Protecting yourself in college athletics.

Hello, my name is Jamal McMurrin. I was a five-year division 1 athlete and a six-year college athlete. Over the years, I have learned a lot and gained much experience about football and people. Unfortunately, most of these lessons were learned the hard way; whether it was during or outside the sport, it was rough to learn each lesson. I'm creating this blog to educate current and incoming college athletes on what to expect in their college experiences. I feel many things that I've learned could have been avoided if I had been taught or been aware beforehand. I want to clarify that these hard lessons were in no way anyone's fault but mine. So, without further ado, let me get to the first thing I learned in college athletics to protect my mental health.  

The main thing I want to make clear in this post is that people often say that college sports are dangerous-- yes, that can be true, but when people hear this, they think primarily about bodily harm or physical injury. These pains tend to be seen as something physical. I'm here to tell you that the most dangerous pains you will receive in college athletics are the ones you can't see. It's the ones you, as an individual, can only hear. Nobody around you can see this pain; you're the only one who can feel and listen to it. This pain is mental, and you will spend a solid amount of time battling your mental struggles in college athletics. Mental health is a vast battle that the majority of college athletes face at one point or another. Here is a mindset that I found which saved me from my mental struggle. 

As a college athlete, letting your sport and your performance possess you is easy. Whether you're a walk-on, a partial scholarship, or a full scholarship, all of the battles are the same intensity. The number one way you can help defend yourself against mental warfare is to establish yourself outside of your sport. Make a life that is you without athletics. Create a community that is based on the you without athletics. An important lesson I learned and want you to hear the most from anything I say in this post is to understand that there are two versions of you. For a while, it may seem like you're just one person, but there are actually two versions of yourself if you're a college athlete. It's essential to spend time working on both versions. These two versions are the you on the field and the you off of it. The unfortunate reality is one of those versions will always go away. For some athletes, it's quick, but for others it takes a while. No matter what, one version almost always disappears. That version is the athlete. This is the version that tends to possess your mind the most. 

As you feed yourself that you are a college athlete, you may tend to neglect the version of yourself off the field because you may begin to think that college athletics is the only way to have an identity. This thinking can make your college experience dangerous, as it did for me. In my first year of college football, I played at Washington State and I made that my entire personality. Like every naive first-year student, I thought I could get onto the field despite being a preferred walk-on and a freshman. I wasn't ready to be on the field, but I couldn't see that then. Every day I'd give it my all to try to make the travel team. On weeks when I didn't make the travel team, I was crushed... That feeling of pain wouldn't end once I left the facility after practice. I got to my dorm room and continued to beat myself up mentally, telling myself I wasn't good enough and telling myself I wasn't making my family proud. This wasn't true, but I couldn't see it then because I made football my entire identity and thought it was the only thing that mattered. If football wasn't going well, I wasn't doing well; I didn't believe in any other version of myself that wasn't a football player. So, the game possessed my every thought, and I began to struggle with mental health simply because I made football my entire identity. So, if football wasn't going well, I wasn't good and I was a failure. As opposed to one piece of my life not going great, I felt all my life wasn't great, all because football was my entire identity.  It wasn't until a coach named John Richardson came into my life and started putting the idea of being more than just a football player in my mind that my mental struggle changed.  

Coach Richardson made me realize that the game would end one day. This answer seems obvious, but you don't see it that way when you're at that level in the season's heat. I remember him asking who I was without the game; I didn’t have an answer at the time. So, he began pushing me to find a passion outside of football. For a while, I thought this was crazy talk, but now, I realize he saved my life just with those few words. Once I started trying to establish myself outside of the football field, I stopped feeling possessed by my sport. Bad practices stopped spiraling to bad thoughts. When football wasn't going well, I began to find things that took my mind away from it and looked for different passions. Understand the importance of finding something to get your mind away from your high stakes sport. Give yourself a little relief. I discovered my love for journalism and my passion for physical fitness. I dove deep into friendships with my teammates and stopped holding back to try to stay focused on football completely.  I remember one week when football wasn't going great and it looked like I wasn’t going to travel. For the first time, this news didn't feel like it was destroying me. It just felt like it hurt, and getting over minor pains is much easier when it's only a piece of you. I realized football was only one piece of me and there were many more pieces left to establish. I realized that this was only one aspect of me in my life that wasn't going as I wanted. I realized that football wasn't the only thing I brought to the table; I had more to give myself than just my sport.  

Once I began establishing myself outside of the field, really amping up the part of me that wasn't a football player, those mental battles that come with the sport started to get smaller and smaller. I realized I had value besides my sport. What I'm telling you incoming freshmen is that before you go into college athletics, I urge you to make sure the school you're going to has a major that you are interested in, and go in with a plan to develop the you that is off the field as well as the you that is on it. In my case, the version of me that wasn't a football player saved me from the version that was a football player more times than I can count. The version that wasn't a football player showed me that I had way more to bring to the table than just my sport, and that is the version led me to pursue my faith, to find my passions, but most of all, it diminished the harsh thoughts that came with being a college athlete when things weren't going great. One of the worst things that can happen is you being entirely possessed by your sport. I'll tell you this now-- the college career is full of many ups, downs, and plateaus. In those down moments you experience in your sport, the version of you who is not an athlete will create a parachute so that any falls that may occur aren’t as abrupt, and I promise the fall will always stop. and the landing will be soft. You will never fall forever. Establishing yourself off the field allows you to protect your mental health. Having multiple aspects of yourself that you are proud of is important because when one aspect of you is going wrong the other aspect can help you until you pick the other back up. As opposed to thinking all is bad, you will feel only part of you is going wrong. 

If you are a current college athlete and you find yourself in a heated mental health battle, my advice to you is to find an outlet or a passion that has nothing to do with your sport. Find an identity outside your sport. I promise those down moments will not destroy you. They will only hurt and then fade away. Developing an identity outside your sport is one way to protect your mental health and life.