When it comes to mental health, I am far from an expert, and I certainly have a lot more to learn. For that exact reason, please do not perceive this article as me claiming to be the final authority on the topic.
Why write about mental health? Whenever I look for inspiration on topics I want to cover related to player development, I always ask myself, “what’s lacking, what needs to change, or what is a hot topic in the current world of baseball development?” Mental Health certainly checks all three boxes. We’ve all heard Yogi Berra’s quote, "baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical." While comical on the surface, it’s impossible to talk about the mental side of the game without addressing the mental health of our players. This recognition has led me to appreciate the need to develop and support the whole player – the mental as well as the physical.
I have briefly touched on the idea in previous posts, but in today’s game, athletic coaches must assume a plethora or roles. The job does not stop with the on-field product. The reason I bring this up is the stigma surrounding mental health in athletics. There is no question mental health has historically played second, if not third fiddle to just about everything else when it comes to an athlete’s well-being. At the collegiate level, the issue is extremely under-appreciated.
I interviewed a few mental health professionals who work with athletes to better understand how we as coaches might better assist our players to achieve and/or maintain sound mental health. As I address this topic moving forward, I will integrate what I learned from my conversations with these professionals with my own experiences as a player and coach to provide a look into improving the mental health side of player development. Based on the amount of information gathered, this will turn into a couple editions of my blog surrounding the mental health theme. For the remainder of this post, I will first provide what I believe to be a realistic depiction of mental health in collegiate athletics before focusing on how the ambiguity of returning to sport as a result of Covid-19 can lead to an identity crisis in any of our sidelined athletes.
Different entities, including the NCAA, have begun to make strides in delivering content and collecting information regarding mental health, but the learning curve is steep. Other areas of wellness such as physical injury or sports performance training have taken precedence for years, and it is easy to see why. Physical injury and sports performance training can be seen. They are physical. A sprained ankle or a 60 yard dash can be seen or measured by any player support staff in the country. Moreover, improvement is easily tracked. You can see hundredths fall off of a time, or you can test greater strength and flexibility daily. In contrast, mental health is not as easy because it cannot be seen or quantified.
Mental health, put simply, is defined as emotional, behavioral, and cognitive well-being. With all of these being internal, detecting issues or differences on a day to day basis for each player is certainly a steep task, but this is why it is important to be more than a coach focused solely on skill development or game strategy. Being more than a coach in this context means looking at something greater than the on-field product and seeing your student-athletes as both human beings and individuals, not just as numbers.
A 2019 study performed by researchers from Drexel University and Kean University found that roughly 25% of student-athletes displayed clinically relevant levels of depressive symptoms. While the article reported that there were higher rates of depression in females than in males, this does not mean mental health is a single gender issue. Society has conditioned us to think about depression when we hear the phrase mental health, but mental health encompasses so much more. At a macro level, mental health includes general preparedness, engagement, emotional states, and thought processes. Stereotypical depressive traits are not the only determining factors of poor mental health.
Mental health takes on very different forms. Consequently, it will not look the same on everyone. According to Cory Champer, MSW, LCSW Intern, changes in mental wellness are often associated with major life changes. Deriving from her experience working with SEC, NFL, and Olympic athletes, she states, “often, the vulnerable moments in an athlete’s mental health are centered around a major change.” When I asked if the cancelling of the season and now the ambiguity surrounding summer baseball could serve as catalysts to the onset of depressive symptoms in players, she responded, “absolutely, during instances of major change, it is not uncommon for athletes to experience a bit of an identity crisis, especially now, given the uncertainty surrounding an official start date. These athletes are expected to train to remain in peak shape, but with what on the horizon?”
Her point resonates. For players operating with no specified goal in sight, continuing on a direct, committed path becomes increasingly difficult. Taking time off from training sessions becomes easier and then causes athletes to begin down the rabbit hole of self-questioning.
This is not about being tough or macho. It is about identity. Think about it. For their entire careers, whenever your players introduce themselves to someone new, you can almost guarantee they will reference being a baseball player or being on a team in the first couple of sentences. I was a culprit of doing this as a player as well. With so much time put into a sport, it is easy to let the sport define you, not be a part of you. While the same may hold true for athletes in other sports, baseball players truly have no off-season. If collegiate baseball players are lucky – I use lucky very loosely – the only time they are not competing is during most of August, half of December and half of January. But even these months rarely allow for downtime, as they serve as key preparation months for the fall or spring season just around the corner.
