No stigma for Bueckers, Van Lith or Fudd. The basketball stars seek out mental health professionals

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Paige Bueckers, Hailey Van Lith and Azzi Fudd all have reached out to a mental health professional for help at one point, seeking assistance to cope with the increasing pressure on college basketball players.

That pressure can come from high expectations, social media attention, sports bettors, the transfer portal or the grueling solitude when rehabbing from an injury. One major difference in today's sports world is a willingness to ignore the stigma attached to seeking professional help and acceptance of psychologists.

“I would say it’s grown with an increased demand for services and how many student athletes are using it,” said Ashley Harmon, who is the director of Clinical Behavioral Health at Texas. “This generation is a lot more open for seeking mental health. Athletes come in because of anxiety, depression, relationships, navigating things with coaches and teammates."

It is unclear how many athletes are meeting with a mental health professional, but several have been willing to talk openly about their experiences.

Coaches, teammates and family members can be a critical source of support for athletes, though sometimes more is needed, especially from someone not directly involved with their day-to-day lives.

Bueckers and Fudd, who both have comeback from season-ending injuries during their UConn careers, have said that sports psychologists have helped them.

“It’s just a grounding point of a person who you can go to and there’s no judgments, it’s a judgement-free zone, and they can just talk to you about anything,” Bueckers said. “Just ease your nerves, calm you down, get you to focus on everything but what’s going on in the present and just trying to be, I mean, the best version of yourself.”

Rori Harmon: ‘Not something you can do alone’

Van Lith said she first decided she needed to get help and get serious about her well-being after seeing the story about Katie Meyer, the Stanford goalie who died by suicide at her campus residence in March 2022.

The TCU guard said she personally invested in a sports psychologist “who kind of doubles as like a normal therapist at the same time."

“And also, I think I’ve matured a lot,” Van Lith said. "I’m older than I was. When I was going through a lot of my issues, I was like 19. So I was really young and I didn’t know how to handle a lot of things.”

Van Lith began her career at Louisville and then transferred to LSU before landing at TCU.

Like the UConn backcourt, Texas guard Rori Harmon — who is not related to Ashley Harmon — had to rebound from a season-ending injury. Rori Harmon tore her ACL in December 2023.

“It is very mentally taxing,” she said of rehab, adding that while she didn't speak with a sports psychologist, “it’s just not something you can do alone.”

Professional help can be a confidential space for the athletes

Ashley Harmon’s group at Texas deals with common areas such as returning from an injury, or getting over a mental block on the court, but she said there has been a lot more time recently spent dealing with off-the-court issues.

UCLA star Lauren Betts is one of those athletes. The 6-foot-7 center, who has led the Bruins to their first Final Four, has opened up in the past about her mental health issues.

“It does seem like mental health awareness has increased with social media, politics, COVID, all that wrapped into one,” said Ashley Harmon, who has been with Texas for nearly nine years.

Another stress point she has seen grow over the past few years is the transfer portal. Athletes feel they can talk in a safe place about transferring schools.

“We’re a space they can come to before they make any decisions,” she said. “The transfer portal is stressful, when to go or not go. Do you leave a place you’re familiar with to start over?”

As more players seek out professional help, some schools are offering more services.

Ashley Harmon said she was the first full-time staffer in the department for Texas. It’s grown now to eight or nine people in the department. UConn has several mental health professionals such as counselors, mental health clinicians and psychologists on staff for all of its student-athletes to utilize.

Joe Whitney has been at Tennessee for over two decades in charge of Mental Training at the school. He said the school has a separate group to deal with mental health, but the two groups work hand in hand. Whitney’s group offers more help for between-the-lines problems.

“We were one of the first to start going into it with a part-time mental health practitioner,” he said. “Having people dedicated to student athletes when they feel those stresses and challenges is important.”

Talking with a mental health professional is also a confidential space for the athletes — and those spaces can be hard to find on college campuses.

“They are in the spotlight and everyone knows what they are doing and when they are doing it since their lives are so hectic," Ashley Harmon said. “This is confidential from coaches, teammates, academics and parents.”

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AP Sports Writers Alanis Thames and Anne M. Peterson contributed to this story.

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