The stress put upon college athletes by school, sports, and fans has greatly impacted the mental health of many players, and the members of the Illini athletic program are no exception.
With mental health becoming a greater focus in sports, many players have taken the chance to turn toward school-associated sports psychologists to help them work through their problems.
One of the spearheads in this fight for athletes' mental health is Illinois Women’s Basketball coach Shauna Green, who employed a sports psychologist specifically for her team.
Becky Cook has been on Coach Green’s staff since 2023, with her hiring being one of the more historic ones that has gotten little to no recognition.
Her employment marked one of the few women’s basketball programs in the country to dedicate one specific sports psychologist to their program.
While other schools have staff of psychologists that athletes can talk to, like Illinois does, most programs do not have a dedicated psychologist who is consistently around one specific team.
Unlike her coaching counterparts who are on the staff, Cook’s work behind the scenes with the players is not visibly seen on the court.
Cook’s time is spent helping players increase their motivation, confidence, and focus within the game as well as the mental issues brought on by injury rehabilitation, performance, and the outside world in general. This can make all the difference in a down-to-the-wire game.
Online hate has accelerated the need for mental health tools at Illinois
Aside from the in-game support, one of the broader issues Cook and the other psychologists at Illinois help student-athletes with is the backlash they receive from disgruntled gamblers who have lost their bets due to, usually, the underperformance of these athletes.
As online hate through social media toward athletes has increased over the past few years, these support staff have become increasingly necessary and relied upon.
The normalization of sports gambling during game broadcasts and the ease of communication via the internet have only made life harder for players and the ones around them.
The University of Illinois having these lifelines in place for athletes to turn to when life gets too strenuous is an incredibly important part of their success as of late, yet gets almost no recognition.