A More Compassionate Culture of Sport

By Laurence Halsted, former Olympic fencer, current Performance Director at Danish Fencing, and Co-Director of The True Athlete Project's Mentoring Program.
(Read Part 1 and Part 2 of Laurence's 3-Part Series)
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Sport in 2018 is not coming close to delivering its potential; not for the participants nor for society as a whole. From grassroots all the way up to the Olympic and elite level, there are valid concerns with how sport is organised and how athletes are trained and treated. Where sport should be an unequivocably positive force for individual physical and mental health, as well as a boon for communities and society in general, it is in fact rife with stress, anxiety, depression, burnout, bullying, discrimination, corruption...The list goes on.
 
Sport has lost its way. It has lost the connection to its true meaning and value. Sportsmanship, fair-play and honour have been demoted in importance by a win-at-all-cost attitude. The driving force is now a cynical business-model approach where the bottom line is results, and we are quick to justify or excuse almost any means to that end. 

My pet grudge and a clear example of the downgrading of traditional sporting values in the quest for winning is the ubiquity of diving in football. There is no question that this ‘simulation’ that we have been forced to accept as standard practice is plainly and simply, cheating. Cheating that is, at best, tolerated by clubs and fans, and at worst, encouraged by them if it helps the team to win. Any club or coach could easily eradicate this pernicious behaviour from their team if they wanted. Equally, players could decide to live and play by a higher code and refrain. As I see it, those that do refrain achieve something far greater than a free kick or penalty; they win greater respect from the people watching and those playing with them.
 
The fact that such blatant un-sportsmanship has not already been wiped out of the game is a testament to the diminished regard for values in the high stakes world of professional sport.
 
Sport culture is in desperate need of a reinvention, and one that I would suggest can be found in a re-connection with values in order to re-discover sport’s meaning in the modern world. As you will have figured out by now if you have followed this series of articles from the start, one such value that I propose as integral to this brave, new paradigm of sport is compassion. The previous two articles in the series have focussed on how self-compassion is highly relevant and highly beneficial to athletes, both in terms of well-being and performance. If you haven’t read those articles, then I recommend starting there before reading on. This article is about the wider relevance of compassion and self-compassion to sport culture and the radiant, transformative potential these values represent.
 
The importance of compassion as a desirable focal point harks back to the question of the meaning of sport in the modern age. We need to find a counterpoint to the win-at-all-costs approach with its numerous damaging side-effects. That counterpoint, as I see it, is to cultivate sport as a widely recognised, uniquely respected vehicle for character development. This new model would strive to develop elite athletes as exemplary citizens who have trained mind and body to better contribute to society and also excel at their sport. This approach would provide a sense of greater meaning to the athletes which would be entirely independent of the level and results they achieve, and would benefit society from legions of more rounded, socially-conscientious and compassionate citizens and role models.
 
There are many traits associated with being an elite athlete which are fully aligned with the current result-orientated approach and which are of great benefit to individual athletes in their lives beyond sport; determination, discipline, commitment, self-confidence, focus. It is not as if sport is deficient in opportunities for character development. What is being revealed to us now more than ever is that these traditional athletic traits are simply not enough. They are not enough for the individual athletes whose mental health suffers even whilst they are at the very top of their game. It is also not enough for our societies that support sport in a myriad of ways, at all levels and get just a fraction of the potential return on investment. To unleash more of sport’s potential for good in the world we need to evolve and advance the character traits that we aim to develop through it. Here are four such traits that have the power to re-invent a participant’s experience within sport.
 
●      Compassion - mindful, kind, recognising common humanity
●      Awareness - curious, interested, knowledgeable, scholarly
●      Responsibility - (socially-)conscientious, engaged, active use of platform
●      Integrity - honest, respectful, harmonious personality

Zoom-In On Compassion
For the sake of this article we will use compassion to explore the potential effects of healthier, more holistic character traits on sport culture.
 
Athletes that are kinder and more forgiving to themselves will not be so badly affected by many of the common, harmful aspects of sport such as negative body image, fear of failure, fear of negative evaluation and overly harsh self-judgement for making mistakes and losing matches. This would represent a more positive experience of sport that remains fun and engaging for longer, which in turn would likely mean fewer athletes dropping out early.

This is an important double-effect. On the one hand, training in self-compassion would help alleviate the unnecessary and often excessive suffering of many athletes going through the inevitable bumps and grinds of an athletic career. Reducing the power of the more extreme negative emotions would surely buy athletes the option of a longer runway in terms of participation. Zoom out from the individual and you would start to see a population engaged in activity, in challenge, in teamwork for a considerable increase of time.

