A Letter to Coaches: How to Spot a Struggling Athlete

A Letter to Coaches: How to Spot a Struggling Athlete

Dear Coach,

You spend more time with your athletes than almost anyone else in their lives. You see them at 6 a.m. when they’re still half asleep. You see them under pressure, in pain, after a loss, and on the days when something is clearly off but nobody is saying what. You know when a player’s footwork changes before they do. That kind of daily, up-close observation is something no therapist, no parent, and no teammate quite replicates. It makes you, whether you signed up for this or not, one of the most important first-line supports a struggling athlete can have.

This letter is for you. Not to add weight to an already demanding role, but to give you something practical — a way to translate what you’re already noticing into action that could genuinely change a life.

Therapists typically see athletes once a week, in a quiet office, when things have already escalated to the point of a referral. You see them every day, in the thick of it. That gap matters enormously. The earlier a struggling athlete is seen and supported, the better the outcome. And “early” usually happens on a practice field, in a locker room, during a film session — places where you are and a clinician is not.

So what does early actually look like? It’s rarely dramatic. More often, it’s quiet.

Watch for an athlete who starts pulling away from their teammates — the one who used to be loud in warmups and now keeps their headphones in, who lingers at the back of the group or disappears the moment practice ends. Social withdrawal is one of the most consistent early signs that something internal is shifting. Alongside that, watch for performance changes that don’t have a clear physical explanation: a drop in focus, more mental errors than usual, a flatness in effort that doesn’t match their baseline. These changes often get labeled as attitude problems or lack of commitment. Sometimes they’re something else entirely.

Irritability is another signal worth taking seriously. An athlete who is snapping at teammates, reacting disproportionately to coaching, or cycling between emotional highs and lows may be carrying something heavy. So is the athlete who stops eating with the team, skips meals you know they used to rely on, or whose body language has gone small — hunched shoulders, avoiding eye contact, that particular kind of stillness that isn’t calm. On the other end of the spectrum, watch for overtraining: the athlete who won’t rest, who stays two hours after everyone else, who seems to be using physical punishment as a way to cope with something they haven’t named yet. And pay attention to jokes. “I don’t even want to be here anymore” or “Maybe I should just quit” said with a laugh can be a real feeling wrapped in plausible deniability. Take the laugh away and hear what was actually said.

When you notice these things, the most important guidance we can offer is this: your job is not to diagnose, and it’s not to fix. It is simply to acknowledge and connect.

Don’t minimize what you’re seeing with “just push through” or “everyone goes through rough patches.” Those responses, even when well-intentioned, teach athletes that their inner world is inconvenient to the people around them. Don’t make the conversation about performance — that sends the message that your concern is about what they can do for the team, not about them as a person. And don’t assume silence means everything is fine. Struggling athletes are often the ones working hardest to appear like they’re not.

Opening the conversation doesn’t require clinical language. It just requires that you show up honestly. Something as simple as: “Hey, I’ve noticed you seem a little different lately — not in a bad way, I just want to check in. How are you actually doing?” can open a door that an athlete has been waiting for someone to open. Or: “You don’t have to have anything figured out to talk to me. I just wanted you to know I’m paying attention.” Short, direct, without pressure to perform wellness. These openers work because they communicate that you see the person, not just the player.

Once a conversation starts, your most important next step is knowing where to send them. A referral is not a handoff — it’s a bridge. Have the contact information for a mental health professional ready before you need it. Know who Onrise is, know how the process works, and be able to say “I know someone I’d like you to talk to, and I’ll help make that happen” rather than “you should probably talk to someone.” The difference between those two sentences is the difference between a door opening and closing.

The deeper shift worth making isn’t just reactive. The coaches who create the most psychologically safe teams build a culture where mental health conversations happen regularly, not only in crisis. That can look like a brief emotional check-in at the start of the week, asking “what’s one thing outside of sport that’s been on your mind?” or simply naming mental health out loud as something your team takes seriously. When athletes hear their coach talk about stress, pressure, and struggle without shame, they learn that they can too. Normalization is protective. It lowers the threshold for asking for help before things get serious.

You became a coach because you believed in what sports can build in a person — discipline, resilience, connection, identity. That belief is exactly what makes you so important here. You are not just training athletes. You are developing whole human beings who happen to play a sport. The trust they place in you is one of the most significant relationships many of them will have during some of the most formative years of their lives.

See the whole person. Say something simple. Know who to call.

That’s enough to make a real difference.

With respect and gratitude for the work you do,

The Onrise Team