Every time Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin walked through a doorway, she used to give herself an affirmation.
“Sometimes you have to think about what you can tell yourself that’s positive and will build confidence and self-love,” the five-time gold medal winner told Cheddar Thursday.
That was one of the ways she coped with the stresses of competitive swimming and its impact on her mental health. She picked up the technique from the greatest Olympic swimmer ever, Michael Phelps.
Franklin said the only reason she could open up about her battle with depression was because she had “such an incredible stage set before me by people like Michael and…[fellow Olympic swimmer] Allison Schmitt.”
“For me, once I felt like I was really ready to kind of come out and talk about it, it was actually fairly easy knowing I had the support of so many people,” she said. “This is something that so many of us experience, and yet it’s still taboo.”
Franklin said her bouts of depression stem from her successes. She was just 17 years old when she won four gold medals at the 2012 London Olympics. She snagged her fifth in Rio four years later.
“A lot of it came from placing my identity in my success in a pool.”
Having lived through it, she now wants to reach out to younger athletes to help them recognize that, “You are not a best time, you are not a medal...you are so much more than that.”
The Olympian is already in training mode for the 2020 Games in Tokyo, which entails swimming for up to four hours a day.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-advice-michael-phelps-gave-missy-franklin-on-keeping-her-head-in-the-game).
After two incredibly close games, the Super Bowl matchup is set. On February 13th, at the SoFi stadium in Inglewood, California, the Los Angeles Rams will face off in their home stadium against the Cincinnati Bengals. After 54 Super Bowls where a home team never hosted the game on its field, it will now happen for the second year in a row, after Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs last year. Speaking of Brady, ESPN dropped a bombshell of a headline Saturday that Tom Brady was set to retire after 22 seasons and seven rings. To discuss all the latest NFL news, Anthony Tall, President of Miracle Sports Group, joins Cheddar News.
In January alone, the gaming sector has seen three major acquisitions. Yesterday, Sony added to the flurry of M&A activity in the gaming space, snatching up game developer 'Bungie' for $3.6 billion dollars. Renee Gittins, executive director at the International Gaming Developers Association, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
NFL legend Tom Brady says he is done playing football after 22 seasons. Cheddar News speaks with Trey Wingo, Chief NFL Analyst at Pro Football Network, about Brady announcing his retirement.
Greg Bishop, Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says Tom Brady's legacy is all about 'progress' and expects the future Hall of Famer to bolster his entrepreneurial ventures following his retirement.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has been a driving force for youth mentorship since 1904. The nonprofit organization is launching its annual Big Draft campaign this month in partnership with the NFL, and Artis Stevens, the first Black CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, joined Cheddar to discuss the push for adding more "Bigs" as mentors on his one-year anniversary leading the non-profit organization. "While the NFL is recruiting and drafting more players, they're also helping us to draft more mentors and, particularly, men all the way from across February to all the way to April of this year," Stevens explained.
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals, Jim Riordan, Director of the MBA Sport Management program at Florida Atlantic University, breaks down the successes, failures, and chaos of the first seven months of the Name, Image, Likeness policy in college athletics; Adi Kunalic, President of Opendorse, discusses the first-ever association-wide deal in college athletics between Opendorse and the NAIA, and how Opendorse is marketing and educating student-athletes to make the most of their NIL deal potential; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Predicting a Pro'.
Jim Riordan, Director of the MBA Sport Management program at Florida Atlantic University, joins Cheddar Reveals to break down the successes, failures, and chaos of the first seven months of the Name, Image, Likeness policy in college athletics.
Adi Kunalic, President of Opendorse, joins Cheddar Reveals to discuss the first-ever association-wide deal in college athletics between Opendorse and the NAIA, and how Opendorse is marketing and educating student-athletes to make the most of their NIL deal potential.
With the Beijing Winter Olympics set to get underway on Friday, Dan Wolken, a national columnist for USA Today, joined Cheddar News to break down the big storylines as the pandemic and international conflicts threaten to cast a cloud over the event that is aspirationally seen as a beacon of international cooperation. Wolken noted specific issues over cybersecurity for visiting athletes and disputes over human rights leading to a diplomatic boycott have been making waves even before the opening ceremony. "So you've got sort of these barbs going back and forth already between the Americans and the Chinese, and things haven't even started yet," he said. "We don't even know what's going to happen once the games start and people actually start winning medals."
