Adults can be bullied too - tennis pro quits

Snoopster

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Up and coming Canadian women's tennis pro, Rebecca Marino, recently announced that she is leaving tennis, in part due to cyberbullying.

A couple of weeks ago Rebecca announced that she was stepping away from tennis due to depression and bullying.

But this wonderful column, written by Chris Jones, was posted on ESPN today.
http://espn.go.com/tennis/story/_/id/9015790/promising-tennis-player-rebecca-marino-quits-sport-due-battle-depression-espn-magazine

"With professional athletes," Marino told The New York Times, "people put them on a pedestal sometimes, and they forget that they're actually a person still." For someone like her, social media -- where she was berated for her weight or by gamblers who lost when she lost -- isn't the wound. Depression is the wound. But social media is the infection that makes it worse, and there are only so many ways to resist it.

Here is a column from NBCSports:

Before the internet you had to have a thick skin to play professional sports, or to be in the public eye in general. But now the social media landscape can be absolutely toxic — and for someone like Marino, downright debilitating. the saddest part of this that a lot of the abuse came from gamblers who, apparently, lost money on her matches. That’s just sick.

http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2013/02/25/did-cyberbullying-cause-emerging-womens-tennis-star-rebecca-marino-to-quit-the-sport/#comments
 
Sorry but I don't buy into the "adults being cyber-bullied" thing. Kids? Yeah...cause they are kids.

Adults? Uhhh...if adults don't know how to stop reading OR change websites OR turn the computer off something ain't right with them and it isn't the bullies.

If people are betting on the sport she did for PROFIT then of course they won't be happy when she loses, and they may say so, it comes with the territory!

Her problem is she is depressed and not doing so well. It isn't the fault of disgruntled opinions being shared online.
 
I think adults can definitely be bullied by other adults. Even if you turn your computer off or change websites, others are still reading the bullying remarks and may bring them up. People can be vicious to other people. I have seen it happen, and it hurts, no matter how old you are. People will say things online behind an anonymous name that they would never say to a person's face, and it can cause a lot of harm. Of course, some of them are mean enough to say nasty, hurtful things to someone in person.
 
I don't buy her claims.

Professional sport is highly competitive, the people who complete are in the limelight and are going to be subjected to minute analysis by fans, and the players know that full well when they enter those arenas. That comes with the territory, it isnt bullying.

Obviously she doesnt have the temprement for that territory, so it is best that she do something else. But, she is probably going to have issues no matter what she does, some people are just like that.

And in any case I suspect that the real reason for quitting was that it had become evident that she would not be making the highest levels of the sport, and that was the source of her depression, not what people were saying.
 

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