The Illinois High School Association [IHSA] has a new member of its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee.
The volunteer group made up of physicians, trainers and school personnel functions as a resource focusing on the health and safety of athletes in IHSA-sponsored events. Kendrique Coats recently accepted a three-year role as mental health advisor for the committee. Coats previously coached track and field at Bloomington High School and Pontiac Township High School.
He spoke with WGLT correspondent Braden Fogerson about the need for more focus on student-athlete mental health.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Kendrique Coats: I grew up in this area, so I'm originally from Pontiac, and the long-term goal was always to get back to Bloomington. Friends, family, everybody that I know is here, and yeah, it's a community that I absolutely love and enjoy.
Braden Fogerson: What was it that you studied at Auburn?
KC: Marriage and family therapy.
BF: And so then, how does that take you to working for the IHSA?
KC: Before I got into the mental health field, I spent about 10 years working with athletes. So I spent time at Bloomington High School and Pontiac and a lot of the athletes that I was working with, I was talking to them about mental health already. And so when I got into the mental health space, I knew that even though I had the credentials of marriage and family therapy, I wanted to work with athletes and couples. And so I'd started posting some things online about the work that I do. And Stacey Lambert, who is the assistant executive director of the IHSA, reached out to me, and she's like, ‘Hey, we have this advisory role for athlete mental health. Is this something that you're interested in?’ I'm like, ‘Absolutely. This is up my lane.’ I know athletics from being an athlete and being a coach, and my expertise and my clinical experiences of working with athletes from a mental health standpoint, it was a perfect opportunity.
BF: What were you when you were a student-athlete [in Pontiac]? What sport did you play?
KC: I played football, basketball and track and field.
BF: And what was that like from a mental aspect for you?
KC: Well, going back, I oftentimes reflect, I struggled. I struggled so much with mental health, especially anxiety and depression, and I'd often isolate myself. I was afraid to speak to teammates, wasn't sure if they'd judge me. Afraid to say anything to coaches, because I didn't want to lose playing time, and so I didn't have the tools that I do now to understand what mental health actually is. For athletes, there was so much pressure that came with being an athlete and also being injured all the time. I just didn't know how to navigate and cope with many of those things I experienced.
BF: I assume it's not only mental health aspect, but just the whole idea that you've got to play even if you feel hurt, even if you aren't at your best, even if you aren't feeling good. That's got to be a big aspect of these middle high school level sports.
KC: For sure, and that's one of the main reasons why Stacey [Lambert] had reached out to me. There was conversation already around athlete mental health, but this was a time I think there are a lot of athletes who experience so many of these things, and they don't have the resources. And so my role being on the advisory committee is to provide recommendations for the board to make some of the policy changes to better support athlete mental health across the state for high school athletes.
BF: Have you heard any feedback, either from you know, other people from IHSA or from maybe parents or students that maybe would be interested in seeing this sort of fleshed out?
KC: Yeah, definitely, especially the members on the advisory committee, many of them have knowledge and understanding of athlete mental health, but they bring me on because of my clinical experience and my knowledge as it relates to athlete mental health. And so they've vocalized to me this is needed. We need somebody on this advisory committee to be able to provide expertise and guidance on what are the things that we should be looking out for, what are the things that we should be doing? But more importantly, how can we better assist athletes across the state as it relates to athlete mental health?
BF: And do you have any ideas at the top of mind?
KC: I think one of the main things, because I often see this: a lot of people just don't have the language of what athlete mental health is, what does it look like? And so I think a lot of what I will be doing is sharing and expressing, what are the things that we should be looking out for? Are athletes saying specific things that go unmonitored? Do our parents? How do we provide them with tools and resources so when they're back home from their sport, they can continue implementing these things that we're recommending?
BF: I know in general athlete mental health is something that needs to be worked on across the board. Are there particular sports or particular types of athletes that are maybe more at risk for mental health issues?
KC: I think it's across the board. We all know and understand that athletes struggle, whether they're in their sport or outside of their sport. And this, these are things where, you know, sometimes they're coming to class and mental health is showing up in the classroom. It shows up with how they interact with friends and family, and more importantly, it shows up with how they come to practice and compete. And so I don't think there's a specific sport. I think this is across the board. Athletes are struggling. We've seen those things now. We have got to figure out ways to implement to better support them.
BF: In particular, for the players that have really high expectations, people that expect to go on to college and play, that are looking for scholarships and awards. You know, what is it like for an athlete like that to have that much pressure from their family, from their community, from people that want to see their team win, to the coaches that are looking at them at that next level?
KC: The whole landscape of athletics is changing. You're starting to see it on the college level, with NIL [Name, image and likeness], and you're starting to see it too on the high school level, where the scholarship is the thing that a lot of people are going for to pay for college. It's expensive. And so when we start thinking about the pressures many of these athletes have, we start for me, especially in my clinical role, we're asking the questions, okay, where's the pressure coming from? Is it from the coaches? Are the coaches putting these unrealistic expectations on athletes? Is it coming from parents? Do parents have unrealistic expectations of their athletes?
I recently had an ISU athlete on my podcast, and he was talking about the pressures and the anxiety coming back to a sport after a major injury, and you start seeing those things where it's almost, ‘I need to get back as soon as possible, because my position might be taken or I need to get back because a lot of people are depending on me for this role.’ And so, you know, to answer your question about these pressures and how it's changing, we again, we've got to figure out ways to better support athletes so they don't have to feel like they have to perfect everything they do.
BF: If you're an athlete with workload, no matter top-down, you know, the best athlete to the worst athlete, they're still going to be, you know, expected to come into practice whenever those are scheduled during the off season. What should be the off-season when a coach isn't technically allowed to require students to come in, they're still having open gyms and things like that that really are sort of required, and coaches keeping note of, you know, who doesn't show up, things like that. That's got to be another aspect for students as well, in terms of you just, you can't really have an off switch sometimes?
KC: Yeah, that's I'm so glad that you asked that question, because I think we are, I think just as a society, our nervous systems are always on the go, go, go, go, go, go. And the question that I think many of us forget to ask is, if athletes aren't getting the support that they need now so early on, how do these things impact them for the rest of their lives? And one of the things that I implement in my clinical work is teaching athletes how to work with their nervous system, because the nervous system oftentimes influences how these athletes show up to work, how they show up on the field, and I believe that if we do not give them the tools that they need now, that these things will impact them for the rest of their lives.
