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Our Town: Jealousy in sports and the damage it can do

Dr Tom Ferraro
Hall of Fame superstar Tiffeny Milbrett couldn't have been nicer yet experienced jealousy throughout her career")

One of the dirtiest little secrets in sports is the existence of jealousy. I have witnessed this emotion rear its ugly head in youth sports, in high school settings and in the pro ranks. Little is written about jealousy in sports perhaps because it’s so surprising and even shameful to the victims of jealousy and envy.

Tiffeny Milbrett is a Hall of Fame star but when she was a youngster she was just a blonde haired and sweet child prodigy who was 11 years old. She dominated every game she was in, and a parent on the opposing team became so enraged by her talent that she came on the field after a game and kicked Milbrett in the stomach.

Another player I have worked with came to see me after his career had been decimated thanks to the jealousy of an older team member. He was a professional athlete who made a big splash in his rookie year which was a year where the team’s major superstar was sidelined with an injury.

At the beginning of my patient’s second season, the superstar was to return to playing and instructed the coach to either trade my patient or trade him.

High level competitive athletes are often prone to jealousy and want no teammate to get too much press. The genius of Phil Jackson was his ability to prepare his team of stars for the arrival of Michael Jordan.

Jackson knew that the media would focus on Jordan and that this would in all likelihood produce resentment in Scotty Pippin, Toni Kukoc, Dennis Rodman and many others on the Chicago Bulls. The fact that he was able to predict and to manage the jealousy helped produce the Chicago Bulls dynasty.

However, Jackson was one of the greatest coaches of all time. One doubts whether the average coach on Long Island will have the same ability. This, of course, results in the acting out of jealousy and the sabotage of the most gifted athlete on the team.

Jealousy unfolds both directly or subtly. The gifted player may all of a sudden be criticized and singled out for public shame by the coach or by other players. The coach may consider the player “uncoachable” and other players may try to freeze them out on the field. Subtle abuse occurs when the player is no longer asked out to parties or social gatherings.

The gifted player who is the recipient of this kind of jealousy will at first become confused because usually, they are not the jealous type and so finds it hard to understand what is occurring.

They may even begin to blame themselves or worse yet begin to lose focus and back off from playing too well. This dynamic is common in girls when they reach college age and begin to back off from success.

This also happens in families with an intellectually gifted child. If the parents become jealous of the child’s gifts the child will begin to dumb it down and this is sometimes causing a learning disability.

The long-term impact of jealousy is powerful as well. I have known a patient who was very gifted academically and the result was that she was ostracized from her peer group in high school. This damaged her self-esteem so much that she wound up feeling lesser than others her whole life despite tremendous success in her career.

We are all familiar with the term sibling rivalry but when a sibling is extremely gifted that rivalry can turn sinister and abusive, creating depression and anxiety in the gifted sibling which lasts for years and can only be resolved with psychotherapy.

The current college recruitment scandal now making headlines is a good example of the lengths people will go to beat out others and one of the dynamics that has fueled that scandal is feeling of jealousy and the need to win at all costs.

If you feel that your child is experiencing unfair jealousy based upon their talents you need to step in. It is wise to give your child a chance to ventilate their confusion and sadness over this. You need to tell them that they need to stay focused and not shy away from good performance. And if the issue continues it may be wise to talk to the coach about your concerns as well.

We all like to think that talent and great performance is met with applause and admiration. Rarely do we want to believe that teammates are resentful, envious or jealous. But as I explained above, jealousy and envy are common traits and, sadly, the most talented among us are usual victims of jealousy. Perhaps that is what they mean when they say “it’s lonely at the top.”

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