So, what happens to a player’s personal identity when baseball is up in the air? It is no wonder players may begin to suffer from a bit of an identity crisis, comparable to what mental health professionals frequently observe in injured athletes or recent graduates who do not go on to play professionally. Common symptoms, for lack of a better term, include a change in workout habits, body transformations, struggling with organization or time deadlines, and depression or anxiety. Changes in workout habits and organizational issues are likely the easiest to notice from a coach’s perspective, so it is best to start there. Depression and anxiety will be discussed more in depth in my next post.
Athletes in general, but baseball players especially, thrive on routine. There are so many intricacies to arm care, lifting, injury prevention, recovery work, prehab, etc., that a small change to a routine or neglecting a specific area is easy for coaches to spot. With ambiguity surrounding sports starting up again, it is not uncommon to see student-athletes significantly deviate from their normal routines. While some may become hyper-focused on being in the best shape possible, others may lose all drive. Both can be detrimental, as the prior can lead to overtraining and injury, and the latter to poor health choices. From experience, it is more common to see the hyper-focused persona come forward during an athlete’s time away from his normal routine. As coaches, I believe we can be most helpful by mapping out guidelines for proper and efficient training. We need to recognize that even though the stigma around obsessive athletes has been glorified, rightfully so in my own opinion, there are dangers associated with the obsession. With added workouts or extra reps, recovery both mentally and physically become more important than ever. For the athletes we fear may overdo it, we should offer suggestions on how to recover or how to shift their training focus to something less physically intensive to minimize the risk of athletes harming themselves through over exertion. This could include reading materials, webinars, podcasts, presentations, etc., regarding a specific aspect of the game. Obviously, no coach wants to discourage hard work, but it takes a special coach to recognize the issue and provide a plausible solution.
On the other hand, managing players who lose their motivation often relates back to an uncertain horizon. Whether the time of return seems too far away or unfathomable for some reason, specific goals and accountability can be huge. Utilizing the SMART objectives for goal setting (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound) can be a great first step to help an athlete get back on track.
I have also found accountability groups to be another useful method. Accountability groups have become popularized in the fitness industry to keep people committed to their goals, but they can be equally powerful during this time or in team sports as well. Having either formal or informal updates with a small group encourages those involved to stay committed to a plan. I hesitate to reference peer pressure because of its potential negatives, but we have all experienced being motivated by not wanting to let others down or knowing that others are expecting something from us. I encourage you to set these up amongst your team with an appointed leader in each group for easier check-ins. Players can then communicate with one another on their progress in classes or in training to ensure everyone is progressing forward.
Organizational or time-management issues can also prove quite challenging in student-athletes undergoing major changes because of the sudden difference in daily activities or requirements. As a result of the shutdown, college baseball players, like other student-athletes, abruptly transitioned from a deadline driven schedule consisting of in-person classes, practices or games, appointments in the athletic training room, study hall, and social interactions to a schedule largely devoid of deadlines. Consisting of only online classes, minimal if any access to a ball field, and basically no social interaction, it’s no wonder most college students immediately felt there was more time in the day than ever before, and no time sensitivity to any of their actions. The result: many previously regimented, committed student-athletes who never missed assignments began to suddenly miss online classes and were late to turn in assignments. Their life transformed instantly from an extremely strict schedule from the time their alarms sounded in the morning to lights out at night to not having a single set requirement within any day. This 180 degree change can cause major identity issues, especially to those who had the most defined schedules.
In order to combat this as a coach, one consideration is to consult with your program’s support staff and create a theoretical schedule for your student-athletes. This does not need to be as detailed as their on-campus schedule, but it should offer daily guidelines to structure their day around. The Coastal Carolina baseball performance staff put out a great example for a schedule on twitter not too long ago. Simple guidelines help to provide a checklist of what needs to get done each day. This allows student-athletes to assess whether they accomplished what they needed to each day in regards to academics and development. Consequently, it allows coaches to have a little more piece of mind that players are taking the necessary steps to improve daily. These daily regiments can help athletes restore a sense of lost identity.
Although seldom discussed, mental health is a major part of collegiate athletics. Consequently, I will be covering some of the greater overarching themes where coaches can best help. In review, mental health is defined as emotional, behavioral, and cognitive well-being. A student-athlete’s mental well-being can be affected by either environmental or physical changes. Student-athletes may feel a loss of identity depending on the severity of these changes. Given the virus, all athletics have been sent into a whirlwind. Coaches can assist by providing players with schedules, creating accountability groups, setting goals, and offering various training options to keep their athletes focused on what is most important, as well as help them stay strong mentally. In my next post, I plan to further discuss student-athlete identity and the role coaches can play in cultivating the whole person and not just the athlete.
Thank you for reading,
Adam Moreau, MBA, CSCS
Director of Player Development and Recruiting Coordinator
Eckerd College
419-250-7243
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