March 12th, 2020 will forever be remembered as “The Day the Sports World Went Away.” Less than 24 hours after the NBA announced they would be suspending their season, the NHL, MLB, MLS, Champions League, NASCAR, PGA, NCAA, and every other league you could think of slammed the pause button on all activities. No one knew when sports would return or what they would look like when they did. As the months have gone on, most sports have returned to play, but not every athlete has been so lucky.
While professional sports have made their return, many prep and college sports are still on hold. Locally, CHSAA just last week moved football back to the fall. That was after allowing softball, tennis, golf and cross country to go on. However, volleyball, boys’ soccer, and other sports have all been pushed back to the spring, while basketball will delay their start time to January.
Collegiately, many football programs have opted to play in the fall, though so far many teams have had to postpone games due to outbreaks of COVID-19. In Colorado, CU, CSU, UNC, DU, Air Force, and other universities have all pushed their seasons back with no clear return date in sight.
Obviously, this has caused major disappointment for fans and massive financial burdens for the universities. Many have also acknowledged the burden now being placed on student-athletes as well, not being able to participate in their passions. However, there’s another aspect of the absence of sports that hasn’t been talked about nearly as much: the impact on mental health.
It’s easy to realize that it must be difficult for athletes to not have their usual outlet available to them. However, there’s a great deal of mental and emotional difficulty being felt by the performers and coaches who no longer have access to their normal routines.
There has been more discussion about the topic recently. Professional basketball players Demar DeRozan of the San Antonio Spurs and Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers have been discussing depression and anxiety in athletes for a few years now. They’ve continued to keep that discussion going throughout the pandemic. Former Olympic superstar Michael Phelps has recently opened up about his battle with depression as well, further highlighting the issue. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott also opened up recently about battling depression during the months of quarantine. While most people have praised these athletes for speaking up, that praise was not universal.
Fox Sports commentator Skip Bayless responded to Prescott’s admission with criticism, referring to it as a weakness.
“I don’t have sympathy for him going public,” said Bayless on his FS1 program Undisputed on September 9th. “If you reveal publicly any little weakness, it can affect your team’s ability to believe in you in the toughest spots, and it definitely can encourage others on the other side to come after you.”
While Fox Sports released a statement condemning Bayless’ comments, Bayless later doubled down on his initial remarks and is rumored to be approaching a $6 million raise at the network. It’s important to discuss Bayless’ comments in length, but first, it’s important to get the perspective of people who actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to mental health and sports.
Andrew Smith, a licensed Clinical Psychologist at the University of Northern Colorado, spends 20 hours a week working with the athletics department at UNC. He’s spent a great deal of time these past few months talking with athletes, coaches, and administrators about the enormous stress they’ve had to endure since the pandemic hit. Smith acknowledges that on the whole, most athletes have handled the sports stoppage well.
“What I noticed first and foremost is that most athletes are pretty understanding about having the season canceled,” he said. “Even going back to the spring. There’s some moderate disappointment and frustration but I think they all kind of recognized the severity of the pandemic. It was an easy thing for people to kind of accept.”
However, Smith did acknowledge that the situation has still been difficult for those in the athletic community.
“During quarantine and in the summer I think the biggest challenge (for student-athletes) was just maintaining the motivation,” he said. “Especially when it was unclear whether or not fall sports would be occurring. That was definitely stressful for the athletes. A number of athletes talked to me about how it was difficult to be working out and trying to maintain focus when it was just unclear if they were going to have a season.”
Some have noticed even greater issues. Jimmy Stewart is the Senior Coordinator for Counseling Services of Student Athletes at Colorado State University. Stewart believes the biggest challenge facing student-athletes is the fact that there’s the mental and emotional toll affecting them just as young people, and the added stress of losing their stress outlet.
