Men­tal Health in Ath­letes

 Wel­come Back Saints Stu­dents & Staff. This ar­ti­cle is a lit­tle heav­ier than most. TW: fea­tures men­tions of death.

Photo Credit: Un­splash.: You can’t out­run every­thing. Some­times you need to un­leash it all. You aren’t alone.

Ath­letes are jug­gling a lot more than just sports, school, and their every­day life. They have so much go­ing on and I don’t know if the coaches, staff, and even team­mates or even their friends know the in­ter­nal strug­gle they face. The pres­sure of be­ing the best, all eyes are con­tin­u­ally watch­ing you, and the weight of that is hard enough. Be­ing an ath­lete can be in­cred­i­bly chal­leng­ing when deal­ing with men­tal health.

Maryville has a plethora of sport or­ga­ni­za­tions. Many of the stu­dents are on schol­ar­ships and that adds more pres­sure to your game, lifestyle, and over­all, well-be­ing. It is cru­cial that they have reg­u­lar men­tal health checks from their coaches and pro­fes­sors.

Re­cently, a fe­male soc­cer ath­lete from Stan­ford com­mit­ted sui­cide. She was only twenty-two years old. It broke my heart to hear about his story be­cause I played soc­cer at UMKC, and I know the pas­sion and heart it takes to play at that level. She was an amaz­ing soul, and it is so heart­break­ing to not only her fam­ily but the com­mu­nity that sur­rounded her. I asked some ath­letes here at Maryville that play on the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team what they thought about men­tal health con­cerns with ath­letes. Cici said “Men­tal health among stu­dent ath­lete’s is not taken se­ri­ously enough and needs to be more pri­or­i­tized. There have been mul­ti­ple sui­cides of stu­dent ath­letes over the years and be­yond, send­ing your con­do­lences does not help. There needs to be true meet­ings by Maryville that are set­ting up coun­selors that each pro­gram in the ath­let­ics get and can talk to you on a weekly ba­sis, so they do not feel like they’re alone. “

Photo Credit: Un­splash: “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.”

I also in­ter­viewed an­other wom­en’s bas­ket­ball player named Tay­lor. She said “men­tal health in ath­letes is of­ten for­got­ten about and over­looked. Men­tal health should be fo­cused on a lot more and ther­apy should be manda­tory, even if it’s just a check in. We need more ther­apy ser­vices avail­able, and more aware­ness spread.

Over­all, we need to give ath­letes more ways to re­lease all the pres­sure and emo­tions they are con­stantly feel­ing. We can not as­sume that play­ing a sport is a good enough out­let. If you all watched the Olympics we all saw one of the great­est Olympians of all time, Si­mone Biles, take a break for her own men­tal health. It is re­fresh­ing to see some­one so pow­er­ful, in­flu­en­tial, and strong take time for her­self to heal. We have to re­mem­ber we don’t know their trauma or strug­gles so to keep every­one healthy as pos­si­ble we need to do reg­u­lar check ins and give more breaks. Tap into your gut in­stincts and your kind hearts.

Un­til next time!