The life of a collegiate student-athlete is a grind, to say the least. The daily workouts, practices, games, rehab, and traveling we go through to go along with being a full-time student can become extremely taxing. Despite this, we wake up everyday and get ready to do it all over again because we love it. We love our teammates. We love our coaches. We love the process, or at least try to. But most of all, we love the game.

I could sit here all day and type out what we as student-athletes go through. But I’d be remised if I didn’t bring awareness to how important it is to decompress away from the play of our sport. This is the other side of the equation that brings a relaxing element to our lives that is often pushed to the side when talking about the busy life of a college athlete. This down time is so valuable to our performance during the play of our sport, in the classroom, but, most importantly, for our mental-health. The state of our mental well-being affects all other aspects of our daily lives, athlete or not. As much as awareness has been raised in recent years regarding mental health, I still feel we do not stress the importance of it nearly enough towards those that need it most.

While a student-athlete’s mental health is of upmost importance, I want to focus on what I mentioned before regarding decompressive outlets we take to find peace of mind. One of the best ways I’ve learned to clear my head from the play of my sport, is to do the other things I love. But rather than tell you all about my hobbies and attitudes towards this topic, I wanted to bring in another perspective to help me out.

I sat down with Eddrin Rogers (Ed) to get his take on this subject matter, but also to bring some recognition to the behind the scenes of what life is like as a student-athlete at TLU. Ed is a junior defensive back on the football team and he is a business administration and management major. Ed has always been very outspoken regarding the importance of the mental health of student athletes on campus, which made him a great person to get to do this with.

Before even getting into the nitty gritty of our discussion, I asked Ed to walk me through essentially a “Day-in-the-life” of a TLU football player. Here’s what he had to say:

“On Monday I have a 9 am and an 11:30 class. In between those I’ll maybe have an hour and a half break to eat breakfast or something. Honestly, on Mondays at least, I have a couple of hours to maybe catch up on homework, eat lunch, and prepare myself for practice. Next at around 3 o’clock we’ll have our special teams, team, and position meetings. It’s 3 different meetings but they all serve different purposes for us to be successful. Then it’s practice time, which can last anywhere from 1 and a half to 2 and a half hours, depending on the day. After that, I’ll probably get home around 7 and then I finish up the day with homework and then it’s time to get ready to do it all over again.”

As you can see, the life of a student-athlete can get very busy; however, at the same time, athletes like Ed try their best to find times throughout the day to focus on themselves in order to stay on top of things.

With all of this being said, I next asked Ed how he spends his free time in order to relax, chill, and decompress after a full day of class, meetings, and practice. To my surprise, he gave me a really good new perspective on this trending topic, and hopefully you other student-athletes reading this can take something away from this.

“This is a great question. This might not be a conventional answer, but the first thing I think about is ‘How do I love my job to where I don’t have to decompress from the stress as much?’ We all need that time where we can take a step away and just relax. For me though, kind of loving what I do makes it easier in that sense.”

This idea of falling in love with the process itself is an amazing point Ed makes here. I think I speak for all athletes when I say that we definitely can get caught up in all the stuff thrown at us. But if we are able to embrace these struggles, like Ed mentions, then we can really improve our overall mental-health just by this one single change in attitude. Ed then goes on to describe the specific things he still does to get away from football.

I like to cook. I got to get my clothes ready for the next day. I know it may sound like some chores, but it’s just stuff I like to do in order to free my mind, while staying productive. And then I try to spend at least 30 minutes to an hour where I watch TV or Netflix. Whenever I can, I also like to just listen to music too.”

Building off of this, I asked Ed regarding the importance of balancing between your free time and when you’re working.

“I think it’s very, very important because although I did say that you want to make your work as fun as possible, but at the end of the day work is still work. You know when you’re in your element spending hours and hours of time dedicated to your training, then you definitely still need your time off. I think recovery is a big part of your down time because it cannot be neglected. Getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, and things like that help you balance your time later. Now to really answer your question, I’d say the biggest thing is preparation. Preparing your off time and preparing your work time makes everything so much easier.”

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Ed takes this to heart as I agree that all student-athletes can utilize the power of preparation to their advantage. The more we are ready for what is to come each day, the better we can balance the rest of our time.

Lastly, I asked Ed to let everyone reading know what they can expect from TLU football this season.

“You can expect great effort out of us. You can expect great teamwork. We’re going to work as a team no matter what. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, but as part of our foundation you can always count on great effort and attitude from all of us. One thing our coaches really emphasize to us is how we handle adversity because you’re always going to get knocked down, but it’s about how we respond. So, you can expect us to count on each other, the fans, the TLU community because I think it all contributes to our success.”

You heard it from Ed, not me, so I encourage you all to come out this year and not only support the football team, but all the fall sports ramping up this semester. Come catch a cross-country meet! Go cheer on men’s and women’s soccer at The Gus! And be sure to pack Memorial Gymnasium for volleyball this fall!

With all of this being said, whether you’re an athlete or student on campus, I hope you can take away the importance of self-care as a method to always keep our mental health in the right place and space. It is my goal this year to produce content that shines a light on my fellow student-athletes, but the ultimate goal is for these messages to reach beyond my intended audience. If students in theater, band, and other campus organizations can relate to these lessons, then that makes me feel accomplished as I interview my peers across different sports throughout the year.

I wish you all a safe and successful semester!

Go bulldogs and pups up!