Teenage athletes' challenges being addressed by local sports psychologists

The sweet spot of Dr. Peter Temple's clinical psychology practice, he said, is helping adolescent athletes work on their "mental game."

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the mental game a curveball.

"Certainly some new clients have come as a result of it, and a lot of my existing athletes, I try to maintain relationships and connections with them. We're talking about how they're doing and the challenges," said Temple, whose Mind's Eye Sports Performance practice is in Geneva.

Athletes are facing multiple challenges with school closings and canceled seasons entering a third month.

They face a lack of structure and the competitive outlet sports provides. Isolation challenges the camaraderie and mentoring that's part of being on a team.

"This is loss, and loss is hard. When we lose something there's a grief that accompanies it," said Temple.

His experience is parental as well as professional. His son, Pace, is a former Geneva Vikings and Butler University football receiver. He arrived in Milan, Italy, to play professionally just as the coronavirus tore into that region. After a month in lockdown, he returned home.

"It's hard for an athlete if he has an ankle sprain to miss a game. It's devastating for athletes to miss a season if they have a significant injury, but everybody's losing their season so they can't even watch their teammates play, or their favorite players. That's tough," Dr. Temple said.

Normal being taken away

Clinical psychologist Dr. Jennifer Manfre, whose Jennifer E. Manfre & Associates firm is in Woodridge, said that while few of her younger clients have specifically discussed missing sports the feelings that have emerged from it are certainly heightened and are reflected in her practice.

"Irritability, increased aggression, increased acting out, and then the opposite symptoms of isolation and feeling kind of hopeless and feeling very, very anxious really is presenting in excessive amounts. We're seeing our adolescents coming in needing to talk to someone and talk through these feelings," she said.

"Parents aren't sure what to do with this. And after sitting with (students) and talking with them we're understanding that everything that's normal to them is being taken away, including something so important that drives them every day. It drives them to get up in the morning, it provides a sense of accomplishment, achievement, motivation and success.

"That camaraderie, that teamwork and that role model - that peer modeling, the coach's modeling for our kids. All of that has been sort of put to the side for now. That, again, creates a sense of hopelessness in those kids."

As Temple said: "Some kids can be vulnerable to maybe fall a little bit into depression."

Manfre, whose son plays football at Naperville North, noted "there's no playbook" to deal with the effects of this pandemic.

She and Temple have been impressed by the variety of ways athletes and coaches have responded without the reward of games to play.

All those Zoom meetings, 40-pushup challenges and practice plans flying over social media, publicly and privately, have a practical effect in retaining a sense of accomplishment, and "team."

Getting creative

Athletic directors turning on stadium lights during Friday night #LightsfortheFight provides a semblance of school pride, and connection.

Manfre's son tosses a football with a buddy, back and forth across the street.

"They're not playing but they're still doing it," Temple said. "The creativity of some of the things they're doing to work out and stay active and not be completely bored is really inspirational."

Parents of high school or college athletes have said the lockdown's bright side is simply having their kids around more often. Manfre suggests that if something looks amiss, parents take advantage of this captive audience.

"A lot of times our kids come in just feeling bad - they just know they feel angry or they feel sad, or they feel like not getting out of bed in the morning. So really just talking to our kids and helping them understand that this is what a lot of kids are going through, and it's OK. Just giving each other some grace," Manfre said.

Some coaches have called this a microcosm of life itself, an opportunity to overcome adversity. Temple agrees with this positive approach.

"This will make athletes infinitely better in some ways than a single season could as far as their resilience and their mindset, their drive," he said.

"I think sometimes they feel like, 'Unless I can work out and play like I have, what's the point?' Well, if you can frame this as a challenge that can help strengthen your mental game - everybody, whether they know it or not, is working on their mental game right now."