Even as the chaotic state of college sports makes headlines, with a bill passing the US Senate that would bring sweeping policy changes, the well-being of the athletes who fuel the multi-billion-dollar industry seems to be treated as secondary.
That might have more dire consequences than ever, a startling new survey suggests.
In a study coming out of Rutgers University and led by Dr. Allison Bond, herself a former student-athlete, nearly 40 percent of the NCAA student-athletes surveyed across Division I, II, and III reported that they have experienced suicidal thoughts at some point. What’s more, only 36 percent said they had received any sort of mental-health-related training that included aspects of suicide prevention.
Suicide is the third-leading cause of death generally across the age group of college students (18-22). Among college athletes, however, it rises up to the second. While student-athletes may potentially enjoy higher levels of physical health due to their physical conditioning, supervision by team medical providers, and resources in terms of nutrition and exercise facilitates, ironically they might experience intensified mental health dangers as compared to those who do not play a college sport. From inhospitable travel schedules and dozens of extra required hours of physical work per week to performance pressures that make them fear losing their scholarships if they’re not playing well, student-athlete stressors abound. For many, their athletic performance is the biggest part of their identity—even as it comes with decreased sleep, physical exhaustion and unrealistic expectations from fans.
“Student-athletes are telling us that they’re struggling, and they’re telling us that they want resources,” Dr. Bond said in a press release.
In fact, the pressures of being a high-profile college athlete may be greater than ever before, due to the combination of two particularly potent shifts in our cultural landscape: the prevalence of social media and online sports betting. More and more college athletes are expected to keep up a perfected social media presence, and in fact it is sometimes part of their financial contract. The pressure to post publicly, create a personal “brand” and let fans into their private lives, rather than just performing on the field or in the arena, is greater than ever before.
And the audiences on social media may be more brutal than any stadium crowd used to be. Now that putting money on a game is so easy and increasing in popularity, student-athletes are being subjected to more and more abuse. Fans are now not only more likely to become enraged at a subpar performance because they lost money on it, but they are much more likely to channel that rage directly into attacks on players. A different, previous study reported that a whopping 36 percent of D1 men’s basketball players had been on the receiving end of abusive social media messages related to sports betting.
What does this mean for the future of college sports? As legislators debate policies and regulations on the institutional side, it seems a better time than ever to increase mental health supports for the athletes themselves. Ultimately, that is the score that matters most by far.