Trigger warning: Death by suicide
Olivia Daugherty standing outside Hirschy Annex. Photo by Payton Stephens.
On April 22, the University of Wisconsin announced the death of Sarah Shulze, a junior who ran cross country and track for the university. The post on Twitter leads to a website published by her family, letting the world know the pressures of being a student and an athlete led her to take her own life on April 13.
As NCAA athletes, we are told we are student-athletes—students first, athletes second. We must focus on academics to perform on the court, field, or track. But when can we be human? When are we able to relax, to take time to ourselves, to take time to heal?
Shulze’s death comes shortly after Katie Meyer, a goalkeeper at Stanford University who also died by suicide March 1. In public communication following Meyer’s death, her family named the pressures of being a student-athlete as a factor in her struggle with mental health. After her death, Ohio State University offensive lineman Harry Miller announced on Twitter he was medically retiring, citing his own mental health struggles.
Miller is a 4.0 engineering student. He was academic-all Big Ten and helped the Buckeyes win the Big Ten Championship. In his tweet, he wrote “I saw how easy it was for people to dismiss others by talking about how they were just a dumb, college kid who didn’t know anything.”
Miller was praised by the football community for speaking out against a problem most stay silent over. But before he spoke out, he was disregarded for having the title “student-athlete.”
I am a student-athlete at Bluffton, as I am a part of the cross country and track teams. We are told we are representing the school, the community and our teammates both on and off the field. The weight of the college presses into us until we break. We are told we are the face of the institution. We hear the implied directive to make the university proud.
But with pride comes the risk of dissatisfaction, and when you miss the winning free-throw against your school’s rival or get passed right before the finish line, the pressure increases, and you start to crumble.
While being at Bluffton, I have heard stories of athletes quitting sports because of mental health issues. Students who have become so dissatisfied with their sport, with their performances and with themselves, that they feel the only option is to quit the sport they have committed most of their lives to pursuing.
Miller is still alive because he was one of the lucky ones who found a support system he trusted to get help. And so he reached out to his coach, Ryan Day, and found resources to get the help he needed, to find a way out.
This should be the norm.
Student-athletes need mental health resources. We have ready access to athletic trainers, team doctors and physical therapists for our physical well-being. Yet, we often must go out on our own for our mental well-being. If the university is going to put pressure on us to perform in the classroom and on the field, to have the highest team GPA, to win championships, we must have access to resources if and when it becomes too much.
Granted, we have access to campus counseling services, but only for a limited time. We are told we only have six sessions, a number that can create a temporary fix but is not enough to have a reliable, sustained support.
These resources will take time, will take money and will take people who are willing to make change. But is the time and money worth it to save a life? Is it worth it to prevent the unthinkable from happening? That is up to the institution and for the NCAA to decide.
I’m sorry Sarah. I’m sorry Katie. I’m sorry Madison Holleran, Robert Martin, Brittany Stevens, James Peek, and the growing list of athletes whose stories I cannot tell. I’m sorry we failed you. I’m embarrassed the overarching problem of being a student-athlete was ignored. I’m appalled change has yet to happen.
I’m hurt because you were seen as an athlete and not a human.
Olivia Daugherty is a convergent journalist with majors in writing and communication & media and minors in history and honors studies.
