Support and Care for the Mental Health of Collegiate Athletes

While college is often one of the best times of a person’s life, it is also often one of the most challenging. College students are under immense pressure to succeed in all of their activities while still doing well in their classes and graduating within four years. This especially holds true for collegiate athletes. Student-athletes are under constant pressure to succeed in both the classroom as well as the athletic field. Balancing these challenges can be overwhelming for athletes to handle. Stress from academics and the new social structure is tough but when athletics are added, sometimes it gets to be too much. Student-athletes are trained every day to improve their physical strength, but do they receive enough mental health coaching to improve their mental and emotional strength? This research paper delves into the importance of being able to recognize when a student is struggling and knowing how to handle the situation. Even though mental health is becoming a new topic of discussion, many people still treat it as a taboo that they do not want to talk about. However, mental health is something that everyone has. Not everyone has poor mental health and not everyone has good mental health, but everyone does have mental health so this is a topic that should concern everyone. The goal of this paper is to get people to recognize the importance of continuing to discuss these issues openly and to make sure that the people who surround our student-athletes are equipped to handle their unique mental health challenges