Could the future edge in college sports be mental wellness?

....While often glorified, these athletes also experience unique stressors that many of us may not understand. These include performance demands that require extensive mental precision, fatigue due to irregular and strenuous training and competitive schedules, ongoing scrutiny from others, separations from loved ones, and a culture supporting intense emotional expression.....

....In our trial, we altered a family behavior therapy that has demonstrated success in the improvement of mental health and social functioning, to address sport culture. To decrease potential for perceived stigma that sometimes occurs when pursuing psychological intervention, the University`s associate athletic director at the time named the newly developed intervention The Optimum Performance Program in Sports, or TOPPS. Also, we made it possible for athletes to receive intervention regardless of mental health symptom severity. This was important because it positively branded TOPPS and normalized mental health along a continuum of optimization that could be shared by all athletes....