The stress of being a Division I athlete is often not talked about enough.
From classes to practice time and everything in between, student-athletes have a lot on their plates before game days.
Marist Talavou, a San Jose State graduate student and football player, said the student-athlete schedule is already chaotic and can cause more stress than the normal student is under.
“Being a student athlete is hectic as you have very little to no time for yourself,” Talavou said. “As for a football player here at SJSU, your days can start as early as 5:30 a.m. and end as late as 10:30 or 11:30 p.m.”
Division I student-athletes are designated at least one day off per week in accordance with NCAA regulations, but Talavou said that day is a game of catch-up.
“Whenever an athlete does have a day off, they either get treatment, catching up on school work or catching up on sleep,” he said.
For some SJSU student-athletes, there is a group of professionals dedicated to easing the stress they carry – because poor mental health in student-athletes can stem from much more than just being busy.
Causes of Mental Health Issues
Theodore Butryn, SJSU sport sociology and sport psychology professor, said sport psychology and an athlete’s performance are within a larger structure.
“If we’re talking about Division I athletics, there’s power issues, power differentials, there’s all kinds of socio-cultural issues that can actually be the root cause of some of the issues athletes end up coming to me to talk about,” said Butryn, who has been at SJSU since 2000.
He said even though he doesn’t come from a clinical psychology background, his theoretical orientation has been to lean on humanistic psychology.
“[Athletes] are whole people. They have identities, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability and those intersections,” Butryn said. “They have personal stories of socialization, so I think that’s why that socio-cultural background that I have is really important to bring into sports psychology.”
Butryn said specifically when athletes are experiencing a transition, such as getting injured or not advancing to a professional team, the top predictor of having psychological or mental health issues is identity.
"The number one predictor of having problems is when you don't have multiple identities and when you've invested all of your identity in that athlete identity,” he said.“You don't have hobbies, you don't have friends outside of the sport, you don’t have any identity outside of that identity as an athlete.”
Joseph Puentes, an SJSU athletics clinical and sport psychologist, said he believes there’s also a general stigma around mental health and athletics.
“Part of that comes from, you're supposed to be tough all the time and never vulnerable or weak,” said Puentes, who provides consultation and therapy to SJSU football student-athletes, coaches and medical staff. “The ability to have different gears, toughness and vulnerability, really lets you be flexible as a human and take the time to take care of things like mental health, which is real whether we want to acknowledge it or not.”
Talavou said he’s seen players who struggled with depression but they never told their coach because of fear it would lead to receiving less playing time.
“The reason for that is because they were worried that their coach would see them as weak or use that as a reason as to why they weren’t good enough to play or be a starter, so instead of seeking help, they suffered in silence,” Talavou said.
Combating Mental Health Issues
Puentes said he helps across the continuum of performance, working with the team, imagery and teaching them how to focus under pressure.
“If I had to boil it down to three things, one is helping people learn how to breathe and relax when they’re under pressure,” he said. “The other one is how to help them focus on the process versus the outcome. So how to help them focus on how they go about what they’re doing, the execution rather than the results because when we’re focusing on just the results, we end up not focusing on how to get there in the present moment.”
Puentes said it’s important to take into consideration how to separate worth as a person from sport results.
“We’re worthwhile in many other ways,” he said. “Our sport is really important to us because people have dedicated a lot of their life to get to this point, but that ability to separate your worth helps people have better mental health and sustain in their sport over time.”
For example, Puentes said when sport is taken away from a student-athlete because of an injury, they may experience stages of grief and depression.
“It’s a big loss to have your sport taken away, so I would say that helping them go through those stages of loss around the injury and then helping them find how to become healthier, stronger and wiser through this recovery process [is the best way to get through it],” he said.
Keaton Chase, an SJSU economics graduate student and right-handed baseball pitcher, said it can be difficult to be a student-athlete, but he wouldn't change it for anything in the world because of the life lessons it taught him – including persevering through injuries.
“When I had Tommy John, the way I dealt with it was taking it a day at a time and since I wasn’t playing baseball as much, I was able to focus that much more on economics,” Chase said.
Tommy John Surgery, also known as ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, is done to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament inside the elbow, according to the Hopkins Medicine website.
Puentes said he teaches student-athletes such as Chase to be mentally trained and help develop skills to improve mindsets.
He said he also builds relationships with those athletes to teach them concepts, so they can decide what to do from there.
While there’s a lot a student-athlete can work on to better their mental health, Puentes said coaches should also recognize its importance – adding it not only aids their players but can also be a competitive advantage.
Chase said he thinks great conversations follow coaches asking their players if they are doing OK, but it comes down to player-coach trust.
“Our coaches here, I have a great relationship with [them] and know they care about me more than being just a baseball player,” Chase said.
Student-Athlete’s Self Care
Talavou said he learned self care from his sister and Puentes.
“I thought self care was just buying things you like until she explained it a little bit more,” he said. “Our team sports psychologist, Dr. Joe, went into depth about self care. Our team would meet once a week as he would teach us self care, as well as the importance of being mentally and emotionally strong.
Talavou said, since his time at SJSU, he's learned to balance school and sports with time management.
“I learned to prioritize my school work based on the difficulty of the class,” Talavou said. “For example, if I’m struggling with my math class more than my English and biology class, I’ll be sure to prioritize getting tutoring or spending more time on my math homework than my other classes.”
Chase also emphasized time management.
He said thriving on the field comes down to setting deadlines for himself to get school work done.
“I think to be successful on the field and in the classroom requires a lot of discipline and communication because when we travel in season, you sometimes have to do assignments on the bus or in an airport,” Chase said.
Talavou said mindfulness is another tool that’s important for him and he encourages others to “learn how to breathe.”
“The reason why I say breathe is because as stressful as your day may be or you’re maybe going through something, it’s easy to forget to take a big deep breaths,” he said. “Taking big deep breaths can help calm you down as well as help you try to think more clearly.”
Talavou said student-athletes should also try to take 10 to15 minutes out of their busy schedules for themselves.
“Whether it may be watching your favorite YouTube video, listening to your favorite song, eating your favorite food, taking a power nap, playing video games, meditating or just taking deep breaths,” he said. “Doing something like that allows you to clear your mind from all stress and allows you to focus on yourself.”
Talavou said it’s easy to take the little things for granted.
“Being in college, being able to play the sport that you love, the friends and family that you love and have, being able to wake up the next day or just the position that you are in now,” he said. “I feel not doing at least one of these things will be very difficult for a student-athlete to be successful mentally and emotionally.”
