Today’s schools include the option of participating in many different after-school activities, and one of the most popular activities is school sports. With the large amounts of different school sports, teams need to be made up of a large amount of players. When there are so many players, there’s a higher chance of cases of pressure or mental health issues. 

Pressure is quite difficult on student athletes because not only do they face the pressure of the sport they participate in, but they also have to deal with the stress of maintaining good grades in their classes. Sports take up a large majority of the time, typically with multiple hour-long practices every day. Not only that, but students have many different classes they go to each day, and most of the time those classes will give homework just about every day. With all the time spent practicing, athletes may have a difficult time balancing their schoolwork with the time they have during the day.

The different pressures on student-athletes can also cause a multitude of mental health problems, some of the most common being depression and anxiety. According to Thriveworks, a site designed to help people with mental health issues, different things that can cause depression in student-athletes are things like negative self-talk, lack of support from their peers or teammates, verbal/physical abuse from coaches, overtraining, trouble maintaining academic performance, and trouble maintaining good athletic performance. Many athletes also experience the pressure to be perfect, a pressure that can be put on them by parents, friends, coaches, or even themselves. 

The pressures that athletes face is very common and it affect many student-athletes. There are ways that this pressure can be overcome, one of those ways being counseling or talking through one's problems.