Universities should do a more thorough job of informing student athletes about the emotional and physical risks of their sports, argues first-year law student and psychologist Desi Alonzo Vásquez, Ph.D., in a chapter he authored with colleagues for a multi-volume series on sports medicine titled the Praeger Handbook of Sports Medicine and Athlete Health. Vásquez based his observations on research and his treatment of athletes during a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Virginia Brain Injury and Sports Concussion Institute. The volume in which Vásquez appears is due out in early 2010.
College athletes are under significant pressure to succeed in both academics and athletics, often trying to maintain a scholarship and set themselves apart to appeal to professional level sports teams.
"Often we think of athletes as being superhuman, but that's not the case. They suffer rates of psychopathology at the same level as others and for some it's worse," Vasquez says, adding that athletes can have higher rates of problems such as eating disorders and risk behaviors like drug and alcohol abuse. His chapter covers the developmental and psychosocial pressures facing college athletes and concludes by making recommendations for coaches and universities.
"They basically have two full time jobs," says Vásquez, noting that training and competing often takes up 20 hours or more per week beyond their academic requirements. Athletes also face high expectations for their behavior when they are off the field.
Responding to these pressures proactively can actually protect athletes, argues Vásquez.
"For example, we know that certain types of mental toughness training, which you can do with athletes, can decrease the sports injuries by giving athletes some good behavioral and stress-reduction techniques," he says.
Athletics departments should inform students and parents about the risks of injury and provide academic planning that prepares a student for the reality that he or she may not be able to play professional level sports.
"Athletes who have been planning on playing for the NFL or NBA experience extreme disappointment if that doesn't happen and then may also report feeling less satisfied with their degree work," he notes. "Would they have made different decisions if they were counseled academically as if they were not going to be national players?"
He acknowledges that the approaches taken toward academic counseling or the amount of information provided to athletes regarding physical risks may have legal implications for universities.
"What the field is wondering is: What kind of duty do colleges and universities have towards their students? People wonder whether former athletes will begin to consider suits for these kinds of issues, especially if it becomes clear that institutions knew about long-term health risks or professional career prospects and did not inform or advise according to the students' best interests," says Vásquez, who argues that colleges may have a greater obligation to the young men and women who draw money and attention to the school through their participation in a sport.
Vásquez says change can begin with coaches, who should be alert to signs of distress in their athletes and support them in seeking help. He also notes that the location and degree of integration between counseling and assessment services with sports medicine makes a difference - some athletes may respond better if they can seek care in a location that is separate from both their fellow students and from the sports medicine clinic, while others may benefit from a more integrated treatment style of cooperation between team physicians and sports psychologists being provided at the same location.
-- Oct. 26, 2009