“When our identity hasn’t formed yet we’re relying on people and things outside of us to regulate us,” he said. “When all of the externals that we usually rely on, like football or working out, are gone, our systems start trying to orient to safety in ways that we don’t have tools for…If you have a sense of self you can go inside yourself, internalize things, operate, and find a sense of safety internally. These athletes haven’t got that development yet so they’re walking around anxious, depressed, or shut down.”
Both Smith and Stewart acknowledged that the biggest issue facing student-athletes has been lack of social interaction. Quarantine was a difficult time for many people who weren’t used to being alone or away from others for long stints. For young people, particularly young athletes, however, there was an added sense of loneliness.
“I think what’s been hard for some athletes is just the isolation,” said Smith. “Especially for people who are used to being on a team. That can increase anxiety and an overall feeling of isolation. During a crisis sometimes people just have a way of hunkering down and being like, ‘okay, I can get through this for the next few months.’”
Smith added that while he hasn’t noticed an overwhelming issue with depression and anxiety in athletes yet, he does believe those issues will emerge in due time.
“Being a college student on campus right now I think those stressors are going to emerge long term. By and large it hasn’t been anything hugely concerning from my perspective. I think that’s something that’s going to emerge over the next few months though.”
Stewart says that he’s begun to notice some unhealthy patterns in student-athletes already.
“Anxiety is nothing more than a fight response, depression’s a flight response, and watching six hours of Netflix every night is a shutdown response,” he said. “I’ve heard of so many athletes sleeping more and more hours. That’s pretty normal for young people as we all know but when you’re shutting down and sleeping until one in the afternoon, when you’re watching Netflix or being on your computer twelve hours a day, then you know there’s a shut down. Those are the three ways in which mentally and emotionally people are not okay. They’re in fight, flight, or freeze mode.”
Changes in sleep patterns have been noticed across the board. As Stewart acknowledged, it’s quite common for college students to stay up later and sleep in. Having said that, Stewart and Smith both stated that the type of sleep changes they’ve noticed go beyond what is commonly seen in a college student, particularly a college athlete.
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“For players it’s created a unique level of stress because (sleeping late) was unlike them,” said Smith. “One in particular talked about how they always start their day working out. Not having to do that threw things out of whack so they feel less productive. For athletes there’s an inherent sense of drive to push themselves. I think when there’s that distance between how they like to be, what they’re usually like and who they usually are and how their day to day is going now, it creates a sense of ‘this isn’t like me. This isn’t okay.’”
It isn’t just the students having their mental health impacted. Karl Dorrell, the head football coach at CU Boulder, acknowledged during an August press conference that the lack of sports would take a toll on coaches as well. Smith noted that he’d had conversations with coaches and administrators throughout the pandemic who spoke openly about the various pressures they’ve been dealing with as well.
“I think the athletic department staff was extremely stressed and overwhelmed by everything,” he said. “No one had a road map for how to navigate this. I think it was all the way up to the highest administrators in the NCAA in terms of a great deal of pressure to figure this out without any sort of knowledge of how to do that. I think the stress on the athletic department could have an impact on the student athletes and vice versa.
“I think just for the administrators having to figure out all of these things and not knowing much really put a great deal of burden on them. I think that continues to be the case as well especially after the NCAA allowed athletes to opt out of the season. That can create stress for coaches, administrators and athletes.”
Smith noted that many of the coaches and administrators he spoke with were seeking some kind of help which he found encouraging. Stewart, however, was skeptical that most coaches or administrators were getting the help, which would ultimately affect the athletes as well.
“We have services available but you’re also dealing with a population that doesn’t really know how to take care of themselves,” he said of student-athletes. “One of the problems with this is people like coaches, trainers, and people like that. Most of them don’t do (counseling). They don’t take care of themselves. So you’ve got wounded, scared people trying to take care of wounded, scared, younger people…So (coaches and administrators are) operating and making decisions in this unregulated sense of fear. I think one of the biggest issues with the athletes are the adults are not doing very well through all of this.”
