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About Beyond the Outcome
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 Beyond the Outcome is a searchable collection of articles about current topics in athlete mental health. I hope this helps you as an athlete or coach in developing awareness of mental health and reducing the stigma associated with it.
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Gain A Mental EDGE camp
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The world of sports has become increasingly competitive. High school
student athletes feel the need to achieve both in school and in sport.
Players are often not only competing with other teams, they also compete
with each other for positions and playing time.
This one-day camp was created to help student-athletes recognize and
learn some unique skills that can help guide them in their sport and in
everyday life. Results have become more important than the processes of
getting there and athletes will be able to call on these new skills when
things get challenging.
Who: All high school athletes, in any sport, entering grades 9-12
Location: Anderson Auditorium-Edgewood College Campus-Madison, WI
Monday August 5, 2019
Starts: 1:00pm / Ends: 4:00pm Cost: $75.00
Camp Features
- Obtain mental skills coaching in a personalized setting
- Learn cognitive reframing skills to tackle negative self-talk
- Understand how failure can actually be GOOD for you and how to learn from it
- Learn to be an expert on yourself-your baseline level of functioning
- Learn mindful self-compassion techniques to accept the good and bad, the successes and the failures
- How to approach a parent/coach if you need additional help
Our cross county/track and field coach, Bethany Brewster, has a
unique passion for student athlete mental awareness and wants to share
her knowledge with you! Brewster is a licensed mental health
professional and was a highly decorated student-athlete while at the
University of Wisconsin. Brewster has a total of 11 Big Ten
championships to her credit. She was an All-American selection six times
during her career. Post collegiately she competed in the 1500m at the
2004 Summer Olympic Trails in Sacramento, CA.
...more
Bethany`s Notes: To register go to www.edgewoodcolleeagles.com and look for the heading ‘Camps’. Click on Mental EDGE camp! See you in August.
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CHSAA to require mental health course for all coaches
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 AURORA, Colo. -- After several recent student suicides, high school
coaches in Colorado will now be required to take a course in mental
health and suicide prevention due to a new mandate from the Colorado
High School Activities Association (CHSAA) board of directors..... .....The National Federation of High School Sports offers the 20-minute
course online and it’s free. Some school districts also offer courses in
mental health, which also meet the new requirement.
“Truly, the course is about making coaches aware [of] seeing some of
the warning signs and then kind of how to report those certain things to
the next level or to reach out immediately for help for a kid in
crisis," Blanford-Green said......
Bethany`s Notes: If you haven`t taken the free National Federation of High School Sports free online course on mental health make it a priority before the start of the next year. Consider it professional development as we call can learn more.
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Pro riders and teams open up about mental health issues
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 .....‘The money is huge, more people are competing and if you don’t stay
at the top someone will take your place,’ says Andy Lane, professor of
sports psychology at the University of Wolverhampton. ‘Science has
helped people train in a more sophisticated way, and talent only gets
you so far.
‘On top of that, social media is 24 hours per day and it requires you
to be very good at managing your image,’ he adds. ‘Direct access to the
athlete can bring intense emotions in the athlete – unpleasant
feelings, like being in a crowd. But whereas competing in front of a
crowd is seen as part of the competition, social media can create an
ongoing pressure.’..... ...more
Bethany`s Notes: On the Tour de France Eve it is only appropriate to talk about cycling and how the professional cycling world is addressing mental health needs.
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Can Hockey Culture Ever Accept Mental Health Injuries?
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 ….Teeth being pulled on benches. Two-minute viral clips of finishing shifts with broken legs. Guys returning to the bench with stitched-up gashes. Pain tolerance and visible displays of toughness are inextricable parts of hockey culture. Memes resurface daily of players in hockey, and only hockey, surviving through injuries that would fell a mortal athlete. Which brings us to the point of all of this.
If pain tolerance is such a celebrated and integral part of hockey’s identity (at the very least, for a vocal minority), and visible injuries are the mecca of that, how can the sport’s culture address a mostly invisible injury like depression and other mental health maladies?
The answer is, it won’t be easy..... ...more
Bethany`s Notes: An interesting read as this seems to be the one professional league that still lags behind other professional sporting organizations. What will the future hold for the first few who speak about mental health struggles honestly? Will their journey be respected?
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"What a Journey": Michael Henman`s life with mental illness
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 .....“Did you see what happened to those two kids this week. I have to tell
my story. Maybe, if I had told it earlier, one of them may have seen
someone who has gone through things. Maybe it could have saved a life.”....
.....At halftime, Henman experienced the first panic attack of his life.
While his teammates sat in the locker room, he locked himself in the
bathroom. While his teammates focused on the next 45 minutes, he
struggled to try to throw up.
“My heart was racing. I was covered in sweat, and yet felt cold. My
brain was a cloud. I couldn’t sort out my thoughts, and it just wasn’t
working. It felt like I was in a storm.”.....
Bethany`s Notes: Another young athlete telling his story from BC, Canada. His hope is that his story will help someone else get the help they need.
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Inside, ‘pillars of the school’ are crumbling: High school athletes confront mental health issues
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 Ashley Diaz excels on the soccer field at San Jose’s Luis Valdez
Leadership Academy, but off the field she struggles with anxiety. “It’s really bad there,” she said, referring to how she felt playing for her school.
Although she was captain on her team and a top player, the rising
junior felt unsupported by her coach. If she failed to follow specific
plays during a game, she wouldn’t get playing time on the field.
She said her mental health suffered as a result.....
