Kevin Love shares his story of navigating anxiety and depression and recounts when he had a panic attack during a televised NBA game while playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
NBA player Kevin Love, professional soccer player Naomi Girma, NFL player Solomon Thomas, and former D1 athlete Victoria Garrick Browne discuss several topics that impact athletes including: mental health, vulnerability, injury, identity, body image, grief and more.
The below video is a portion of this conversation (24 mins). If you would like to play the panel in its entirety (45 mins), here is the link to the full conversation.
Dr. R. Kweku Amoasi, Psy.D. challenges athletes to reflect on their identity outside of their sports, and to explore other interests and skills they have in addition to being an athlete.
Dr. Brook Choulet, M.D. explains why having a singular identity tied to your sport can lead to an identity crisis and mental health struggles. She describes a few ways to prevent and combat this challenge.
Dr. Tiana Wooldridge, M.D. discusses the interplay of mental health and injury and the importance of mental rehabilitation in addition to physical rehabilitation.
Dr. Lauren Lowe Psy.D. has a warm and deliberate style as she describes how an athlete can face threats to their identity. She teaches athletes how to think of themselves outside of athletics and shares her own experience.
Kevin Love and Solomon Thomas (NBA & NFL) share how they have struggled to create their identity outside of their sport and how they’re learning to find balance by investing in other interests and passions.
Naomi Girma (NWSL) shares her challenging journey of navigating injury, specifically a torn ACL, during her collegiate career and how it threatened her identity as an athlete.
Victoria (former collegiate cross country and track runner) speaks about the difficult transition after retiring from her sport and navigating her identity in this new chapter.
Anya (high school squash player) shares her struggles with her identity as a student-athlete and the link to her struggles with self-esteem.
Colin (former collegiate and professional football player) speaks about how getting cut from the Buffalo Bills after just four days made him face the reality that his athletic career wasn’t who he was but just something that he did.
Maddie (professional track & field athlete) talks about her struggle with creating a whole brand and persona, both online and in-person, based on her identity as a runner. This led to an intense battle with her identity when facing an injury during college.
Elizabeth (high school dancer) reads her “I am…” poem as an example for students.
Ryan (former collegiate baseball player) shares his challenging journey of getting recruited to play in college, transferring and leaving his sport.
Dr. Brook Choulet describes the physical, cognitive, and emotional ways that performance anxiety can manifest and shares tools on managing anxiety.
Dr. Derick Anderson describes several key ideas about what performance anxiety is, how it can show up, and how to manage these feelings when they arise.
Introduce the video from Hannah Luedtke, who will teach the importance of breath in performance anxiety management and will lead athletes through two breathing exercises to be utilized before and during competition.
Victoria Garrick Browne (former collegiate volleyball player) shares about the pressure and anxiety she experienced when she became a Division 1 athlete and explains the way seeking therapy helped her navigate fear, doubt, and depression.
Quade (high school water polo player), who identifies as a neurodivergent student-athlete, shares how he manages in-game stress and performance anxiety including using tools such as breathwork, self-talk, acknowledgment, and resetting.
Alex (high school soccer player and track runner) shares how he has high expectations that he feels he has to live up to that cause him stress in games and how he started implementing tactics to manage and prevent anxiety attacks.
Sasha (high school lacrosse player and swimmer) shares how her performance anxiety began in the 7th grade and led to having intrusive thoughts and anxiety during practices and games, and even while coaching and reffing. She found tools that have helped, such as reminding herself why she plays her sport and shifting her perspective on “worst case scenarios.”