This was touched on in a recent fb post that caught my eye with a young athlete from Stanford who committed suicide. HBO sports had a one hour documentary titled “The Weight of Gold” on the topic of mental health issues young athletes face. The stories athletes shared reminded me so much of my days coaching the USA teams; some years adult team and junior team as well as my years in the classroom in public education.
A couple of things I took from the program without spoiling it for those of you who have not seen it.
1. So many coaches are so focused on outcome and performance they do not know their athletes or try to know them.
2. Sadly, many coaches pass opportunities to help their athletes become more well-rounded.
3. Coaches and administrators tend to latch on to a successful athlete and take credit for their accomplishments rather than coach the athlete.
4. There seems to be no attempt to transition that athlete into civilian life after they retire from their sport.
When coaches and administrators put their own interests above those of their athletes, they fail their athletes. I was shocked to see the number of suicides and mental health issues that were not paid attention to.
Now this is a two way street. If an athlete puts a great “mask” of being happy, how is one to know they are not? The answer is to communicate and make that athlete feel comfortable. When coaches such as I have more than one athlete this is a difficult task. For that matter it is often a difficult task with your own child, much less someone else’s child to get them to open up.
Questions such as:
How is training? How did you prepare? What is lacking in your preparation? What can I do to help you? What is going on? Why do you think your performance not up to par with your ability?
I sure wish someone had asked me those things when I was younger. I did have one coach who did. He tried. I was too young to understand why I had so much anger and why I was self-medicating with alcohol. Luckily for me I bounced around for three or four more years until I figured it out and began goal-setting at age 23.
We are all human and most of us to some degree have experienced depression and when you strive to be the best of the best, it is a hard cold fact that most of us will fail!
However that experience can make you a much better person especially if there is someone in life who can help you through this. That is what a coach and family should provide. The coach should provide safety and care about you as a person first, and athlete second.
You can find the trailer for this program in full as it is four years old here:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+weight+of+gold+full+documentary