From tennis to football, and everything in between, athletes face unique mental challenges as they strive for peak performance. Here are some inspiring quotes from athletes and coaches across different sports, sharing their experiences with mental health and mindset. These quotes are a testament to the importance of taking care of your mental health as an athlete, and the role that a positive mindset can play in achieving your goals. They also showcase the vulnerability and courage that athletes have in facing adversity.
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“People that talk to the sports psychiatrists and stuff like that, they label us ‘soft.’ We’ve seen that in the past, like, ‘Oh, man, I’m having anxiety.’ ‘Man, you’re soft. Go deal with that.’ That’s how it’s labeled. That’s why it’s hard for people to talk to somebody and open up. Even for me, it was extremely tough.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo
“For years, I just didn’t talk about it. You’re taught to just get through it, especially growing up as a boy … nobody really talked about feeling the pressure, being like, ‘Hey I need help’ or ‘I’m not okay with this. Especially with sports, you would never want to show weakness, which nowadays, it takes so much courage to actually talk about it and be vulnerable in those things. I never really thought of it that way.”
Shaun White
“This has been top of mind, seeing our very young Cavaliers team using our designated therapists. These guys are buying in and understanding the mental side and these micro-gains. Whether it’s something at home or within your personal life, there’s stuff to work on.
The better you understand yourself and who you are, you’re going to feel more comfortable in your own skin — and therefore better equipped to perform out there on the floor. It’s been a really cool thing to see firsthand with our team.”
Kevin Love
“I’ve always normalized that, and I got that from my parents as they watched generations of players before me who had experienced burnout and just a complete meltdown, or whatever it may have been, and lost a career because of not being able to pace themselves. So we always paced ourselves from the very beginning and created schedules that were realistic and that promoted rejuvenation physically and mentally, and it’s something I’ve always practiced. I think it’s something that you see the best players do as well because it also promotes longevity of something that you love. It’s impacted me in the most positive way because it also gave me the tools to be able to understand what it takes to plan a schedule that is achievable and that I can hopefully win at and be able to replicate.”
Venus Williams
“Furthermore, athletic settings can be the perfect coverup for intimate partner violence. Bruises, scratches, discipline and the athlete who doesn’t socialize because they are focused on school and sport — all these elements create an environment where intimate partner violence can thrive because teammates and athletic staff are not going to see anything wrong. For example, the athlete who is “focused” or “disciplined” may not go to social gatherings because of a jealous or controlling partner.”
Stephanie Rosado
“I do a lot of meditation. A lot of meditation. That’s the first thing I do in the morning. I get up. I make my bed. That’s kind of another thing I saw from a Navy SEAL said he made his bed every morning, it’s like your first win of the day. So I make my bed every morning, I get to the facility and I meditate for 30 minutes to an hour. I do a lot of flow-tanking, too, just to get your mind right. You have a lot of stuff that’s bottled up in there that you don’t realize until you actually have a time to spend some time with your mind and things start wondering. It’s like, ‘Wow, I didn’t know I was still thinking about that stuff.’ So I do a lot of meditation, just kind of bring my mind, my body, my spirit at peace.”
Kalif Raymond, Detroit Lions
A big part of my sobriety is to lean into the truth. To be comfortable with who I am. And I’m actually surprised by how easy it’s been to open up to people. I had built it up into this big thing in my mind. Even when I got sober and went to my first AA meeting back in March, I was so nervous that someone was going to recognize me that I didn’t even open my mouth. I just sat there listening the whole time, on the low. But I slowly started to realize that truth was a kind of freedom.
Jordan Poyer
“The big one is that athletes are termed superhuman, who have to be perfect. Yet, they are incredibly vulnerable. There are many red flags. It’s in the nature of sport that you are constantly dealing with pressure and failure. If you are a competitive sportsperson, you have constant travel that disturbs your sleep cycles and inadequate recovery which in turn could lead to mental health issues. And you face it on a daily basis. That in turn leads to expectations and pressure that somehow need to be channeled.”
Abhinav Bindra, Olympic Gold Medalist
“The foundation of performing under pressure is balance. It’s not some kind of killer instinct or some great ability to handle psychological pressure. It comes from how you are balanced in life. One of the greatest errors athletes make is when their self-worth is determined by where your name appears on the medal list. It’s not a sustainable way to go through a sporting journey or even have a sustainable path to sporting success.”
Abhinav Bindra, Olympic Gold Medalist
“You have to take care of your brain just like you take care of your body,” the Tennessee Titans wide receiver A. J. Brown told reporters, after posting a video on TikTok and Instagram in which he talked about dealing with suicidal thoughts the year before.
