We Need To Talk About Athlete Mental Health pt 2

A few months ago, I published an article on athlete mental health after Stanford's women's soccer goalkeeper, Katie Meyers, died by suicide. In the article, I spoke on the challenges athletes face in regards to their mental health; the pressure to be perfect, especially among collegiate athletes, can be crippling, and athletes are often hesitant to ask for help due to fear of seeming not “mentally tough” enough.

Since I published that article, there have four more reported suicides of NCAA athletes: Sarah Shulze (University of Wisconsin track team), Lauren Bernett (James Madison University softball team), Robert Martin (​​Binghamton University lacrosse team), and Jayden Hill (Northern Michigan track team). All these athletes were under the age of 24 and had promising futures. Their communities are devastated by these losses.

Sarah Shultz, who died on April 13th, was only 21. She was a star runner for Wisconsin’s cross country and track teams, and earned academic all-Big Ten honors for cross country and track in 2021. Aside from being a talented runner, she was active in her community; she had an internship with the Wisconsin state Legislature and volunteered as a poll worker for the 2020 presidential election. Friends, families, and coaches all attest to Sarah’s kindness and are heartbroken by this tragedy. Similarly to Katie Meyer’s, her family cites the stress of being a student-athlete as contributing to her death. In an announcement following her death, her family stated that “Balancing athletics, academics and the demands of everyday life overwhelmed her in a single, desperate moment.”

In the end, that’s all it takes someone to take their own life: a moment of despair when you feel that your life is too painful to keep living, a moment where you feel no matter what you do, you will never get better.

Lauren Bernett, a key player on James Madison University’s softball team, died by suicide shortly after Shutlz. Like Shutlz, Bernett was an accomplished player and was named Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Week just before her death. Her passing shocked teammates and coaches who reported no red flags. Jeff Bourne, the school’s athletic director, asserts that “Lauren was a very bright and promising young person. Not just from a student-athlete standpoint, but as an individual.” Bourn further says that “What makes this such a difficult issue is that when all signs look favorable ... it’s still not a firm indication that [a] person is healthy.”

Indeed, the mental health crisis continues to worsen and one’s appearance can no longer be an indicator of what they are struggling with. A 2020 study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 25.5% of respondents ages 18 to 24 had seriously considered suicide in the 30 days before completing the survey.

While the decline of mental health among youth is a common trend across the board, student-athletes are particularly prone to struggling. According to Athletes For Hope, student-athletes are significantly less-likely to seek what can be life-saving treatment to their mental health. 33% of all college students experience significant symptoms of mental illness, and among that group, 30% seek help. Of college athletes with mental health conditions -- which is slightly higher than the average for non-athlete students -- only 10% seek help.

This drastic difference between non-athlete and student-athletes begs the question: why do student-athletes struggle with mental illness more than their peers, and why are they less likely to seek help? This question may seem complicated, but when broken down, the answer is quite simple.

Student-athletes are put under an immense amount of pressure to perform both athletically and academically, and the stigma of seeming not “mentally tough” forces people to suppress their struggles.

USC sport psychology expert Robin Scholefield believes this mental health crisis among athletes is because “Coaches, parents and athletes themselves increasingly emphasize performance rather than the personal growth and character development that builds a foundation for well-being, fewer mental health challenges and more consistent success.” Scholefield elaborates, saying that “excellence doesn’t lead to happiness.”

The athletes that have died by suicide recently show this. Katie Meyers led Stanford to a national championship. Sarah Shulze and Lauren Bernett were stars on their teams and had many accolades. Yet, these athletes still ended up taking their own lives.

Victoria Kyriakopoulos, a D1 soccer player, has been open about her mental health on Tik Tok and frequently talks about the pressures student-athletes are under. In a poem she spoke on one video, she says: “I thought taking my own life would be easier than quitting because in some twisted way, maybe then people wouldn’t think I was weak or that I couldn’t handle the pressure. I wouldn’t have to explain to anybody the reason why I wasn’t cut out to be an athlete. Why couldn't I be more mentally tough.”

This idea rings true with many athletes. Admitting your “weaknesses” is not encouraged in competitive sports, and as Kyriakopoulos says, it can get to the point where some athletes believe taking their own life seems like the only option to escape the pressure.

Grace Cheleman, a Marshall University softball player, responded to Bernett’s death with a tweet describing the pressures student-athletes face: “College is hard. Working in college is hard and playing sports in college is hard. We give up our social life, our family life, we put everything on hold to play the sport we love and represent our school. We are human. We want people to listen. We want people to understand we are not robots and we go through things and sometimes we need an outlet.”

In the end, as Cheleman points out, student-athletes are humans. They deserve to be supported and feel that they have someone to turn to about the immense pressure they are under. Without a change in culture in the college athletic world, athletes will continue to struggle with their mental health and not seek support, something that can be deadly.

The NCAA and the often toxic environment of college sports need to be held accountable for the damage they do to student-athletes.