By Kerry Sullivan
One of the proudest moments in my life was the moment I signed my NCAA National Letter of Intent to join Manhattan College’s Division 1 Women’s Rowing Team; it felt like a moment when all of my hard work in high school had paid off. I remember feeling honored to call myself a Division 1 (D1) athlete, as I was one of the few people from my high school and my team who committed to D1 athletics. In fact, I am a part of the less than 2% of high school athletes who go on to play at the NCAA Division 1 level.
Rowing was the one sport I did that I absolutely fell in love with. Like most kids, I did a whole host of athletic activities at the will of my parents, but none of them clicked the same way rowing did. I started to seriously think about recruitment for college in the middle of my sophomore year of high school because I knew that come senior year, I would not want to give up this sport.
However, like most athletes, especially athletes who compete at the Division 1 Level, I struggle a lot with my mental health. Mental health is something that is not talked about well in the world of athletics, especially on such a highly competitive level. Something as small as not getting enough sleep can cause a domino effect that means you lose an important game or race. This has been shown recently, especially with the death of Stanford women’s soccer player, Katie Meyers. Mental health in athletes has been thrust into the spotlight, but there are still many athletes that struggle silently.
For me, the effect of sports on my mental health started early during my high school career. I was dedicating so much time to rowing that I didn’t have time for a lot of other things, like homework, friends, and other passions that I had. Rowing is a year-round sport, and out of the 52 weeks a year, I was “in season” for around 48 of them.
I realized recently that the longest break I had from rowing since I started was 3 months when COVID-19 shut everything down and I was forced to stop. Even then, I jumped straight back into a boat as soon as I was able to. But this strain on my mental health was relatively easy to deal with, and I managed to carve time out for myself to do other things that I loved.
Because I managed the strain on my mental health in high school relatively well, I never really stopped to think about how such a huge time and energy commitment would affect my mental health in college. However, waking up for practice at 4:30 am each morning, Monday to Friday, and around 6:30 am on Saturday mornings, meant I was giving up a lot of sleep. In addition to our early morning practices, I attend lift sessions twice a week that I have to work around my class schedule. I am also a full-time, resident college student; trying to fit a nap into an already busy schedule, while trying to balance homework and much more, is sometimes impossible. There were days that I would leave my dorm at 4:45 am and not return until five or six in the evening.
About midway through the second semester of my freshman year, I started to get very mentally overwhelmed. I was, essentially, running on fumes. I went through my days with a tight feeling in my chest and I was pretty much constantly thinking about how my boats performed at practice, how I could make them work together better, and I was running through race plan after race plan in my head.
The worst part was that I started to overthink pretty much everything that I did, and it consumed me to the point where all I could think about was rowing. It was devastating, and as days went by that tight ball in my chest kept getting worse. I was so incredibly anxious that I would get nauseous thinking about getting in a boat, and several times I would have small anxiety attacks before races.
There is a huge stigma around mental health in young adults. However, this stigma is even worse among student-athletes, especially at the D1 level. There are so many times that we cannot just leave issues at practice at the door. We constantly have to think about keeping our bodies healthy, but so often we do not think about keeping ourselves mentally healthy.
It can be hard to open up to our teammates and coaches. Opening up can, very often, be misinterpreted as a sign of weakness. I don’t usually talk with my teammates about my mental health, and in turn, they don’t talk to me about it. I doubt a lot of us are extremely open with our coaches about it either, whether it’s depression, anxiety, burnout, or another issue entirely. It’s something that, across the board with collegiate athletics, needs to change.
One of the things that helped the most was starting therapy. Since then, I’ve been able to find more coping mechanisms, and I have someone to talk to who is completely objective. Someone who can help guide me through my mental struggles and make suggestions to help me improve it. All in all, I have found that therapy has helped. Little by little. But, as my therapist says, “Progress is progress.” I’m trying to prioritize my mental health over a lot of things
I still struggle with my mental health every single day. There are some days that are better and some days that are worse. Sometimes, I wake up and I barely have the energy to get out of bed, let alone go to practice and be a functioning member of society. But I’m trying.
For any other athletes out there, no matter what level you play at, your mental health is valid. Below is a list of resources that can be useful for anyone who is struggling.
- NCAA Mental Health Educational Resources- https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2016/8/4/mental-health-educational-resources.aspx
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Helpline- 1-800-662-4357
- Suicide and Crisis Lifeline- 1-800-273-8255, or 988 (starting July 16, 2022)