A.J. Brown
“I have anxieties. I have doubts. I have pride issues. I have ego issues. I’ve got them all. I’ve got every issue you can think of and I’m still dealing with it, and hopefully I get better with it.”
Bubba Watson
“There’s a stigma that, if you’re on TV, are an athlete or celebrity, that you don’t have problems. That’s not true. I’m trying to erase that stigma because I continue to say it, depression doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care how much money you make. It doesn’t care what you look like.”
Bubba Wallace
“(Mental health) is very important, and it’s something everyone’s very aware of. We talk about it on a pretty regular basis. Football players are tough, they like to block out distractions and things that could affect them on the football field. But, at the same time, you’ve gotta live your life and deal with other things. And so, it’s trying to find that balance.”
Bill Belichick
“Going through all the adversity I’ve been through, being the top level linebacker I am, people think I’m living in high heaven, which is not true. Just going through depression and the other things people go through.”
Darius Leonard
“It’s really easy to let positivity distract you from what you’re struggling with. You keep telling yourself: I’ve got time. This will pass.”
Mariah Stackhouse
“Nobody ever talks about the situation we’ve all had. For one, we come into the league with so much trauma that we don’t even identify with from our childhood. But we suppress it and forget about it so easily, because all of a sudden now we’re rich.
“We’re taught to be tough, power through everything—f— all that stuff you are going through, you gotta get through this s—. Ain’t no crying, you better suck it up and keep going.”
DeMar DeRozan
“For many athletes, there is a priority on mental health that’s coming into focus. We all have times when we’re not in a great place and it’s even harder for an athlete when the moment you’re struggling happens to be at the same time as the nation’s spotlight is shining on you.”
Jessie Diggins, U.S. cross country skier
“That’s the biggest problem for athletes. They have to surrender to win and that’s not what they do. I had to recognize I don’t have all the answers and that it’s OK to reach out for help and to be honest with yourself by saying, ‘I have character flaws.’”
Luis Sharpe
“I talk about it now. It’s not something that I really brought up much when I was younger, because I thought I was the only one going through it, or having these thoughts.”
Shaun White
“It was just piled up. A bunch of things that have gone over the years to where I just knew I wasn’t myself and I needed to get back into that place of being myself and being happy as a person and taking care of my wellbeing. That was the major thing for me. It wasn’t about the money, anything like that. I want to be who I am and get back to playing basketball at that level and be myself.”
Ben Simmons
“I like to keep people’s spirits high, because I’ve been at a point where I’ve been frustrated and overwhelmed. That shit takes a toll on you mentally,” Covington said. “At one point, I was ready to walk away from this game just because of all the things I had going on in my head mentally. I’ve really done a lot of groundwork within myself to really find out – just to have fun with it again.”
Robert Covington
“I’ve been trying a lot of different things because I tend to internalize things, and I always want to do everything myself. Wim said, ‘You hire a coach for tennis, for fitness. The mind is such a big thing. If you can get a professional to help you out .5 percent, that alone is worth it.”
Naomi Osaka
“You have a clearer mind and you have a different type of stance of knowing yourself. Not feeling like you’re behind the curtain. It gives you a sense of freedom because so many people don’t know how to let that out.”
DeMar DeRozan
“If they can begin to hoop at Hall of Fame levels of talent, carrying around the kind of baggage [we] know that they are carrying — which is quite significant with a capital S, for some of them — I can’t even begin to imagine how they would hoop if they had a place to share their stories. It can exponentially increase individual talent, team chemistry, across team competitions. Everybody wins when you invest in the health and wellness of athletes. Our mantra is mental health is mental wealth.”
Dr. William Parham, the National Basketball Players Association’s director of mental health and wellness
“Being excellent and being elite doesn’t absolve you from being human. We think, if you have access to all of these financial resources, if you are living in the public eye and you are exceptionally talented on the court and able to do these remarkable things the rest of us could only dream about, how could you have any issues? This chips away at that idea that people are successful because they don’t experience adversity and rather humanizes that conversation by saying, ‘This person who is successful also deals with challenges and learning how to manage and navigate those challenges is part of what contributes to their success journey.’ ”
Kensa Gunter, director of the NBA’s Mind Health mental health and wellness program
“If you have a scar on your face, every day you go to the mirror, it will be a reminder of that moment. You never get over it. It never goes away, but you learn to live it with, and learn to be accepting of it, and then you feel happy with who you are. Once I figured that out, I realized I’m okay. Everybody’s got a scar. It just shows you’re strong enough to survive. And I appreciate those scars now.
