When Athletes Decide the Thrill Is Gone : Prep sports: Burnout is at every level of athletic competition. But, psychologists say, it seems most pronounced and perhaps, the most avoidable, during the high school years.

Few believed Chris Kostoff when he announced his intention to quit basketball. Kostoff, a Capistrano Valley High School senior, had just capped his high school career by scoring an average of 20 points a game. He had been invited to play in the Orange County all-star game. He had received scholarship offers from several universities.

But he also had a severe case of burnout--one that, he says, stemmed from nearly 10 nonstop years of competitive basketball. One that, he says, could be countered only by walking away from the sport.

“No one believed me when I said I was quitting,” Kostoff said. “My friends bet money that I would keep playing--they just laughed at me, (they) thought I was kidding. My coaches didn’t believe me. The schools that were recruiting me kept calling, and tried to talk me out of it.”

What they did not understand, Kostoff said, was that basketball--a sport he had long dreamed of playing in college, on TV and in front of vast audiences--was becoming less fun every day. So much so, that quitting seemed the only solution.

“It wasn’t like one day I just decided not to play anymore,” said Kostoff, who will attend Nevada Las Vegas this fall. “It was like every night, every time I came to practice . . . it was (becoming) more like a 9-to-5 job. I was definitely burned out.”

Kostoff’s case might seem unusual, but it isn’t. Sports psychologists say burnout--defined by Webster’s as “a state of emotional exhaustion caused by the stresses of one’s work or responsibilities”--is a growing trend in athletics at every level, be it youth leagues, high school, college or the pros.

But it is in high school, psychologists say, that burnout seems to be most pronounced and perhaps, the most avoidable.

Although there are varying degrees of the problem--some athletes complaining of burnout may only need a short break from the activity--the serious cases that produce debilitating effects on performance and desire are the ones that psychologists find disturbing.

Burnout seems to have many causes, among them pressure from parents, coaches or other outside forces; a growing number of youth leagues and year-around programs, and an athlete’s own unrealistic expectations.

But psychologists say society’s increasing pressure to win, to be No. 1, is one of the most significant factors. Gone are the days when just making the varsity was enough.

“Kids are not willing to be bench players anymore,” said Lance Eddy, who has coached high school sports for 25 years, including the past eight as Canyon’s softball coach. “If they’re not a star, they don’t want to play. Just being a member of a team is not a big thing anymore.”

That, says Richard Lister, a clinical/sports psychologist from Costa Mesa, is the byproduct of one of the significant problems: the proliferation of youth sports.

Youth leagues encompassing nearly every sport are now more widely available than ever before. Although that brings about several positives--better supervised activity, for one--it also means that the sport’s demands and attention start at a very early age. From there, an athlete’s expectations for attention may become increasingly unreasonable.

“The difference today is that a uniform is no big deal anymore,” said Lister, who has worked with athletes on all levels for 20 years. “These kids, 8, 9, 10 years old already have game uniforms, practice uniforms, cheerleaders, snack bars, coaches, assistant coaches . . . By the time he gets to high school he’s already played six, seven years of organized sports. What’s left for him to get excited about?”

Increased media attention--The Times’ Orange County Edition and the Orange County Register combine to make Orange County one of the most well-covered high school areas in the nation--also has played a part in the problem, psychologists say. Through published features, statistics, game stories, etc., athletes are tuned into what it takes to be a star.

Once they reach such a level, the pressure to live up to the headlines often becomes difficult.

“There is tremendous pressure on (athletes) who are considered good,” said Jonathan Brower, a sports sociologist and psychotherapist. “Part of the problem is the general public (projects) their fantasies and their wishes upon the athletes. When the athletes don’t live up to that, they (the public, the fans) feel betrayed. So the pressure is really on the athlete to perform.”

Year-around programs also contribute heavily to burnout, psychologists say. Similar to youth leagues, year-around programs during the high school years might greatly improve an athlete’s strength and skills, but they can ultimately lead to physical and emotional exhaustion.

“I started playing organized basketball when I was 8,” Kostoff said. “I played in youth leagues and traveling teams. I was playing constantly. . . . There was really never much time off, especially when I got to high school. We would play 45 games during the summer, then there was the conditioning, the regular season, and then spring leagues. I just got tired of it.

“I still shoot around, maybe I’ll play in a recreational league in college.”

While psychologists say burnout can happen in any competitive sport, it appears to be more common in individual sports such as swimming and track.

“Individual sports can be tougher because you stand alone,” said Lister. “Your performance is judged solely. As a member of a team, the loss is spread throughout the team.

“The football player, the basketball player, the baseball player, they have their pressures, too, but (most of the) burnout I see is in individual sports, that’s maybe why those kids peak so early. In my opinion, there’s no reason a competitive swimmer should peak so early. I think it is because they get burned out after hours and hours of intensive practice.”

Serena Kohne knows the feeling.

Once a national-caliber swimmer, Kohne gave up the sport several years ago after tiring of the two-a-day workouts and the drive to Mission Viejo to work out with her club team, the Mission Viejo Nadadores.

Kohne, who lived in Stanton, secured an interdistrict transfer her sophomore year in order to attend Mission Viejo High School and compete for the swim team. That meant that she would wake up at 4 a.m. to make morning workouts with the Nadadores, go to school, then swim with the Nadadores again in the afternoon before driving home for the night.

A Southern California age-group record-holder at 12 and an All-American in two events as a high school freshman, Kohne said she already was being contacted by college recruiters before her sophomore year.

“It seemed like swimming was my future,” she said. “I loved the sport.”

But in the next year, the time and the training took its toll. Although Kohne had qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials, she had reached the point where none of it seemed worthwhile any longer.

“The Olympic trials were kind of the last straw,” Kohne said. “I really didn’t want to continue with the sport, but my mother talked me into going. She said that if I wanted to quit, that was fine, but I should do this one last meet because I had worked so hard to get there.”

Kohne went to the trials, but unlike most of her competitors, she flew into Indianapolis the day before her race. After a disappointing performance, she flew home just hours after her race.

“I wanted to spend as little time there as possible,” said Kohne, now 22 and a senior economics major at Cal State Fullerton. “After the Olympic trials, I was supposed to swim in a national meet in Florida, but I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t stand the sport anymore and I couldn’t see myself continuing with it.”

Although burnout often stems from external forces, athletes, psychologists say, are often their worst enemy. Especially when they allow self-induced pressures to take precedent over the joy of the sport itself.

Running on the San Clemente cross-country and track teams was once one of the happiest habits of Terri Smythers’ life. As a freshman and sophomore, Smythers developed into one of the county’s fastest runners.

This year, she gave it up.

“It was weird, I wasn’t having fun anymore,” said Smythers. “Sometimes I’d be like, ‘Why am I doing this?”

“All during my freshman and sophomore year, it was all so fun to me. Then suddenly as soon as junior (cross-country) season started, it seemed really, really different. It didn’t seem like I was doing it as much for myself.”

Smythers, who said she might come back next year to compete, blames her inability to deal with the pressures she placed upon herself.

“I’m just the kind who takes everything seriously,” she said. “I was nervous all the time . . . I’d just sit there in my class and think, ‘I’ve got a meet Thursday. Oh, God .’ . . .

“It kind of makes me feel bad (to quit), I know people are saying, ‘Oh, she’s throwing it all away.’ But I’m glad I did, because if I didn’t, I might not want to do it next year.”

Asked what advice she would offer to up-and-coming athletes, Smythers said:

“I think mostly, just try not to stress about everything. Just make it fun for yourself. That’s what I have to learn to do again.”

Times staff writer Chris Foster also contributed to this story.