Prioritizing Mental Health

By Lindsey Grundfast, Head Coach, Earlham College  @Earlham_WLax

Mental Health. It’s something we talk about often with our team, and something I’m constantly thinking about. In fact, it’s so important within our program, our team puts “taking care of yourself” as one of our team goals year after year. But what does that look like? We talk about getting the right amount of sleep for your body, fueling yourself, drinking an adequate amount of water each day, communicating with teammates and coaching staff, and checking up on one another.

 Photo courtesy of Earlham College Athletics.

Back in December at the IWCLA virtual convention, Kelly Gallagher (University of Tampa), hosted one of the many hot spot Zoom socials. Her topic? Mental Health. Being a year where we all struggled a bit more than an average year, I was excited to hear from my peers on what they were doing with their teams and sharing resources with one another. As a group, we talked about what works well for our programs, struggles we’re having, websites/resources we use on-campus/off-campus, social media accounts we follow, and shared what we do to create positive atmospheres within our teams. I would like to share some of the resources and ideas our group discussed during our session together and hope they may help you come up with your own plan.

Websites/Services:

  • Togetherall: An online peer-to-peer support community for mental health. (Erica Adams, Bridgewater State)
  • Game Changer: A service for athletic departments offered through the National Center for Performance Health. (Scott Tucker, Limestone)
  • TimelyMD: Telehealth campus services (Amy Long, Saint Mary’s IN)
  • QPR: Question. Persuade. Refer. This is the national site to help you locate your local services. At the 2019 Convention, the IWLCA offered QPR in-person training and hope to do it again in the future. (Mackenzie Lawler and Dominique Hamman, GVSU)
  • Lakers Listen: On-campus, student-run, mental health group. (Mackenzie Lawler and Dominique Hamman, GVSU)
  • NCAA Sports Science Institute Mental Health Resources
  • Your institution’s Counseling Service Page

Books:

AWESOME Ideas:

  • Mental Health Day: give each student-athlete a mental health day in the fall if they give you 24-hour notice. If they ask for/need a second, they can have it but, they must also make a meeting to come in and talk about what’s going on. (Shannon Hertz, Bloomsburg and Liz Beville, Le Moyne)
  • Small Group meetings, rather than individual meetings. This gives you a better idea of how each student-athlete reacts to their peers in a more social setting. At UVA-Wise they split the team into groups consisting of a member from each class, and then meet with a coach. Their focus is on Emotional Intelligence and Meditative practices. (Rachel Cole, UVA-Wise)
  • Re-set Day: One day a week, check in with a “please rate your stress level on a scale of 1-10 and why,” – helps coaches plan what the team vibe is and how to best coach them that week. (Shannon Hertz, Bloomsburg)
  • Journaling: Each year the team is given a new notebook and provided with prompts throughout the week to answer. At the end of the week, if an individual wants, they can turn the notebook in for the coaching staff to read. Questions are open-ended, such as “What are you proud of this week?” or “What did you do that you don’t think the coaches noticed?” (Kelly Gallagher, University of Tampa)
  • Start/Stop/Continue: At the end of each week, team is sent a Google form to fill out. They are asked in regard to the next week, “What do you want to start doing?” “What do you want to stop doing?” and “What do you want to continue doing?” There is also a spot on the Google form for “Anything else we should know?” Coaches print out the page for each player to put in their binder so they can see their progress throughout the season. (Taylor Woolard, Converse College)
  • Shoutouts: At the end of each practice, one player from each class must give a shoutout to someone on the team for something positive they did during practice that day. (Lindsey Grundfast, Earlham College)

Social Media Resources (Kelly Gallagher):

  • @mentalhealthamerica
  • @athletes.realtalk
  • @morgansmessage
  • @drsheriece
  • @projectsleep
  • @bettersleeporg
  • @mindwise
  • @athletesforhope

What resources do you have on your campus? What do you implement with your team that you found works? Is there anything you want to do, but don’t know where to start or who to go to? While mental health is something we do talk about with our team, it was relieving to talk with other coaches and hear their experiences. It’s just as important for us to have open conversations as well since we battle things, and we wear a lot of different hats as coaches! We’re parents, fiancés, wives, husbands, brothers and sisters, children, mentors, tutors, friends, listening ears, and crying shoulders. Above all of that, we are also coaches. This doesn’t mean we have to be perfect, nor do we have to do this on our own… that’s what’s so amazing about the IWLCA and everything they offer!

I challenge you all to think about what you do for your team in terms of mental health, but also, what you do for yourself. There are so many negative stigmas out there about asking for help, seeking counseling, being on medication, etc., but we need to treat and tell ourselves the same things we tell our own student athletes. All great leaders know communication is key. Be open with your team. Get real, show them your truth. If their coach and leader can show that it is OK to ask for help, to have bad days, to be human, in the midst of all the pressures college athletics brings, then maybe they will follow your lead.

Asking for help is OK. Seeing a counselor/therapist is OK. It’s OK to not be OK.

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