Stoppage Time Special: Mindset Over Matchday

Mental health has finally entered the sports conversation, but how much progress have we really made? Our latest Stoppage Time episode brings you powerful insights from sports psychology experts who are transforming how we think about the mental game.

Gone are the days when sports psychologists merely played "deficit detective." Today's approach balances identifying weaknesses with amplifying strengths, creating personalized strategies for athletes at every level. Our featured expert explains that mental health isn't just relevant to those with clinical diagnoses—it's a "five out of five thing" affecting everyone in varying degrees and frequencies.

Professional sports organizations are waking up to this reality, with courageous athletes like Naomi Osaka publicly prioritizing mental wellbeing. But creating environments where players don't suffer in silence remains challenging. When teams focus exclusively on winning, they risk creating transactional cultures where athletes hide their struggles. The most successful organizations now integrate wellbeing as a foundational element of their performance strategy.

Perhaps most urgently, we need to transform youth sports culture. While winning naturally becomes important at elite levels, our current system often places inappropriate competitive pressure on young children. Experts point to Canada's long-term athlete development model as a framework that properly balances technical skills with psychological and emotional growth across different developmental stages. Supporting coaches—who are typically enthusiastic about understanding these needs but may lack proper training—represents our best opportunity to create healthier sports environments from the ground up.

Ready to hear more conversations that push sports forward? Watch the full episode now, and don't forget to subscribe to the Pitch to Pro podcast, the official podcast of Ozark United FC, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Stoppage Time edition of the
Pitch to Pro podcast.
This is a highlight reel ofsome of the best moments from
the show so far, and every otherweek we will be bringing you a
special five to seven minutesegment featuring the best
stories, tales and moments ofthe podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I think sports psych gets a little bit of a
stereotype that people on myfield are there to play deficit
detective and look for what'swrong with a player from a
mental skills perspective orwhat's wrong with the team.
But I'm equally equally and alot of times starting with
looking for what's right andtrying to pull and making sure

(00:42):
players and teams are leaninginto their strengths as well.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
No, that's so cool and I love your point about the
individual one-on-one.
It's really not a cannedapproach.
I don't think it can be right,because everybody's different,
every situation is different.
You have to be able to adaptand be able to assess and
diagnose and whatever.
Here's the game plan and it'sgoing to be so different for

(01:06):
each player or coach orsituation or team.
Um, how has that kind of evolved?
I think even in fairly recentshare timelines, um, because and
I you know whether it's abroader conversation, you know,

(01:27):
as just society and mentalhealth and wellbeing has come a
lot more to the forefront andbecome, you know, less taboo and
more part of our everydayconversation, and then making
its way into sports and you know, either fortunately or
unfortunately, you know, theirlives are a lot of the time in

(01:47):
the spotlight and so, whetherthey like it or not, they kind
of get thrust up there on thisplatform and you know they're
kind of guinea pigs in a way, interms of kind of, what does it
mean to talk about these thingsin the open forum and trying to
make it normal and normalizingit?
Um, you know, I don't want tosteal your thunder, but like,

(02:09):
all of these things kind ofreally interest me and intrigue
me and kind of you watch theevolution of that space over the
last few years, um, and youhave, you know, I think of
athletes like naomi osaka, uh,who took some time and just
literally time off.
Like I need to go work on me andjust take a break, just for my
own health, and mental health ishealth, all those things yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, stop my thunder , it's our responsibility.
Yeah, you nailed it.
This has been more normalizedand we still have a long, long
way to go.
Yes, we do more normalized andwe still have a long, long way
to go.
We're lucky that more and moreathletes that are in the
spotlight are stepping forwardand normalizing with a lot of

(02:58):
courage and vulnerability.
This is what's going on in mylife.
It was some pretty realexperiences that I had working
with the Blue Jays thatmotivated me to add clinical
mental health counseling to myeducation.
So when I was going through toget my doctoral work it's a

(03:21):
blended program, so it's adoctoral degree in sport and
performance psychology with anemphasis in clinical mental
health counseling.
And, along the way, one of mymentors, who's a real legend in
the field of psychology, drStephen Hayes.
He reminded me mental health isnot a one in five thing.
Mental health is a five out offive thing five out of five

(03:43):
people and it just varies indegree, intensity and frequency.
Some people have diagnosedclinical mental health issues,
disorders, and other people canexperience some mental health
challenges.
That may not, and my goal and Ilearned this from my mentor, dr

(04:13):
Hayes is that we don't sufferin silence, and so I think it's
our responsibility to normalizethis and give players a platform
in team environments.
That is part of why I getemployed by those teams that I
mentioned earlier is to makesure that well-being is a

(04:34):
critical component, and ifyou're only a win-at-all-costs
team, if the only conversationsare about winning and
performance, then theenvironment becomes very
transactional and it can make itreally tough for a player to be
vocal about any challenges theymay be experiencing.

(04:56):
But if you're in an environmentwhere you're ready to offer yes
, we want to win.
We're never going to take thatoff the table when this team
gets stood up, you guys want togo unde success in looking at
what type of to do work and tohelp players when they need help

(05:38):
, and I think the more proactivewe can be with this, the more
we normalize it, the moreplayers are going to feel like
they're in an environment wherethey can be set up to bring
their best out when it's time toperform, because they know they
have people that are there tosupport them as well yeah, no,
and I love this episode, I lovethis topic.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Uh, I love you.
Know, I could talk to you allday, man, how does this?
I think it's also important totalk about how this translates
into the youth game.
Uh, and I think work that stillneeds to be done, because I
think now we're starting tonormalize it and talk about it
in the professional space.
But also there's a lot to besaid about everything and the

(06:25):
strains on a growing youth, amaturing youth, a teenager, all
the things of life now,especially in this day and age,
with all the technology, socialmedia pressures and everything
else, about just being ateenager.
Oh, by the way, you're now a, a, you know, potentially a high
level athlete trying to make itto the next level and the
pressures that come with that.
Um, you know, and, and you know, I think that there's a lot

(06:48):
more room, uh, not just at theprofessional level, but
especially even into the youthspace within sports.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, we need to be supporting coaches.
It's been my experience thatmost of the coaches that I come
across are as enthusiastic asyou and I are about how to
understand the psychological,social, emotional needs of

(07:17):
athletes.
There is a great model outthere comes out of Canada in
terms of long-term athletedevelopment which is pretty
prescriptive of what differentages and stages need and the
athlete's journey.
By the time athletes areputting on that, usl jersey

(07:37):
winning is absolutely a priority.
At nine years old it's not.
And the challenge that we have,especially in our country, is
we overemphasize the result andwe underemphasize developmental
opportunities technicaldevelopmental opportunities,
psychological developmentopportunities, emotional
development opportunities.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Thank you for joining us for this stoppage time
special of the Pitch to Propodcast.
If you've enjoyed theconversation, you can click
watch the full episode here.
Be sure to tune in nextThursday for a new episode of
the Pitch to Pro podcast, theofficial podcast of Ozark United
FC, Available on YouTube,Instagram and everywhere you get
your podcasts.