By Marissa Kleckner, Taylor Smith, and Julia Mongan
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writers
Athlete mental health is one of the most understated yet critical issues in contemporary media discourse. Concern for athletes, specifically college athletes’ mental health, first reached the media in 2020 while the country was deep in the COVID-19 pandemic. The NCAA had conducted a survey to see how student-athletes were doing, and the responses were drastically high. Mental health concerns had risen between 150% and 200% from the beginning of the fall semester to the shutdown in March and still, in the fall of 2024, have not returned to levels. In the spring of 2023, a report showed that 40% of college athletes admitted to having depression.
COVID was seen as particularly hard on athletes as they were the only students on campus with limited resources and shortened practices, yet they were still expected to perform at a high level. They were expected to attend limited practices and online classes, though outside of that, they remained isolated in their dorm rooms. There were also few competitions to train for, with many last-minute cancellations.
“Covid was definitely very hard on student-athlete mental health,” said Madeline Frick, a class of ‘24 Alumni from the Towson University swim team. “For me, I was a freshman, and we found ourselves stuck in our dorms with online classes and only one dining hall. It was very lonely and boring at times.”
To counteract this trend of rising levels of athletes struggling with mental health, schools have placed a focus on changing the narrative around seeking mental health help and ensuring athletes have the resources needed.
Towson University has put its energy into two main resources to support athletes’ mental health: an individual therapist and a student-led group. The athletic department has hired Blake Costalupes, a licensed psychotherapist who specifically worked with Towson varsity athletes in 2023. He has also helped to establish Own Your Roar, a student-run organization for athletes to promote and advocate for their mental health needs.
“We have integrated my mental health services with all other sports medicine services,” said Costalupes. “To help athletes understand that mental health and physical health can be treated similarly and is a normal part of help-seeking in athletics”
Along with clinical help, Own Your Roar has taken a peer-led angle at tackling the stigmatism around athlete mental health. Own Your Roar is a peer-support group that looks to create a safe space for the athletics community to come to hang out, relax, and get information on resources and options available for them while showing them that struggling with mental health is not something they have to do alone. The group has representatives from all 19 varsity athletics teams, and they host monthly meetings with activities and guest speakers that are open to all student-athletes.
“The goal for Own Your Roar is to break the stigma around mental health for athletes,” said Own Your Roar president Sara Parksvold. “The goals this year are to increase participation in monthly meetings and have designated matches, games meets for each sport and increase awareness.”
While this is all being done to support athletes as a whole, female student-athletes are still much more likely to report mental health struggles. Forty-four percent of female athletes have reported feeling overwhelmed compared to just 17% of male athletes, and 35% of female athletes reported feeling mentally exhausted compared to just 16% of male athletes.
“The stigma of mental health does have an immense impact upon female athletes,” said Barra Stewart, a sophomore on Towson’s track and field team. “In this world, women have numerous expectations upon them and that trickles into athletics as well. I know numerous athletes, especially within my own sport that battle with mental health. It varies from body image to familial predicaments.”
While all this data indicates a need for more female-specific support most schools still struggle in this capacity, leading to female athletes’ apprehension surrounding the athletic department’s ability to address their mental health needs.
A survey of female athletes at Towson University found that the athletic department and coaches took mental health very seriously. While they had high praise for the athletics staff, many reiterated that they wanted to see work continue to destigmatize mental health issues and grow the resources available.
This survey found schools are headed in the right direction by providing resources and support. The stigmatism around mental health is still relevant, making all data reported by athletes questionable as many people are still not open to talking about their mental health. This study also faces the limitations of having a small pool of people surveyed and only focusing on Towson University, making it so the data gathered may not represent the country as a whole.
*Image and headline created by Copilot