Sports Psychology

Trust Issues One common mental health problem among athletes is a breakdown in trust. Trust is crucial to athletic performance: players must trust not only in themselves, but also in their teammates, their coaches, and the people who surround them. When any one of these people in their lives proves untrustworthy, an athlete’s entire ability to trust in others can be shattered. That can have serious mental health consequences, such as paranoia or self-isolation. Trust, after all, is a very delicate thing: once broken, it may be impossible to repair. One key area of athletes and trust involves money. Imagine that you will win the lottery tomorrow and make $63 million, the same amount of money that NFL superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes earned as a signing bonus for his record-setting contract. That’s enough money that you’d never need to work again and could buy just about anything you want: a big house, a fast car, nice clothes, good food, and fun vacations. How do you think that money would change your relationship with your friends and family? What would you do if any, or even all of them, were to ask you for money because they knew you had so much? Would you keep them in your lives, or would you turn your back on them because you feel they no longer care about you as a person? What about any new friend you’d meet? Would you trust that they want to be friends with you because of your personality or only because of your bank account? Even people who earn far less money than pro superstars struggle with issues of trust; since the stakes are so much higher for the pros, it means that athletes may need to ask themselves these difficult questions on a daily basis. While much of the focus on professional athletes and trust involves money due to their huge salaries, it should be noted that athletes at lower levels of competition who earn little or no money can also face trust issues. A star player in college,

Chapter 3: Common and Unusual Issues

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