Ashland University Assistant Athletic Trainer Rachel Kornbluth had a long journey into athletic training, but after working for a year, she loves it. 

She first found the field while doing an athletic training practicum course her senior year of college. The course combined her kinesiology major and her psychology minor and gave her an opportunity to help athletes not only physically, but also mentally. 

After she started her masters in athletic training, she found herself drawn to the collegiate level over any other level of sports. “I feel like I can have more of an impact in that sector and that I can get much closer with my athletes,” she says. Because of the unique nature of collegiate athletics, it allows for closer relationships between athletes and their support systems. Having classes scattered throughout the day instead of having classes for seven to eight hours straight allows for athletes to come into the training room at various times during the day. This means that not only are they seeing their trainer at practices and games, they also see their trainer in the beginning, middle, or even the end of their day, depending on their schedule. Such close proximity builds trusting relationships, which is essential for athletic training. Kornbluth greatly values the trust her athletes give her. 

“I want to be that person that they can trust, that they know when they get hurt I’m gonna be there within thirty seconds to take care of them,” Kornbluth said.

This foundation of trust also provides Kornbluth with a way to take care of her athletes mentally. Having struggled with mental health herself, she understands. Ever since her sophomore year of high school, Kornbluth has been seeing a therapist for her anxiety. Having done high school athletics, she knows that athlete mental health is very important.

Rachel says, “it’s not just ‘I’m anxious, I’m depressed,’ it’s ‘how am I going to perform? How am I going to do this?’”

Rachel’s impact on her athletes is evident. Faith Fletcher, a senior on the STUNT team, finds “Rachel is always there for all of us in and out of training. I go see her just to talk and she’ll listen to everything I’m frustrated with, and she helps me navigate through those things. She’s like a friend to all of us that we trust and confide in.”  

While athletes here on campus see the athletic trainers for various reasons, one of the main reasons athletes go is for any injuries they may have.

When an athlete is injured, it severely impacts their mental health as well as their physical health. Not being able to be there for your team is very difficult for athletes. Athletics, especially team ones, place such a large focus on everyone contributing that injured athletes can feel left out. There can be a certain pressure to perform for the sake of your team, even if you are not fully recovered yet. 

Kornbluth takes this into consideration when dealing with potentially returning to play for injured athletes. She needs to make sure that a player is not only physically ready to play, but also mentally ready to play. If an athlete is not mentally ready to return to play, they run the risk of getting injured again. When mental health is not taken into consideration, more athletes get hurt. If an athlete feels pressure to return to play, they might pretend like their injury is not as bad as it once was. This is incredibly dangerous, and this is exactly what Kornbluth wants to avoid in her athletes. She makes sure to take their mental state into consideration before she clears athletes to return to play.

Athlete mental health is being more widely recognized as an issue across sports. A survey administered by the Sports Science Institute, the national Student-Athlete Advisory Committees in all three divisions and NCAA research that was released in Fall 2022 shows some interesting statistics about athlete mental health. 

Only two-thirds of the interviewed student athletes know where on campus to go with mental health concerns, 56% knew how to help a teammate with mental health concerns and only 53% felt like their coaches take mental health issues seriously. Sadly, fewer than half of these athletes felt comfortable personally seeking help from a campus mental health professional. 

These statistics are even more upsetting when divided into mens’ and womens’ sports. 

59% of male athletes felt their coaches take mental health issues seriously, but only 50% of female athletes felt this way. When it came to seeking help from a mental health professional on campus, only 46% of men and 48% of women felt comfortable reaching out. 55% of male athletes felt like mental health was a priority to their athletic department, but sadly, only 47% of women felt as though these issues were a priority. 

These statistics indicate that athlete mental health is a major issue and needs to be taken more seriously. When coaches, trainers and athletes work together to tackle mental health, progress is made. 

The director of on-campus psychological services, Oscar McKnight, says, “Just remember it’s a holistic approach. It’s physical, social, emotional, and mental. It’s everything. And if you’re only focusing on one part, you’re missing the whole thing about dealing with athletes.”

McKnight knows that all people deal with a variety of problems. When someone makes an appointment with the counseling center, the first thing they find out is what the main problem is. They then create a treatment plan together that directly relates to the issue. 

The main thing they focus on is not putting the problem into a box. McKnight says, “Sometimes we just segment it, we say ‘Oh I’m only working with their injury’ or ‘We’re only working with the psych’…What I’m saying is it’s a holistic approach. It’s a physical, social, mental, emotional, and even spiritual approach when it comes to athletes.” 

They focus on helping the whole person instead of just one component. This holistic approach to mental health recognizes that every aspect of someone’s life affects the other parts. Not physically taking care of yourself will affect your mental and emotional wellbeing, and so on. The counseling services here focus on making people better in every single area so that each person can be the best they can be in every way. 

There are many ways to contact the counseling services. Oscar McKnight can be emailed at [email protected] for appointments. They can also be found under the “Emotional Wellness Resources” tab on the Ashland University home page. 

Both the counseling services and Kornbluth want to help students, whether they are struggling or not. They recognize that athletes are also students, which comes with its own struggles, but that athletes are also people, and they are people first. Being a college student is stressful, especially on top of normal human stress. When being an athlete is added on top of all of that, it can cause many struggles. 

Kornbluth wants to help her athletes along in this journey. She says, “I just don’t want to get overlooked, and that’s why I focus, especially with my athletes, on mental health. When I’m asking throughout the day ‘How are you doing?’ it’s not ‘How’s that ankle?’ it’s ‘How are you?’”

Rachel prioritizes taking care of her athletes by using the holistic approach that the counseling center also takes. She wants to not only take care of her athletes as only athletes, but as people first. “You guys are people. You’re not just a body part I’m trying to take care of.”