Bethany`s Notes: We know that student athletes are some of the most engaged people in our HS and College campuses. They need to feel heard when they are struggling. Be there for them as a person. Help them know your care and concern for them as a person is NOT based on their performance and mean it.
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`What suicidal looks like`: Wayne Schwass tells of pain of hiding mental health problems
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 .....Schwass was the first witness at the opening hearing of the Victorian
royal commission into the mental health system on Tuesday. He recounted
a painful 12 years of “lying, hiding and pretending” that he was happy
and healthy.....
.....“Fake smile, act happy, celebrating premiership success with @NMFCOfficial
in 1996. Truth was, incredibly suicidal, looking for my wife in the
crowd because I wanted to end my life. Only 2 people knew in a crowd of
94.5k my wife & GP,” he tweeted in 2017.... ...more
Bethany`s Notes: Australia is digging deep into how they are handling mental health for all individuals, including athletes. They have identified that many times they are reactive instead of proactive. Continued conversation will happen throughout the country through July 26th.
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Callum Skinner says he retired because of British Cycling attitude to mental health
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 .....The 26-year-old, who won team sprint gold and sprint silver at Rio in 2016, said he was still targeting Tokyo 2020 after taking some time out last summer, before deciding to step away from the track for good. The
2018 Commonwealth 1km time trial bronze medallist says he was "going
through a pretty tough time" and revealed to the management team at
British Cycling that he was "suffering from pretty serious mental health
issues". He says the conversation then turned to how
long his break could be before it would rule him out of the Olympics in
Tokyo in 2020..... ....."It was basically a little bit of a cry for help and it became all
too much about performance and not enough about getting better, from my
point of view. "I wasn`t going to go into that meeting and have
my athleticism and my work ethic questioned. Especially when I`d taken
the plunge in disclosing some of my mental health issues. "At that point I decided just to bow out.".....
Bethany`s Notes: Wow....talk about choosing your health over performance. I give Skinner credit for being honest and walking away when he felt more pressure than support.
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Recognising mental health issues in sport
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 .....An athlete`s mental well-being is vital to their performances. As
such, they must be cognizant of the universality of mental
disorders in sports including, but not limited to, depression,
anxiety, and eating disorders. Following this, an athlete should
be capable to identify with the varying severity of symptoms
that are associated with these mental disorders, for example,
the extent of impairment in their daily functioning activities.
Australian cricketer Nicole Bolton opened up about her struggle with
depression and anxiety in June 2019. Bolton`s overall well-being
started to decline at the peak of her career, which adversely
affected her performances, resulting in missing matches,
negatively impacting upon her profession. Bolton stated that
she was on the verge of retirement due to mental health issues. In
most cases, athletes with mental disorders may tend to avoid
people and places.....
...more
Bethany`s Notes: Trinidad and Tobago getting on board and starting to talk about mental health in sport.
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Survey: NCAA coaches` clout concerns athletic trainers
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 About 19% of college athletic trainers reported in a recent survey that a
coach played an athlete who had been deemed "medically out of
participation," according to results released Tuesday by the National
Athletic Trainers` Association that reveal concerns about college
coaches having too much influence in medical decision-making..... .....Murphy Grant, chairman of NATA`s Intercollegiate Council for Sports
Medicine, said the demands on student-athletes during practice and play
have been growing, from the intensity of summer conditioning workouts to
the mental stress of increased competition. "As those stresses
get high, so does the intensity of training, so do some of the health
issues that we`re dealing with," Grant said. "From an athletic training
standpoint, we want to make sure that we`re providing that quality care
without having to look over our shoulders on what`s going on or feeling
any type of pressure.".....
Bethany`s Notes: Although this specifically is related to physical health it is very relevant. If athletic trainers are feeling the pressure to let athletes play how do you think the 18-22 year olds feel? They are feeling the pressure too and most 18-22 year olds are people-pleasers who want to play for their team and coach no matter the cost. We need to make sure the right people are making the right decisions and sometimes that means telling a coach NO and reporting them if they try to choose performance over personal health and safety.
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Athletes Talking About Their Mental Health And Why It Matters
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 .....Many "are high-achieving perfectionists," said David Yukelson, the
retired director of sports psychology services for Penn State Athletics
and a past president of the Association for Applied Sports Psychology. That`s
great when it all comes together in victory or a terrific performance,
but the toll of perfectionism can be tough when the results don`t match
an athlete`s own expectations, Yukelson said.
.....Add social media to the mix, and all the armchair experts that brings to
any sports discussion. Earlier this year, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference: "We are living in a time of anxiety. I think it`s a direct result of social media. A lot of players are unhappy."..... ...more
Bethany Notes: A short article about how open some professional athletes are about their mental health and the challenges they face. When you need help ask for it...see it as a sign of strength.
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Great Resources
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Welcome / About Bethany
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Thanks for your interest in Beyond the Outcome.
Brewster just recently completed her Master`s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. She is interested in applying systemic therapies in team and individual settings. Players are often not only competing with other teams, they also compete with each other for positions, playing time, and, in some cases, scholarship money. These unique team circumstances can lead to conflict within and among team members, including the coaching staff. The need for more information on mental health is essential for both coaches and athletes. This website provides a gathering of information and resources to help serve the sports community.
Brewster is the current cross country/track and field coach for Edgewood College, located in Madison, Wisconsin. A
highly decorated student-athlete while at the University of Wisconsin,
Brewster has a total of 11 Big Ten championships to her credit. She was
an All-American selection six times during her career. Post
collegiately, she competed in the 1500m at the 2004 Summer Olympic
Trails in Sacramento, CA. Brewster is a USATF Level 1 and 2 certified
coach. ...more
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