Under the baobab: Win or lose, young athletes need love, support and understanding

Naomi Osaka had a major meltdown in New York’s Arthur Ashe Stadium during the third round of the U.S. Open. We witnessed it. She had won the first set fairly easily against 18-year-old Canadian Leylah Fernandez. Osaka was ranked No. 3 in the world. Fernandez was ranked 66th. Osaka was the reigning U.S. Open singles champion. Fernandez played in her first grand slam earlier this year.

Osaka was leading in the second set tie breaker when the wheels came off. After losing a point, in frustration she threw her tennis racket five feet across the court. A few minutes later, she did it again. Then she intentionally smashed a game ball into the loge seats. The crowd, which had been with her, began to turn. Fernandez rallied the fickle bystanders to her side.

Osake never regained her form. Fernandez took the second set in tie breaker and won the match in the third. As Osaka left the court she inimically waved off the crowd as if to say, “you want her — you got her.” Many in the crowd booed her. This was on the same court where she had stunned everyone and beat Serena Williams three years ago. Later at a press conference Osaka announced that she was taking an extended break from competitive tennis. She didn’t know when she was going to play again, if ever.

It was a pathetic showing, not from Osaka or Fernandez, but from the crowd.

As we all witnessed another young woman of color teetering on the cultural balance beam, the response was to ridicule her. We idealize our children as conquering heroes when they entertain us in the arena and then we jeer them as flops when they fail. In our tribal-based society, it is easy for youngsters who are specially gifted but “different” to lose their footing, forgetting where they are and with whom they belong. Think of our young players on the Penn State athletic teams. Most of them will never be professional players but as our former coach said, they will all be adults.

Our job as elders and teachers is to be there to support our children when they win and also when they lose. It is when they need us the most. We can best support them through love and by example. As grown people we understand that life is bipolar; it has ups and downs. In the midst of a high we must be prepared for an eventual low. And while suffering through a low it is the hope that things will turn around that keeps us going. We must teach our children that no matter what, high or low, we will be there for them. We show them that through the love and tolerance we show each other.

We were watching the Penn State vs. Wisconsin game in a packed PSU fan bar in New York. We were sitting outside watching through the front window. Early in the game a SUV pulled up and a half dozen men got out. They approached a server to be seated, but there was no space for the group. A fellow fan noticed —

“That’s Saquon Barkley!”

Half of the New York fans in the bar were wearing his number 26. He is not only a Penn State legend but he is the hope of the New York Giants this year. Yet, he and his entourage couldn’t get seats in a New York bar. By the time management got wind of what was happening, Saquon and his group were gone.

Fernandez won the crowd in Ashe and has carried them with her to the finals where she will play another teenager, Raducanu, for the championship. Whichever prodigy wins we must be sure that there is a seat for the other in our hearts.