A Letter to College Athletes

By: Sydney Ladwig

I want to take the time to acknowledge the long-overdue recent attention about mental health in athletes. I don’t want to just talk about it. I want to scream about it. I want to cry about it. I want to be able to be angry about it. Athletes, teams, coaches, are all and rightfully should be devastated about the lack of support given within the sports community. It took losing and continuing to lose many precious lives because of the very real stigma that exists within mental health and sports. To the NCAA, or any divisions: athletes are REAL people. They have REAL problems just as everyone else does, on top of their education, on top of extracurriculars, on top of work, and especially on top of sports. Athletes are someone’s daughter or son. Someone’s brother or sister. Someone’s teammate or classmate. Not just a number on a jersey.

I have read a lot of posts, seeing many comments such as “why don’t they just quit” or “everyone has mental health issues” or “you chose to play in college.” Here is what the people behind those comments do not understand. Most athletes have been playing these sports their whole lives. They have made sacrifices like moving away from their homes to train, or missing out on memories or friendships growing up because of the classic “I can’t, I have practice.” Their sport inevitably becomes a part of them, and with that, a measurement of their worth. Transitioning to college, everything changes. There’s a newfound independence moving across the country, there’s working to pay for school, there are extracurriculars, and on top of all that, there is a demanding training schedule that pushes them and their mind and bodies to exhaustion. Yes, athletes signed up for this. For the love of the game, for the sacrifices they have made, for the memories, and for the goals they strive to achieve.

What they did not sign up for is the stigma of mental health, the lack of resources. The constant push that of course they are grateful for, but the push that does not allow them to be vulnerable. To seek help. To not be okay. The push that makes even the most talented players, or most hard-working athletes feel like they are still not good enough. That they are expendable and if they quit, there is always going to be someone to replace them. The love for the game becomes a measurement of self-worth where they feel statistics, playing time, mistakes, injuries, are all so much more significant and important than themselves and their mental health. To quit after spending their whole lives playing the sport that they fell in love with, the sport that originally saved their mental health, for many it feels impossibly. For many, they may rather take their own lives before that happens, and that right there is what college divisions have pretended to be blind to. 

I will not write this long message about an athlete’s schedule, or an athlete’s priorities, or defend the fact that athletes, myself included, chose to play a sport while continuing education in college, because most people know and can see how trying and tiring it is to be a student-athlete. College divisions know and have ignored it for too long. There is a stigma regarding mental health and athletes, and there needs to be change. Athletes are people, and no athlete, absolutely none, should be seen as expendable. 

To athletes- check on your teammates. Check on your friends who play at other schools. Hell, check on your opponents if you notice even the slightest concern. We are grieving the loss of many. Some who may have been teammates, some who we may have played against, some who maybe we didn’t even know but can empathize with because we are the only ones who truly understand each other. Keep fighting. Keep loving. Keep having the conversation. The number on your back is not nearly as important as the name that represents it. It is okay to not be okay. You are NOT alone. You are NOT expendable.