{"id":623008,"date":"2023-03-28T17:49:23","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T22:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/28\/when-college-athletes-kill-themselves-healing-the-team-becomes-the-next-goal\/"},"modified":"2023-03-28T17:49:23","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T22:49:23","slug":"when-college-athletes-kill-themselves-healing-the-team-becomes-the-next-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/28\/when-college-athletes-kill-themselves-healing-the-team-becomes-the-next-goal\/","title":{"rendered":"When College Athletes Kill Themselves, Healing the Team Becomes the Next Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing \u201c988,\u201d or the Crisis Text Line by texting \u201cHOME\u201d to 741741.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the weeks after Stanford University soccer goalie Katie Meyer, 22, died by suicide last March, her grieving teammates were inseparable even when not training.<\/p>\n

Coaches adjusted practices to give the athletes time and space to make sense of losing their friend and team captain. They offered to cancel the spring season, but the players declined, said Melissa Charloe, who started as a Stanford assistant women\u2019s soccer coach the day Meyer died.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard because there\u2019s no playbook on how to do this,\u201d Charloe said.<\/p>\n

No playbook exists because, until recently, it was relatively uncommon for student-athletes to die by suicide<\/a>. But at least five NCAA athletes<\/a>, including Meyer, ended their lives in a two-month period last year. And a 2021 NCAA poll<\/a> released in May found that student-athletes say they are experiencing more mental health concerns, anxiety, and depression than they reported in surveys conducted before the covid-19 pandemic took hold in 2020.<\/p>\n

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death<\/a> on college campuses. And despite the overall rise in mental health concerns there, universities have been caught off guard when student-athletes have died by suicide. Traditionally, sports psychologists focused on mental health as it related to performance on the field. Their goal was to help athletes improve physically \u2014 jump higher, run faster \u2014 not navigate mental health crises, largely because of a misperception that college athletes were less susceptible to mental health concerns.<\/p>\n

What little research exists<\/a> about student athletes and mental health is inconsistent and inconclusive<\/a>. But many experts thought athletes were insulated from risk factors such as depression and social isolation<\/a>, in part because physical activity is good for mental health<\/a> and athletes have a steady stream of people around them, including coaches, trainers, and teammates, said Kim Gorman, director of counseling and psychological services at Western Carolina University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re kind of used to pain \u2014 it\u2019s not so foreign to them,\u201d added organizational psychologist Matt Mishkind<\/a>, deputy director of the Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Depression Center<\/a> at the University of Colorado\u2019s Anschutz Medical Campus.<\/p>\n

Still, athletes face pressures that their peers in the general student population don\u2019t,<\/a> such as balancing sports, schoolwork, fears of career-ending injuries, and mistakes that can lead to ridicule that gets amplified on social media. With suicide rates in the general population on the rise<\/a> and the effects of the pandemic continuing to threaten well-being, high-profile suicides highlight how to deal with the unthinkable \u2014 and how to try to prevent it from happening again.<\/p>\n

In the wake of such suicides, schools are reevaluating the kind of mental health support they provide. Creating a safe space to talk about grief with someone who understands suicide is a critical first step, said psychologist Doreen Marshall<\/a>, a vice president at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany professionals are good with grief, but suicide grief can be a little different,\u201d she said, as it often involves guilt and questions about why someone would end their life.<\/p>\n

Gina Meyer, Katie\u2019s mother, and her husband, Steve, have developed an initiative, Katie\u2019s Save<\/a>, to ensure that all students have a trusted advocate to turn to in times of trouble. \u201cWe know that the bravest thing you can do is ask for help,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Meyers filed a wrongful death lawsuit<\/a> against Stanford in November alleging that their daughter ended her life after receiving an email from the university about disciplinary action against her. Stanford University spokesperson Dee Mostofi did not answer questions about the case, but Stanford posted a statement on its website<\/a> saying the Meyers\u2019 suit contains misleading information and the school disagrees with their allegations that it is responsible for Katie\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike other colleges and universities across the country, Stanford has seen a sharp increase in demand for mental health counseling and other well-being resources over the last two years,\u201d Mostofi said. \u201cMental health remains not only an ongoing challenge but our most urgent priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Meyer died, Stanford provided mental health counselors and a sports psychologist to her teammates, but the players said they lobbied the university to pay for Zoom sessions with a specialist, Kimberly O\u2019Brien<\/a>, a clinical social worker in the Sports Medicine Division\u2019s Female Athlete Program at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien has professional and personal experience dealing with sports and suicide: She was an ice hockey player at Harvard in 1998 when one of the athletes in her university house died. \u201cI wasn\u2019t even extremely close to her, but it affected me profoundly,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were no resources to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s changing. Colleges are trying to hire more mental health therapists<\/a> to meet increasing and varied needs. Some, including Stanford and Washington State University, are working with The Jed Foundation<\/a>, which provides suicide prevention programming for high school and college students. And crisis support doesn\u2019t happen just in the student health center: Colleges are establishing campus-wide \u201cpostvention\u201d programs<\/a> to prevent suicide contagion.<\/p>\n

