The amount of pressure I had to look a certain way as a swimmer was extremely draining, in some instances leading to me having panic attacks in the middle of my swim practices. Yes a lot of these expectations were self-imposed, but there were many people who felt justified to comment on how I looked or what I ate just because I was a swimmer. I eventually gained a very unhealthy relationship with food, causing me to be very low energy in both practice and my personal life. I felt like I couldn’t reach out to my peers because they were the ones expecting me to be a swimmer, and would end up judging me for being exhausted if I wasn’t even that good of a swimmer. I couldn’t understand that I was hurting myself as much as I was because I only focused on fitting the stereotypical swimmer my friends and family wanted to see me as.
Once I understood how damaging these stereotypes were I paid more attention to how I perceived others in the other sports I did.
I have had a handful of games where I competed against rude tennis players, but I have played so many more tennis matches against kind and honest individuals. I don’t assume every component will lie on line calls nor do I assume every match will end with tapping racquets. Instead, I give my opponent the chance to play tennis the way they feel is natural, making my judgment of their character based on their actions and not my own opinions.
People self-consciously make assumptions about the people they see in their day-to-day lives, this instinct can cause them to prematurely judge people without taking the time to understand them. This issue also exists in the sports world as athletes are constantly expected to fall into the box already decided for them. Most athletes would agree that in some way their sport comes with a certain outside view that is often difficult to escape.
Athletes dedicate themselves to their sport knowing that their sport may take away from their personal lives. This does not mean that athletes can’t have a personal life, it just means that sometimes they will have to make sacrifices and choose between their sport and everything else in their lives. Many non-athletes view these choices as the athlete choosing to be the player before the person, leading to the athlete being associated with the predetermined stigmas associated with their sport.
A phrase I commonly use to separate the stereotypes from the athlete is thinking of competitors as a person who plays a sport vs a sports player. By doing this I avoid making assumptions about athletes, instead viewing them as people first.
Some stereotypes can seem harmless because the base of the idea is a compliment, yet in reality many of these stigmas lead to the athlete being self-conscious. Whenever someone sets a standard for how a specific athlete should look or act, it causes the player to feel like they have to be a certain way in order to not be judged for not checking all the boxes.
Starting with the stigmas surrounding the personality of an athlete, expecting every football player to be immature or stupid and every marcher to be an awkward nerd creates a rift between these groups.
Senior Sydney Wells is a member of the Spartan Regiment, and she shares the sentiment that these assumptions do more harm than good.
“I try to brush it off as much as I can, but it aggravates me a little bit because I’m in it,” Wells said. “I don’t think they’re right. I know a lot of us are smart, but we’re not all stereotypical nerds or geeks people see us as.”
Expecting people to look a certain way can be just as harmful because it forces athletes to compare themselves to the idea people have when they picture an athlete.
Senior Rilee Jones was involved in dance for 10 years, and she definitely felt pressure to conform to the stereotypical dancer appearance.
“[The idea that all dancers are skinny] is very negative and it’s very damaging to mental health. It destroys you from the inside out,” Jones said.
Stereotypes can often be defended as just a joke or just for fun; however, the intentions behind someone’s words don’t always change the interpretation of them. Saying something rude to someone just because they choose to participate in a sport you have your own opinions on accomplishes nothing, instead it makes the athlete feel bad for doing something they enjoy.
Stereotypical athletes definitely do exist, and many teams have members who follow the stereotypes about their sport. However, every person has their own personality that is completely different from the rest of society and it’s important that athletes get to be their own person too.
