Calling a Timeout: Improving College Coaches’ Mental Health and Wellbeing

How do coaches view and overcome adversity? Research being conducted by Hariri Institute Graduate Student Fellow Olivia Wyatt explores these issues and their impact on the mental health of college coaches.

BY BRENDAN GALVIN

An undergraduate at Tufts University in 2013, Oliva Wyatt began her studies in baseball analytics. However, a social psychology professor quickly changed her mind by suggesting that baseball pitchers are more likely to hit more batters in the summer because of heat aggression. Her interest was piqued. Wyatt’s focus soon took a 180-degree turn, as she now studies sport psychology and continues to write her dissertation as a graduate student at the Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.

Her dissertation, titled “Exploring Psychological Flexibility and Associations with Mental Health and Well-being among NCAA Division I Coaches,” bridges two seemingly- unrelated topics: mental health and sports. Her research focuses explicitly “on the coaches’ perspective.” In other words, how do coaches view and overcome adversity, and how does this affect their mental health? She is also working towards developing mental health resources for coaches, not just student-athletes.

Wyatt, a Hariri Institute of Computing Graduate Student Fellow, hopes her work will become a stepping stone to help further the reach of sport psychologists, a career path she hopes to take after completing her graduate studies. In addition, she hopes her research has a trickle-down effect as she helps “train the trainers” and “help the helpers.” To integrate her interests in athletics and psychology, Wyatt has been guided by her advisors Melissa K. Holt, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology, and John McCarthy, Clinical Associate Professor of Physical Education, Health, and Coaching.

In January 2021, Wyatt became a student delegate with the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), and in August 2022, the student representative for the American Psychological Association (APA) Division 47, the sport, exercise, and performance psychology division. While at AASP, she was a representative on two committees: the science-to-practice and social justice committees. 

The science-to-practice committee involved taking already published research and finding ways to incorporate it into applied practice, especially for students. This committee focused on “reaching out to different professionals in the field and asking how they’ve done this, and disseminating it tangibly.”The social justice committee focused on incorporating social justice into AASP. 

Within APA, they hosted an evening with the executive board of the APA so students could ask questions, feel connected, and discuss opportunities in the field.  

In addition to AASP and APA Division 47, Wyatt has worked with the Sport Psychology team at Boston University. “That’s built into our [academic] program here at BU,” she said. “We are involved with BU Athletics in the sport psychology concentration, and so I have worked with a couple of the coaching staffs here at BU on different mental skills like communication, leadership, motivation, and focus.”

Surprised by the lack of information about the mental health of coaches, she claimed that “there’s a lot of sport psychology research being done around the globe, and it’s phenomenal, but it’s limited here in the US, especially coaching literature.”

The NCAA published its first study on coach mental health and well-being in January 2023. She admitted that her research could be complicated as she has to decide what fields and theories to choose from as she conceptualizes her work. 

Eventually, Wyatt would like to work in several settings, from a graduate classroom to Olympics and youth athletes. She also hopes to work with athletes who typically do not get access to services and are part of marginalized communities. Her ultimate goal is to broaden mental health resources through athletics to a more significant population. 

How can this be done? Wyatt, a Counseling Psychology and Applied Human Development program member within BU Wheelock has received funding from her department to support her dissertation efforts. She hopes for a greater push to study the stressors and experiences of coaches at all levels. She hopes to focus more on the mental health and well-being of coaching staff and administrators, who are the stakeholders in hiring sport psychologists. This work will correlate to the success of relationships between psychologists and athletes.

There is still much work to be done in sport psychology. “There are still so many more questions that I have, and I’m sure others have too.” Nevertheless, after her unlikely change of heart from analytics to sport psychology, Wyatt is eager to make a difference in sports through her developments in sport psychology. 

“Finding the foundation and the base of the literature is something I’m excited about.”