How Did We Get Here: The Evolution of the Mental Health Conversation in Sports
Athletes are strong.
We know determination and grit like the back of our hand, and we can “fake it ‘til we make it” through just about any workout, practice or game. We take on the same course load as our classmates, except we are in the weight room at 5:00 a.m. and doing post-practice film until 7:00 p.m. on any given weekday.
Oh yeah, don’t forget about homework and a social life. Rest on the weekend? Forget about it.
We do all of these things with a smile on our face and for the love of the game, yet we tend to be incredibly weak when it comes to our own mental wellbeing. We are weak when it comes to admitting three simple words: I need help.
An NCAA survey in 2015 found that 30% of student athletes reported feeling seriously overwhelmed during the past month. Approximately one third reported losing interest in other tasks due to the physical and emotional demands of their sport. Approximately 25% reported feeling mentally exhausted. In 2022 alone, several NCAA athletes committed suicide, including 22-year old Stanford goalie Katie Meyer.
The statistics are sobering and staggering. Without a doubt, we are facing an extreme mental health crisis in college and high school sports. The good news? The conversation is finally beginning to be had among administrators, coaches, parents and players. But…we are just getting started, and we have a long way to go on the path to collective recovery.
I am tremendously inspired by the athletes such as Kevin Love, Michael Phelps, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles who had the courage to speak up and jump-start the destigmatizing process. By being vulnerable to the masses about their own battles with mental health, they made it known that those high-level athletes who seem to “have it all together” often struggle greatly within their own minds. They began the process of creating a space in which athletes and non-athletes alike can feel more empowered to open up about their own challenges and seek help. These athletes flipped the script for the rest of us. They made it known that asking for help is actually a sign of great strength, not weakness.
I remember reading Kevin Love’s story titled “Everyone is Going Through Something” back in 2018. As a freshman in the middle of my first collegiate off-season, I was indeed going through that “something” myself. I remember getting chills as I read the article and trying to shove down that little bump in the back of my throat that signaled to me that tears were well on their way. I remember thinking to myself, “me too”. I remember feeling a strange feeling of comfort creep in as the feeling of loneliness subsided. I wasn’t the only one. I wasn’t alone in feeling like this.
Sometimes, it just becomes too much. No matter how much we love our sport, our major, or our team, a human being of high-school or college age only has the capacity to handle so much change or pressure during a certain period of time. It’s not that we can’t do it. It’s just that we can’t do it alone.
Up until recently, the athletic community has fostered expectations of student-athletes that are just outright unrealistic. We are taught from a young age to sacrifice most things in order to achieve athletic excellence. Whether it be our physical health, friendships or emotional wellbeing, we learned that the cost of winning is great and we must be willing to pay up if we want to be successful.
We accepted this as the way of the world and we became all too familiar with dangerous levels of exhaustion, ignoring our body’s own warning signs and the toll that this degree of perseverance was taking on our being. This was what it took, right? Yes, but no.
Let me get one thing straight: being elite at your sport does take sacrifice and hard work. It takes a level of commitment that most people aren’t willing to give (hence why not everyone gets to play beyond certain levels). But, it doesn’t require you to sacrifice your own wellbeing. It doesn’t have to be like this.
There is a balance to be struck when it comes to performing well in your sport. Resting when needed and dedicating time to enhancing your own mental wellbeing are not mutually exclusive to performing at a higher level. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. When you pair true self care with hard work, your play will take care of itself.
Robin Scholefield, a mental health expert working with the University of Southern California Athletic Department said it best in a 2021 article when she said “the whole healthy person is the most consistent peak performer. If you’re not right with yourself, you’re not going to be OK as an athlete.”
As more and more brave athletes across the globe step out and speak up about mental health, institutions, leagues and coaches will be compelled to do the same. It starts with the athlete. In fact, it starts with you. It starts at home, in the locker room and on the sidelines. My hope is that as we continue to have these conversations and be vulnerable with each other, we will be able to shift the culture. We will be able to see vulnerability as a true measure of strength, and not as an anomaly that occurs after a tragedy that shakes a community.
My challenge for you, whether you are a coach, player or parent reading this blog, is to be vulnerable first. Loan someone in your life the permission to be raw and unfiltered around you. Intentionally create a safe space for someone to express their struggles and not be alone in them. Watch what happens.
We really can remove this stigma. We really can solve this crisis. One conversation at a time.
