We Need to Talk about Athlete Mental Health

On March 1st, Stanford's women's soccer goalkeeper Katie Meyer, who helped win the 2019 NCAA championship title for the school, died by suicide. Friends and family describe Katie as “larger-than-life,” and in a statement issued by Stanford University said, “Our entire community is devastated by Katie’s death… Katie touched so many lives.”

Katie seemed to have it all: intelligence, athleticism, confidence, love, and much more. Her parents say that “there were no red flags.” Meyer’s parents Gina and Steve Meyer spoke to Katie hours before her death and noticed nothing amiss. Gina recalled that “She was excited, she had a lot on her plate. She had a lot going on. But she was happy. She was in great spirits."

This all begs the question: why would someone who appeared happy and healthy take her own life?

We will never know the true reason, of course, as Katie is not here to tell her story. However, her parents speculate that it could be a combination of the stress to be “perfect” as well as the disciplinary action she was potentially facing at Stanford: “There is anxiety and there is stress to be perfect, to be the best, to be No. 1,” her mother states in an interview.

Through this tragedy, the pressure athletes face has been exposed once again. From little leaguers to professionals, all athletes are put under varying levels of stress which can evidently impact their mental health. Recently, at the summer and winter Olympics, gymnast Simone Biles and skier Mikaela Shiffrin both struggled with mental blocks and made uncharacteristic mistakes; the pressure of perfection seemed to majorly impact their performance. While these are cases of professional athletes, athletes of all ages struggle with immense stress and mental struggles due to/contributed by their sport.

Unfortunately, the mental health of athletes is somewhat of a taboo subject. Coaches often seem to neglect to check in with how their players are really doing, and players are afraid to admit their struggles. And oftentimes, athletes have legitimate reasons for doing so.

There is such a big stigma around mental health, especially for athletes. It is sadly not rare for coaches to penalize -- whether it is unintentional or not -- a player who speaks up about their mental health. Sometimes, a player’s mental health does not impact how they perform, yet coaches treat them differently and lose confidence in the player.

A Needham High School student opens up about their own experience with coaches. “A few years ago, I really struggled with my mental health and had to enter treatment programs to recover. Given the circumstances, I had to let my coach know why I was missing the winter practices, so I told her about my situation. Still, I was ready to play in the regular season and my depression did not impact how I played whatsoever. Despite that, the coach tried to get me kicked off the team multiple times thinking I could not handle the pressure. Eventually, I left the team because I could no longer handle the coach’s bias against me. I also had another coach who saw and treated me differently after finding out about my mental health, as he also believed it would impact how I played; for a while, he did not play me in “high-pressure” games thinking I would crumble, which was far from the truth.”

In summarizing her experience, the student says that “The reality is, my mental health did not affect how I played, but letting my coaches know about my depression influenced how they saw me. To me, it felt like they viewed me as weak and therefore decided against playing me in certain situations. It is defeating to know that opening up to my coaches ending up hurting me instead of helping me.”

It is entirely possible that Katie Meyer felt like she could not let people know she was struggling with her mental health because of the fear of repercussions. The weight of perfection can be crippling, and without receiving help, it can be deadly. Mental health resources need to be easily accessible to athletes, and they need to be able to receive help without being penalized by coaches. A major shift needs to happen in the sports world -- at all ages -- and it needs to happen now.

Needham High’s own Jackie Pucillo conducted a study last year for AP Research about athletes’ comfortability with receiving help for their mental health. Less than 40% of NHS athletes who took the survey reported that they were “very comfortable” with getting mental health treatment. Given this statistic, it is clear that the stigma surrounding mental health, especially among athletes, prevents many from getting the help they need.

How much longer are we going to watch athletes struggle without feeling like they can receive care? When will the stigma surrounding mental health, which so many people struggle with, go away? Katie Meyer deserved to feel that she could get help. The thousands of athletes who struggle with the pressure of perfection deserve better.