Sound Mind, Sound Body
By Andy Fledderjohann
HurricaneSports.com
Hall of Famer Yogi Berra once said “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
While the physical part of sports is vitally important to success, without an effective mental game, the rest of an athlete’s game will never be at the level it potentially could be.
With that in mind, more people are turning their focus to the mental side of the game. Miami Athletics has become one of the leaders nationally in developing its sports psychology department as part of its recently-created Performance, Health and Wellness program. In August UM hired Dr. Eric Goldstein as its first full-time sports psychologist.
While the primary emphasis for Goldstein is on performance-based issues, he also has been enlisted to help struggling athletes who may need mental health services.
“Most coaches and athletes will acknowledge that the mental part of the game is so important,” Goldstein said. “And the role of the sports psychologist is, if the mental part of the game is 50, 60, 70 percent – whatever you believe it is – let’s look at how many hours a week you’re working on the physical part. If the mental part is 50 percent or more, why aren’t you working the same number of hours mentally? Most athletes say they don’t do anything or they do very little, so my role is to work to address that. The initial goal was to work on performance side of things, but there was also a concern about the mental health side because just like a physical injury, what if you have a mental health issue?”
Goldstein’s office is located just down the hall from UM’s athletic training room in the Hecht Athletic Center, and he makes every effort to be visible and increase awareness for the services that sports psychology provides.
“We’re trying to do a lot more outreach in terms of mental health services, sports psychology and performance services,” Goldstein said. “One of the things I’m doing is I walk the training room anywhere from four to six times a day so the athletes get to see me. I go to as many different sports practices on a regular basis as I can. So I’ve become a known quantity now.”
Word clearly is traveling too. Following a pair of rough performances in losses to Georgia Tech and Duke, football wide receiver DeeJay Dallas, after some prompting from one of his coaches, sought help from Goldstein. After the two talked through some things, Dallas had a big game the next week in Miami’s win over Pittsburgh, and Dallas was quick to credit Goldstein.
“I feel like more athletes should do that at all positions, no matter offense, defense, special teams,” Dallas said in the postgame press conference following the game. “We just talked it out and I got everything off my chest. It was hard, but it was easy at the same time. I felt like it helped me out a lot. You’ve got to put your pride aside. You’ve got to set a goal and if you want something, you’re going to go get it. I felt like that was the process that I needed to go through in order for me to achieve what I wanted to achieve, in order for me to help the team.”
When sitting down with student-athletes, Goldstein can provide specialized consultation, including relaxation and meditation techniques. One of his go-to apps is Headspace, a popular meditation app.
“We try to give them as many resources as possible, especially for when they are traveling,” Goldstein said. “For every technique or strategy that I give them, I make a sound file and send it to them so they always have it on their phones. They can play it whenever they want. They have my phone number, and they can always touch base with me and get a refresher.”
While mental health has become a much bigger topic in recent years, UM Athletics has taken the progressive step of offering mental health counseling solely for student-athletes through the athletics department, becoming one of the first programs nationally do so.
“One of the conundrums with athletes is every university has a counseling center,” Goldstein said. “Theoretically there is access for them to mental health services. Athletes have reported to me situations where they have gone into these centers, walked into the waiting room and one of the other students there said ‘Aren’t you so and so? Can I take a selfie with you?’ So they don’t feel comfortable going there. So we’ve now expanded our mental health coverage internally to student-athletes.”
One of the first challenges of starting the sports psychology program has been dealing with the stigma of mental health.
“I do a talk with teams and ask ‘How many of you have had a knee injury? Raise your hand’ and several raise their hands,” Goldstein said. “‘How many have had a shoulder injury?,’ and several raise their hands. ‘How many have been depressed or thought of suicide?’ and they look around and no one wants to answer that. Isn’t it interesting that you all were more than willing to talk about your knee injury but no one wants to talk about mental health. And I get it, that’s the stigma. The problem is, if you are coming to anyone on a regular basis if you are struggling, who cares, you’re doing something about it. But people aren’t doing something about it.”
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In an effort to assist UM student-athletes with doing something about their mental health, Goldstein has launched or is in the process of starting a number of initiatives. A few of note:
Canes Connected
The Performance, Health and Wellness department has created a student-athlete mental health peer group entitled “Canes Connected” which serves as a bridge from the student-athletes to Goldstein and other services offered by the department and university.
“From what we have learned, is that student-athletes respond much better to other student-athletes,” Goldstein said. “We created a mental health ambassador program called ‘Canes Connected,’ where we have six student-athletes, three from football, two from rowing and one from volleyball, who each have applied and been selected as our ambassadors. They will go through a training with me on common mental health issues, how to approach other people and get them to talk about it. They will be sort of our eyes and ears.
“There are a number of schools that do have mental health ambassador programs. All are through the campus-wide counseling center. We will be one of the first to have it through the athletics department.”
Dog Day Wednesdays
Every Wednesday, therapy dogs are brought into the training room at the Hecht Athletic Center to mingle with UM’s student-athletes.
“The response has been unbelievable,” Goldstein said. “I was surprised at how popular it is. We’ve had people who start hugging a dog, then start crying. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. People have talked about how calming it is, which is what the research has shown, but it’s nice to see in real life.”
Stress Management Program
“We’ve created a stress management program that we will be initiating soon, offering a variety of stress management techniques in a group format,” Goldstein said. “It will be based on coach referral, academic advising referral, trainer referral or self referral. We will have the referral source fill out a form to show what they are observing or seeing in this individual that makes you think they would benefit from this stress management program. And then it will be a four-session course. What we are doing is building a whole bunch of these resources on Blackboard and other sources. Even though it’s only a four-session training, they will have these resources to go back and reference the techniques over and over. Then after the four weeks, we will have the referral sources and fill out the same form to see if they are seeing anything different. Each individual who comes into the program will do the same thing.”
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These programs are providing some of the building blocks for Goldstein’s program. While the program still is in its infancy, Goldstein has high aspirations for what it could lead to in the future.
“I have vision of what I would like the culture to be here. That’s really what I want to focus on,” Goldstein said. “The culture that I want is at some point where we create an environment where mental health and the mental side of performance is viewed very much like the physical. And just like sports nutrition is now becoming important, I would love for sports psychology and taking care of your mental health to be as part of the routine as anything else and for there to not be a hesitancy to come forward and get help.”