Stewart also pointed out that for many athletes and coaches, mental health issues and the needed response don’t always look the same. Stewart specifically points to backgrounds that some African-Americans come from and the issues they face, which he says are not usually consistent with some of the issues facing white athletes and coaches.
“When you talk about mental health and (the pandemic) it’s not equal,” he said. “Many people don’t have family close by here. Everybody comes from different backgrounds and some people have been wounded or they have traumas. A lot of athletes come in with family generated trauma. A lot of them are walking in with that and then (the pandemic) happens and it starts piling on.
“A lot of people as much as they need help they’re just not ready for it sometimes. For the most part there’s been a hundred years of therapy. Think about African-American people. Most counselors are white people, so why would you trust a bunch of white people to take you through that process when given the history of our cultures?”
So how can this issues best be addressed? While there may not be a guidebook on how to navigate COVID-19, there is some guidance on how to address mental health. Even in the past few months, there have been studies suggesting ways in which to best help those in the field of athletics going through these issues.
Smith said that the NCAA did a student-athlete COVID-19 well being study collected over the summer, spanning all three divisions of college sports. As Smith and Stewart observed, over a third of students reported sleeping difficulties. The study also noted that over a quarter of athletes experienced feelings of sadness and loss. However, the same study noted that 90% of athletes reported communicating with teammates multiple times a week, while 56% communicate with coaches multiple times a week. That matters because the study also showed that the more likely they were to communicate with teammates or coaches, the more likely they were to report feeling positive.
Those numbers are mostly encouraging, but there is always more to be done. Stewart, Smith, and countless others will say that the best thing someone can do when they’re experiencing these feelings is to talk to someone and seek help. They’d also say that it’s important that we empathize with the people going through depression and anxiety rather than shaming them. That takes us back to Skip Bayless and Dak Prescott.
Bayless’ comments show that while society at large has gotten much better at having empathy for those that are struggling, we’re not as far along as we need to be. Stewart summarized this well, saying that while there’s less social stigma about therapy now, there are still social stigmas in the areas around therapy.
“I think we’re getting better at reducing the stigma against counseling, but I don’t think we’re getting better at reducing the stigma around vulnerability,” he said. “Vulnerability can be painful. We need to let young people know that growing and dealing with things is painful. This is not an easy process, this is not simple, and this is not painless.
“The key is helping people understand that if you want to grow as a human being there is pain that’s necessary to go through. If you don’t work out for six months and then you go work out like normal it’s going to be painful. When you start doing it more often, it becomes easier. It’s the same thing with counseling. You’re not just born with emotions and then that’s the end of it. Those are things that grow and develop as you do.”
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When it comes to how we as a society should respond to people like Dak Prescott when they’re open and vulnerable about their feelings, and how we should respond to people like Skip Bayless when they express judgment, Smith explained that it may not be simple, but it’s not as complicated as we may think.
“Listen to the student athletes,” he said. “Don’t make judgments or assumptions. Just be curious about their experience and be open to hearing it. It may not be about fixing what they’re feeling or making them feel a different way. I think it’s going to be really important just for us to set aside our own perceptions and judgments and really just listen to their experiences. I think it’s valid and there’s a lot we can learn.”
Stewart echoed Smith’s sentiments, while also reminding us that there are always people there to help whenever it’s needed.
“You have to let people know that this process called counseling is simply a relationship with one person being a professional and one person being a client,” he said. “In reality it’s just a relationship that is here to help you go toward something. We’re here to help you go towards difficult feelings.”
When responding to people like Bayless, it’s important not to come for their head when they don’t understand something. The goal, instead, should be to come for their ears, their minds, and their hearts. When responding to someone like Prescott, as Smith said, it’s important to lend them our ears, our minds, and our hearts. For athletes and coaches, at the end of the game, when the lights go out, they’re just as human as everyone else. The first step in helping and coming to a better understanding is to remember that.
Hopefully someday soon, we all will.
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