“Sometimes, I feel like I can’t breathe.”

This was just one of the responses Oklahoma University softball coach Patty Gasso received when she asked her players if there’s anything they’d like to share.

An article in USA Today focuses on efforts to improve mental health in the collegiate softball community. According to the JED Foundation – a non-profit dedicated to protecting mental health and preventing suicide in young people – all college students are experiencing mental health challenges in growing numbers. Student-athletes face an extra layer of pressure. “I think these student-athletes are pushed and pressed,” Gasso said, “and they have a lot of plates that are spinning and are trying to balance everything.”

Like many in the softball community, Gasso has been shaken by the recent tragic loss of James Madison catcher Lauren Bernett to death by suicide, the third Division I female athlete to take her life within a two-month period. Success on the field does not make one immune to mental health struggles. Bernett had been having a “break-out” season. She hit .778 over the weekend. On Monday, she was honored by the Colonial Athletic Association as the player of the week. Tragically, “On Tuesday, April 26, she was gone. Her final at-bat was a home run.”

Since then, Gasso has been going out of her way to make room for mental health in her softball program – and to urge other college coaches to do the same.

She is speaking on a panel called “Coaches + Mental Health: Creating Mentally Well Spaces in College Athletics.” She is trying to build more fun into team experiences. She invited OU psychologist Dolores Christensen to lead a discussion with her players, so they can openly share how they are doing.

And she’s reexamining the grueling schedule student-athletes must maintain. In the past, she would have accepted it unthinkingly, chalking it up to the notion “That’s how you win.” As she listened to her athletes sharing with the OU psychologist, she had an epiphany: “This isn’t how you win,” she thought. “We’ve got to find better ways to do things.”

To learn more about how college softball coaches are responding to the mental health crisis, read the USA Today article here.

Carlson, Jenni. “How JMU catcher Lauren Bernett’s death rocked the softball world and pushed it to action on mental health.” USA Today, 9 May 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/softball/2022/05/09/lauren-bernett-suicide-jmu-college-softball-world-mental-health/9703602002/.