Student-Athlete Psychology: A Balancing Act

On Sept. 23, as part of the psychology department’s colloquium series, Tristan Coulter, a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland Australia, discussed sports and psychology in a presentation entitled “Tackling the Herculean and Holy Grail Ideals in Sport: Lifting the Psychological (and Contextual) Lid on Mental Toughness.”

He elaborated on his points by presenting his PhD Thesis, a case study on the Captain of the Australian Football League’s North Melbourne Football Club. His hour-long presentation gave a brief history of his fledging dance career that followed after his attempt to become a Golf Recruit at the University of Arizona.

He began his presentation by talking about his golf aspiration: he wanted to play collegiate golf in the United States. He explained how every time he would play in a tournament, he would be overcome with anxiety, worrying about how he was going to let down his friends, family, coaches and teammates, as well as his own future. It was hard for him to control the anxiety, and he simply fought it head on.

“What is mental toughness?” Coulter asked the audience. “How do you define it? Who is mentally tough?”

As Coulter explained in his lecture, everybody can see physical strength through the size of one’s muscles and the amount of work an individual can do, but not everybody can see the mental anguish one faces on the field. It is difficult to convey to someone else the pressures you feel as soon as you realize that you are not playing for yourself, but for everybody around you.

Coulter knows that student athletes aren’t alone in their anxiety: “Some of the toughest people in sports, business and politics might be riddled with hidden anxiety,” he said.

Mental health awareness is one issue the Connecticut College community prides itself on.  Nearly half of the college campus visits counseling services at least once during their four years here, demonstrating the importance of maintaining good mental health.

While every college student will experience stress and anxiety during his or her undergraduate career, student athletes face immense pressure before they even arrive on campus. They are expected to begin their recruitment process early in their high school careers. The pressure of impressing college scouts, maintaining college coach relationships and navigating admissions is sometimes too much for the average individual. Add in the factors of surviving high school, achieving good grades and having a social life, it is amazing that these athletes continue to do it in college.

So what does this mean for the athletes here on campus? Coulter addressed this concern after his presentation: “Being a student athlete is one of the most challenging things, even more so than being a professional athlete, as you have to compartmentalize your time more so than the average person.”  He continued explaining that professional athletes just have to focus on their sport. They do not have to worry about school, maintaining an ever-changing social life or time management. In this way, student-athletes are the most stressed of anyone in sports.

There is great pressure on student athletes in today’s world, as Division I athletes have their faces plastered all over ESPN, and people who they don’t even know have opinions about their abilities. Coulter said that many athletes need to restructure their thought processes and keep them completely separate from the thought processes that they have for schoolwork or in social situations. By doing this, they can have an on-field mentality that helps them cope with the constant pressure of game situations. Student athletes, even at the Division III level, need to have this mentality when they approach their sport. However, it is not a process that happens overnight. It takes days, weeks, months and sometimes years to finally have that right mentality. It is an arduous process, but one that Coulter believes is something every athlete at Conn and abroad should try to have.

Coulter has a lot of experience in profiling athletes and understanding their mental needs as they become part of a team. Seeing as the mental well-being is significantly more important for a student-athlete than a professional, he was asked if college coaches and admissions should start creating psychological profiles for their recruits. On paper, it sounds like a good idea. Anybody can create a façade off and on the field while coaches and scouts are watching, but what will they do once they enter the College? Having a psychological profile of a player would help coaches decide how the player will work with the team. If the rest of the team is highly determined and vocal, but one player is reserved and looks to others for instruction, the team will not work as well.

When asked about profiling for college recruits, Coulter replied, “There is a real ethical issue when psychologically profiling students right out of high school and for a college team. What can the coach do with the information? Is the information even enough to make a valued opinion on the individual? What is the test? So, there are issues present that, for me, make it nearly impossible to ever approve of colleges psychologically profiling high school recruits.”

Coulter acknowledged that while sports psychology has made some immense strides over the past few years in terms of acceptance and progress, there are still many uncharted waters.

Coulter has spent a good portion of his life around sports and psychology. It only made sense for him to delve into the subject and research it with a passion. He does this work not only because he finds a great satisfaction in it, but because it helps individuals who were once in a similar position. Coulter spoke eloquently about the topic and wanted everyone in that room, which was mostly filled with psychology students and athletes, to know that there is an invisible hindrance many people feel, and those people are not alone. Student athletes, those who may be considered the physically strongest on campus, are also some of the most susceptible to stress and mental anguish. It is important to ensure that every individual feels secure and confident, regardless of his or her physicality.