During this interview, Leigh introduced me to a new point of view on athletes’ mental health. She talked a lot about how mental issues that athletes get aren’t really diagnosable because they aren’t specific to one health issue. When specifically elite male athletes get mental issues the main problem is not wanting to talk about it or tell coaches about it. Most coaches respond that they don’t want to deal with this, and because of that athletes fear telling coaches about it. Then they don’t perform at their best which makes the coaches drop them etc… She talked a lot about her son. She said he was the first person she made sure that knew that mental health was an issue for people. She really wants to make sure this becomes much more widely known. Another fact Leigh told us was that as an athlete, it’s super important to mentally prepare yourself for the situation before you do it. She said it’s a good idea to meditate and take care of your body before games. Some athletes do yoga to calm the mind and get the body up to par. She said meditation is highly encouraged by athletes’ mental health professionals. A lot of schools have started putting in these strategies to help athletes get through their mental problems. Before this was a relevant issue the coach would try to ignore mental health because of what problems it would cause but little did they know if they ignored it all their players with mental issues would underperform, importantly this foundation has helped many colleges change.