After Stanford University soccer goalie Katie Meyer died by suicide in March 2022, her grieving teammates were inseparable. The coaches adjusted practice schedules and asked the team members if they wanted to cancel the season, but they wanted to keep playing. \u201cIt\u2019s hard because there\u2019s no playbook on how to do this,\u201d assistant coach Melissa Charloe says. (Tyler Geivett\/Stanford Athletics)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before cross-country runner Sarah Shulze, 21, died by suicide at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in April 2022, the athletics department was expanding its professional mental health support from two staffers to six to help the school\u2019s approximately 800 student-athletes, said David Lacocque<\/a>, the department\u2019s director of mental health and sport psychology. The department, known until eight months ago as \u201cclinical & sport psychology,\u201d changed its name in part because student-athletes were asking for mental health support.<\/p>\n

In addition to scheduled appointments, the sports liaisons attend practices, team meetings, training sessions, and competitions to help normalize mental health concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cGone are the days when we sit in our office and wait for people to knock on the door and talk to us,\u201d Lacocque said.<\/p>\n

Student-athletes can also seek free help from the university\u2019s mental health professionals or providers in the community under contract with the University of Wisconsin athletics department. And some women\u2019s cross-country athletes at the school now keep an eye on their teammates when coaches aren\u2019t around, letting the team\u2019s liaison know if they\u2019re concerned about someone\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want anyone slipping between the cracks,\u201d said teammate Maddie Mooney. \u201cIt\u2019s a hard time for everybody, and everybody grieves at different paces and processes things differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teammate Victoria Heiligenthal, who shared a house with Shulze, said she avoided talking to campus counselors for months after her close friend died. \u201cI only wanted to be alone or be with my friends who really understood the situation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Heiligenthal couldn\u2019t bear to stay in the home where she and Shulze had lived, so the university put her and Mooney up in a hotel for a week, and then she stayed awhile at Mooney\u2019s apartment. Once back in her own place, teammates, coaches, training staff, and psychologists checked in on her and Mooney.<\/p>\n

But the real game changer for the two was connecting last spring with Stanford soccer players Sierra Enge and Naomi Girma (who now plays professionally). Enge reached out after seeing something Mooney posted on Instagram. Since then, the four have met via Zoom. They have also talked with O\u2019Brien and will join her on a mental health panel at a conference in Boston<\/a> in June to talk about their experiences of losing a teammate to suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was powerful hearing the parallels,\u201d Heiligenthal said. \u201cIt made you realize Maddie and I weren\u2019t alone; there were others who were experiencing similar things to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford, athletes honored their late teammates last fall by raising mental health awareness. At a major meet<\/a> in October, the Wisconsin runners painted green ribbons on the course, put ribbons in race packets, and contributed to a video<\/a>. At Stanford\u2019s game against UCLA in November, spectators wore green ribbons to highlight the importance of addressing mental health issues.<\/p>\n

Stanford won the game, handing UCLA its first loss of the season. The victory was bittersweet. A year earlier, Meyer had spearheaded the team\u2019s first mental health awareness game.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Debby Waldman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing \u201c988,\u201d or the Crisis Text Line by texting \u201cHOME\u201d to 741741. In the weeks after Stanford University soccer goalie Katie Meyer, 22, died by suicide last March, her grieving teammates were inseparable even<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":623009,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2537,1850],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-623008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-athletes","8":"category-college"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}