A self-compassionate system of development would open up vastly more scope for participation and engagement to those who would otherwise have been forced out as ‘not mentally tough enough’. Some of those who were saved from a forced, early retirement by this approach might even go on to reach the highest levels in the sport. A tool as powerful as self-compassion for dealing with setbacks could make the difference for many athletes who find themselves considering their options at difficult times in their sports career.

Along with the improved experience of participation itself, the retirement process would also become on average far more positive, preserving more of each individual’s love of sport. It is true that not everyone is cut out for a long career in competitive sports, but it should not come to such a crushing/deflating end with such regularity. In the vast majority of cases, disengaging from competitive sport should be a straightforward matter of preference and prioritising rather than of pushing the emergency eject button and crashing down to earth. The latter response is more likely to scar the athlete in question and render them far less likely to see their sporting endeavours as a valuable source of self-worth and self-identity.
 
A Tool For Life Not Just For Sport
I have mentioned common traits that set athletes up well for the challenges that life throws at them, but none of those have the potential psychological healing power of self-compassion. Elite athletes are overwhelmingly physically healthy (barring some athletes in extreme body-type/movement-type sports). It is a prerequisite of almost all top level sport that one has trained oneself to a high physical level. Mental health is by no means as ubiquitous. In fact the unique pressures of elite sport make athletes particularly susceptible to mental health issues. This is a concern within sport culture that requires addressing immediately because physical health without mental health is simply not true health at all. As a society we should not accept a system that creates record-breaking athletes who are depressed, even if the athletes themselves are willing to be a part of such a system. Remember, they all joined the system as children and are conditioned to think it’s all just part and parcel. Just as we try to prohibit doping in part to protect the health of the athletes, we must implement a better system for healthy psychological development.

Sport psychology is often influenced by advances in clinical and therapeutic psychology. Compassion-focussed therapy has been used to great effect for sufferers of many forms of anxiety, depression, low feelings of self-worth and other mental health problems. It has been shown to activate our biologically evolved sense of safety and well-being which is in direct opposition to our sense of threat and need for self-protection. So, when we are feeling and exhibiting compassion for ourselves and others it is not possible to simultaneously be angry, anxious, disgusted or in terror, the difficult emotions that are linked to us sensing potential threats. We could all do with a bit of compassion training to help us get through life, and we could give our young athletes a great advantage by teaching this to them early, in a setting where they get to practice it in a very safe environment with great regularity.

Where Compassion Can Take Us
As one would expect, research shows that becoming more self-compassionate can provide a surplus of emotional resources that the individual can then use to care for and be compassionate towards others.

A compassionate athlete is a better teammate and a better role model to younger generations and the wider world. Moments of compassion in sport are immensely impactful, as evidenced by the flood of responses, articles and videos that are produced in honour of such acts. After the recent football World Cup, Englands’ Manager Gareth Southgate aligned the whole country in admiration for his compassionate approach, epitomised by the photo shared around the world of him consoling a defeated Colombian player after the final whistle of their round of 16 match.
 
Southgate was role-modelling an approach and an attitude that our athletes and coaches could benefit hugely from. He exuded a sense of equilibrium going through the tournament-- he wasn’t enveloped in a storm of emotions after each win and defeat. He also inspired the nation with his calm, positive and balanced interviews after games. He made his country proud of him, and by extension of his team, even before England had surpassed expectations with their 4th place finish. I am imagining a world where all our athletes are brought up to be role models in the Southgate mould, and the incredible, positive effect on communities and on society that would have.

Sport culture is crying out for a more compassionate approach. I view the outpouring of appreciation for Southgate by English fans and media alike as evidence for this. We are as inspired by compassionate athletes as we are disappointed by more obviously egotistical, self-centred athletes. Showing compassion for opposition players as well as teammates sends a powerful message that we are all in this together, com-peting to be the best we can be. In short, we need each other.
Sport has so much to offer, but it desperately craves a deeper meaning that models the best expression of humanity and highlights our reliance on and respect for each other. One need only look to the values of Olympism to rediscover that meaning.

“The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

This is a statement that positively hums with a sense of compassion. So let’s start with the building blocks of this vision, and equip the next generation of Olympians, Paralympians and all those engaged in sport with the values and mental skills that will truly benefit them throughout their lives whilst redefining sport’s great worth in the modern era.
 
Get In Touch!
If you are a coach, sport psych, elite or former elite athlete and find resonance with this type of self-compassionate approach in your sporting experience, I would love to hear from you. Please contact me at:
[email protected]

Laurence Halsted is the co-director of The True Athlete Project's mentoring program. He was a foil fencer who won a silver medallist in the 2008 European Championships and represented Great Britain at the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. He is the director of performance at Danish Fencing and has written for The Guardian and The Nation on athlete activism.
Read one of Laurence's latest articles here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/06/trump-lebron-james-nba-star-true-role-model