NBA's Tyrell Terry and other young athletes who have struggled with anxiety

On December 2022, 22-year-old NBA player Tyrell Terry announced his sudden retirement from professional basketball.

What made this young point guard to put an end to what could have been a promising career? According to NBC News, anxiety made him lost his love for the ball.

Image: @markusspiske / Unsplash

Terry was drafted in 2020 by the Dallas Mavericks after being a standout college basketball player at Stanford.

He only played 11 games with the Mavericks, before briefly signing with the Memphis Grizzlies for the 2021-2022 season.

“This message is a very difficult one to share and an emotional one to write,” Terry began his farewell text.

The former Dallas Mavericks player declared that “I decided to let go of the game that has formed a large part of my identity. Something that has guided my path since I took my first steps.”

Terry has highlighted the toll the sports have had on his mental health and that the experience has made him no longer love the game.

“While I have achieved amazing accomplishments, created unforgettable memories, and made lifelong friends… I've also experienced the darkest times of my life,” the former Dallas Mavericks wrote on his Instagram account.

“Intrusive thoughts, waking up nauseous, and finding myself struggling to take normal breaths because of the rock that would sit on my chest that seemed to weigh more than I could carry,” Terry stated.

Tyrell Terry is hardly the only young athlete that has opened up about mental issues. During the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, US gymnast Simone Biles refused to participate citing mental health struggles.

This is despite the fact that Biles has been considered one of the world’s top athletes in her area.

Japanese-American tennis player Naomi Osaka is another young athlete that has had to leave a tournament due to anxiety-related problems.

When Osaka dropped from the French Open in 2021, she revealed that she was feeling “vulnerable and anxious” and that she had been dealing with depression for years.

Terry isn’t the first NBA player to admit to struggling with mental health issues. An August 2018 ESPN piece focused on how players Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan had secretly been dealing with depression for years.

Since then, Love has launched a mental health program aimed to help high school students with their struggles.

“Never be ashamed of wanting to be a better you,” DeRozan said in a 2018 video advocating mental health wellness at the NBA.

Is this a sign that society’s perception of sportspeople is changing? Do all-mighty athletes no longer have to shake off mental conditions as “weaknesses”?

Will images such as British diver Tom Daley knitting to relax during the Olympics become the new normal?