Benching the Stigma: A look at student- athlete mental health part 1

By: Brenda Matthews

While team sports are widely celebrated as a protective shield against stress and a builder of resilience, a growing mental health crisis suggests high school athletes are facing overwhelming pressure long before they step onto the field.

A January 2025 poll published on the MHS newspaper website revealed that over 59 percent of student-athlete respondents were already struggling with their mental health before their athletic season even started. Furthermore, more than 36 percent reported that their mental well-being actually deteriorated during the season, raising urgent questions about the hidden burdens placed on student-athletes and the persistent stigma that keeps them silent.

"Being on a team, you should work together with peers that are able to support you and should know you and fellow classmates," said industrial arts teacher Dennis Murphy, addressing the gap between the promise of team culture and student reality. "When talking about mental health, there seems to be a stigma about this subject."

Beyond academic expectations and athletic performance, coaches emphasize that unseen personal crises often weigh heavily on students. The challenge is compounded by the fact that many athletes suffer in silence rather than reaching out to the trusted adults in their corner.

"Family illnesses, deaths, financial issues—these are the main ones that I can think of, so they’re facing many challenges of what’s going on in their personal lives," business teacher and varsity baseball coach John Huemmer said. "Personally, being able to do well in school, and then to be able to balance home life, it’s very difficult to do that. Not very often will players come talk to me about their issues."

Teachers and coaches agree that having the right person there for all students is critical when it comes to combating mental health issues. 

However, some students say otherwise. Junior Grace Betzer said, "I would say my own sign is probably when I start having missing assignments or not having the self-confidence I normally do. I would say don’t be afraid to reach out to parents, coaches, teachers or friends about where you’re at mentally."

For many, mental health isn't just an issue they have, it's something that no one else will or can understand what they're going through. And while these students have someone to help them combat their mental health issues, there is a fear of ever telling anyone that they might trust or just a strangle that they are struggling mentally.

According to National Alliance on Mental Illness, roughly 40 percent of high school students in the United States reported constant feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and an estimated 20 percent actually thought about suicide.

The conversation around student-athletes is trapped in a loop, focused entirely on what they produce on the field and in the classroom, while remaining completely blind to the crushing weights they carry outside of school—from financial survival to deep-seated family trauma. When 40 percent of high schoolers face constant hopelessness, the true 'hidden burden' isn’t just the busy schedule—it is the exhausting performance of acting okay on the field while struggling invisibly off of it.

While traditional narratives frame high school sports as an incubator for youth resilience, the data paints a far more troubling picture. The systemic issue isn’t a lack of structural resources; it is an ideological stalemate between adult expectation and student isolation. Murphy identified 'a gap between the promise of team culture and student reality,' a gap driven by a toxic, sports-ingrained stigma. Because athletes are conditioned to project unwavering mental toughness, they internalize extreme personal burdens—like family illness or financial hardships—rather than utilizing the adults in their corner. When 59 percent of these student-athletes are already struggling before a single game is even played, it becomes clear that the athletic arena isn’t causing the trauma, but its high-stakes environment is actively accelerating the crisis while enforcing the silence.

Society  praises high school sports for reinforcing resilience and collaborative learning, yet it remains blind to the tragic irony unfolding before its very eyes: paradoxically, the protective spaces of the classroom and the playing fields now foster severe isolation- a stark reminder that a support resource remains entirely ineffective if students do not feel secure enough to utilize it.