Derek Anderson
“Players want to know you’re there for them on their darkest days. When they’re going through something, it’s the coach that’s going to be the one that is going to help carry you through those dark moments.”
Dawn Staley
“The mind is a powerful thing. Sometimes, you can be unconscious of how you are behaving. You can be so stuck in a routine that you do not realize that you are ill. Just suppressing your feelings in your body, it only builds up like a time bomb, really. It waits until one instance when you are finally at your breaking point, and you reach the point of no return…my mom and my teammates at Auburn encouraged me. They said, ‘You did not come this far just to give up.’ I had to believe in myself and realize, if they believed so much in me, why couldn’t I believe in myself like that?”
Jamel Dean, Tampa Bay Buccaneers Cornerback
“Looking back now, I’m so happy I kept going. I’m a strong-minded person, and when faced with mental health situations, I tried to hurry up and fix it like if I got hurt at practice, got treatment for a day, and I’m good. But with mental health, you have to be real with yourself.”
Tyler Locket
“I couldn’t talk to anybody about how bad I was hurting when my mom passed — not even my boys. So I just buried it. And then 10 years later, once my career was winding down, it was like the floodgates opened. I tell people all the time: I experienced four deaths almost simultaneously. In the span of about a year, my NBA career ended, my marriage ended, and my stepfather committed suicide. “
Steve Francis
“I’ve come to realize that it’s not so much the feelings and struggles that matter most — we all experience that stuff, often on a daily basis — what matters is how you respond to them. Do you bottle them up and keep them inside and ignore them, or do you talk to someone, get support, and work on not letting those feelings overtake you?”
Rob McClanaghan, NBA Skills Trainer
“You can train as hard as you want, but if you get to the line and don’t believe you belong there, it makes it really hard to perform.”
Danielle Shanahan
“Resilience is a team sport. You need to have relationships and people to rely on. You don’t do it on your own.”
Stephen Gonzalez, the assistant athletics director for leadership and mental performance at Dartmouth Peak Performance
“I remember telling my therapist I just felt like I was on this hamster wheel. And then it just resets every year. You just have to do the same thing. You keep having to fight for a spot.
“When you’re at that low of a point, the things that you love, that excite you, that you have a passion for, tend to be sometimes the most draining.”
Sarah Fuller, former Vanderbilt soccer goalkeeper and football kicker
“Us being men, especially me being an African American man, going up there and kind of expressing myself and where I was at in my mental and my life around that time, it’s hard to but I received nothing but love and appreciate everyone who came out and still supported me for who I am.
“It’s OK to not be OK, but the part where it makes it OK is when you understand that you’re not. We lie to ourselves sometimes when we say we are OK, sometimes we’re not. Just being able to express yourself and tell yourself, ‘I’m not OK,’ you’ve got to get all those thoughts you’ve got mentally out.”
David Montgomery, Chicago Bears
“In a time where I had to go find a therapist. A lot of people think, ‘I don’t need help, I can get through it anytime,’ but you gotta find what is best for you, and I did that.”
John Wall
“From the outside, my retirement may have looked easy, but the truth is I had my own battles. I don’t think I’m alone and I’m very keen to better understand the impact retirement has on former athletes – and sportsmen in particular.
In 21st century UK and Ireland the largest killer of men under the age of 50 is suicide. There’s a crisis in men’s mental health, and, for many ex-sportsmen, a stigma attached to showing vulnerability.”
Brian O’Driscoll
“…being able to take a break, not only physically but mentally. Just kind of go away from the game, spend some time with your family and do what you love, and like just sit on the couch, eat Doritos and you know, be a couch potato. Like, you need that in order to be great.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo
“But college student-athletes in general, you guys have pressures and expectations and time commitments that none of us can wrap our heads around,” said Schaefer. “Coaches, administration, we are a part of it and we are supportive and we watch it, but push comes to shove, unless someone was a student-athlete, they do not understand, because it’s so much pressure.”
Alexis Schaefer, UWL Athletic Trainer
“We as human beings are enough. Period. Asking for help is not a weakness. Letting people see underneath the surface isn’t weakness — it is the bravest thing that we’ll do. Asking for help is a sign of strength and courage.”
Samantha Arsenault Livingstone, Olympic gold medal winner at the 2000 Sydney games with the U.S. Women’s Swim Team in the 4×200 meter freestyle relay
“You can let it be all positive or follow a bunch of five-star athletes with million-dollar brand deals. What did they do in their 18 years versus what I did in my 18 years before college? It’s hard to see that and I think it gets worse the higher up you go.”
Justin Fleer, a mental health ambassador and player on the men’s soccer team at UNC Asheville
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