sip from a can of Coke.

Those are great examples of the type of discipline that make sustained success much easier to find. That's also an example of the type of discipline that few in the world of sports possess, which often results in their need for extra leverage to gain an edge.

The proverbial “fishbowl” that most athletes find themselves in shines a spotlight that perhaps will never dim. With success comes the glitz, the glamour, but with failure comes the agony of defeat. Not only defeat in the "L" column, but also in the public sector, where media sources can build an athlete up and subsequently tear him down.

But where does it end? Some find that to be a question that no one can answer, yet I think it's that answer we all need to question. Does it end when all of our heroes are laced with asterisks, stripping them of their initial legitimacy? Or maybe when we produce another Lyle Alzado-like talent who literally thrills us 'til death does its part?

The old adage has it that “if you're not living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space.” I don't know how true that is, but maybe it explains why there are so few athletes on the good side of this topic.

With so many athletes choosing to bend to the pressure by living on the edge, there's an awful lot of space separating the Mayweathers/ Hopkins from the A-Rods of the world.