The mental toll on college athletes
“I struggled with not being the best. That was really hard for me and trying not to feel embarrassed because every time I thought, ‘That was terrible,’ even if it was a PR,” Tori Bailey said. “I was like, ‘But it’s still not good enough.’ Sometimes I’d need somebody to talk me down from a lot of anxiety during competition.”
Bailey is a thrower on Utah State University’s Track and Field team. Like many athletes, she has struggled with the mental challenges of high-level collegiate athletics.
A study from the NCAA in 2021 showed 24% of male and 36% of female athletes felt “so depressed that it was difficult to function.” Athletes often compromise their mental health for fear of losing their positions, playing time or scholarships if they take a break.
“It is a very high-intensity sport. It’s probably more intense than I think I’ve ever experienced nerves-wise,” said Ashley Peterson, a player on the USU women’s rugby club team. “It isn’t easy. We practice a lot in all different kinds of weather conditions. It was definitely a learning curve.”
The study also found that approximately 24% of men and 41% of women athletes felt “mentally exhausted.” The pressures of college athletics can be overwhelming. Athletes at USU shared how they find balance and relief from the stress.
“I was the bottom of the barrel, and that was really hard for me to accept. It was hard mentally just trying to accept the fact that it’s OK to be the lowest of everyone else because I had the most to learn,” Bailey said. “As I finally accepted it, that’s when I started to progress through my throwing.”
Peterson said finding balance and taking care of herself has helped her manage the stress. Instead of the sport causing her more anxiety, it became a stress reliever.
“Learning my physical limits and how best to prioritize rest and fueling my body has been super important. Rugby has become one of the best stress relievers, being able to have a special time set apart every week,” she said.
USU Men’s Golf head coach Dean Johansen spoke of the uniqueness of golf and how the individualized performance can be hard on players if they don’t train their minds properly.
“There’s an old saying that golf is 97% mental, and the other 3% is mental,” he said. “There’s tons of time to think, and the longer you think about something, whether it’s hitting a golf ball or a relationship or driving a car — the more you think about it, the more negative thoughts come into your head.”
Johansen said the coaches teach players specific skills to help them stay focused while they’re hitting the ball and be completely unfocused when they’re not.
“We have to figure out how to distract these kids or let them distract themselves. I go hit a shot and focus for 45 seconds, and then I need to think about something besides golf,” he said. “While we’re walking to the next shot, we’ll talk about school, girls or cars. We’re talking about anything but golf until we get to the ball, and then we start a game plan. ‘What kind of shot do we want to hit?’ We focus on that, and then we move on.”
Golf tournaments can take much longer than other sports and are potentially exhausting by the last hole. Johansen said he works with players to develop routines before each swing, and then he helps them rest their minds before stepping up for another shot. Otherwise, he says, they won’t last mentally until the end of the tournament.
“The big difference between the good and the great players is their ability to deal with bad shots and how they get over those shots,” said Josh Pehrson, a junior on the team. “We’re all going to hit bad shots in golf — it’s just the nature of the game. But are you going to let that one shot from four holes ago affect your shot now?”
Pehrson has experienced mental struggles throughout his golf career and in response, he has created a list of encouraging messages to get him through it. He keeps the list on his phone’s lock screen and frequently refers back to it throughout tournaments.
Phrases in the list include “Love yourself,” “Gratitude and joy,” “Relentless and indomitable,” “Never make excuses,” “Body language,” “The next shot” and “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Number six, “The next shot,” has been especially impactful for Pehrson.
“I think about this in life a lot too. The previous shot has no effect on me unless I want it to have an effect on me,” he said. “They’re completely independent events from one another. So how am I going to prepare next mentally and physically for the next shot? I’ll read through those to try and help me get back into a good headspace.”
The mental challenges and stresses come in phases for athletes. Naturally, when performance is better, it is easier to remain positive. For Bailey, some relief came from hearing the personal experience of a former thrower at USU.
“Just this last weekend, Krista (Larson Du Plessis) got inducted into the Hall of Fame at USU. She told us that her mom passed away tragically during her sophomore year. She was going to quit, but Coach Matt convinced her to stay and told her that hammering is the safest place for her to be — to make that the safest place,” Bailey said.
Recently, Bailey said, setting big goals and trying to break school records has put extra pressure on herself – pressure that negatively affects her performance.
“When she was talking, I thought, ‘If she can come back after her mom passing away, I can be stronger than my mental struggles,’” Bailey said. “Making that choice to just do it and to just move past it — these past few days of practice have been exponentially better.”
For help with mental health struggles, USU students can visit usu.edu/aggiewellness/caps.
Featured photo illustration by Bailey Rigby.