The mental health of athletes is too often overlooked, especially when it comes to student-athletes.

According to the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), in 2019, 25% of men in Division I athletics felt “difficulties were piling up so high that [they] could not overcome them” and 30% of women in Division I felt the same.

At Oak Park and River Forest High School, a new resource for student-athletes is available. Johnathan Maymi is the new sports psychologist intern helping them understand their feelings associated with being a student-athlete.

Maymi is currently a student at National University of Health Sciences in Lombard, Illinois. He came to OPRF to complete “400 hours of mentored experience to be eligible to receive a certification as a mental performance consultant” which he wrote in his introductory email to student-athletes and parents.

Maymi said, “I wanted to teach other people the importance of mental awareness and how to handle emotions like stress, anxiety and others associated with playing sports or performing.” Maymi’s services at OPRF are not only for student-athletes; his door is also open to students in performing arts.

In addition to the staggering number of student-athletes who struggle with mental wellness in Division I college athletics, just 57% of male student-athletes and 42% of women feel that they can go to their coaches to talk about their mental health issues, according to the NCAA.

The girl’s head varsity basketball coach, Renee Brantley, emphasized the importance of mental health for her student-athletes. “Of course I want us to win, but I care about them as young women,” she said. Like most other coaches at OPRF, Brantley has an open-door policy when it comes to being a resource for her student-athletes.

OPRF Athletic Director Nicole Ebsen said, “I think that this is a phenomenal opportunity that we have at the high school level.”

While Maymi is here to finish his degree, he said that he is primarily here to “teach the players, the coaches, the faculty and parents about the mental part of the game.”

Before Maymi came to OPRF, Ebsen said that she did “research and attended clinics geared toward training coaches on mental health in athletics” to help prioritize mental wellness in OPRF’s student athletes. With Derrick Purvis, the athletic coordinator, she “met with all athletes when they were rostered on a team… the things that we hit on were resources within the building…that could be academic or emotional and social resources.”

Brantley added that Maymi is an excellent resource for the student-athletes on her team. “I understand that they have a lot [on their plates] and we are taking that first initial step.” Brantley and her team have used Maymi’s services to help in their journeys this season.

Ebsen said, “If the student-athletes want to go to [Maymi] and have a conversation about strategies to help with performance anxiety, balancing athletics and academics, or just mental wellness in general, they know who he is now.”

The mental health of student-athletes throughout both college and high school athletics is incredibly important. With the hiring of Maymi and the care that Ebsen has shown for mental health, OPRF is giving student-athletes the resources they need to thrive.