Fast Paced Academics and Fast Paced Athletics in a Fast Paced City

At the peak of their seasons, many New York University student athletes have had difficulties balancing their time and maintaining their mental health.

By: Honor Culpepper

Word Count: 1109

The transformation of New York City from fall to winter — as trees shed their last layer of leaves, holiday decorations appear, people wait anxiously for the first snowfall, and friends and family reunite — used to be the highlight of Jordan Janowski’s year.

Now, as a sophomore on New York University’s women’s basketball team, Janowski’s holiday season is far from merry. Instead, she has found herself in a “constant struggle,” balancing her pre-med finals while in the midst of her first collegiate basketball season. Janowski has found little time to enjoy her favorite holidays, and frankly, anything.

“From 7 a.m. to 1 a.m. I am busy,” Janowski claimed. “I am so overwhelmed by the volume of tasks I have, I wasn’t able to go home for Thanksgiving. I honestly barely even see the daylight anymore, except on my runs from practice to class.”

However, her lack of free time is not Janowski’s most pressing issue, “I am most worn down by all the pressure,” she explained.

As a pre-med student, Janowski is faced with strenuous classes, all packed with students with the same grueling aspiration: medical school. To compete with her peers, Janowski’s professors push her to attend every exam prep, office hours and voluntary labs.

At the same time however, Janowski has found a similar push from her coaches. “There is so much pressure from my coaches to be at every lift, every three hour practice and every extra film session,” she explained. “There is just so much that is expected of me in all aspects of my life. It has been really hard to be put under this much stress.”

Janowski is one of many student athletes experiencing the same phenomenon. According to interviews, the mental health of collegiate student athletes is faltering. In May of 2020, an NCAA survey found the rates of mental health concerns were 150% to 250% higher than that historically reported by NCAA student-athletes in the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment.

NYU is unique in that it is both highly academic and highly competitive in its varsity athletics, located in one of the fastest moving, stress inducing cities in the world. So, it comes with little surprise that its student athletes report difficulties in managing their time and mental health.

Junior Nikola Lipovic, a member of the men’s basketball team, transferred to NYU after completing his first two years at Saddleback Community College, in Mission Viejo, California. “I thought I was prepared, I thought I would come in as a junior and know what to expect, but moving here was a wake up call,” Lipovic explained. “First of all, every student here is driven. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have gotten in. So it has been really hard for me to stand out in my classes because I can’t fully dedicate enough time to my school work, I don’t have any time at all.”

Lipovic has also found that his professors have been less than accommodating to his athletic schedule. “Sports teams are forgotten here,” he added. “I try telling professors that I can’t make office hours because I have practice at the same time, and they seem to think I’m choosing basketball over school. It isn’t a choice, it is a required practice.”

Professor Ivan Makar, a fourteen-year staff member at NYU, who also acts as the Assistant Director of advising for NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, has come across numerous student athletes in his tenure.

Makar, unlike Lipovic’s professors, is accommodating to student athletes’ laborious schedules. “If someone had to miss class because of a game, I would never hold that against them,” Makar claimed. “I have even let student athletes reschedule their presentations if they feel too overwhelmed.”

However, Makar does agree with Lipovic’s sentiment that sports are forgotten at NYU. “Unlike other schools, when you think of NYU, you aren’t thinking of the sports teams, you’re thinking about the academics,” he added. “I have overheard many conversations among students where someone will say ‘Oh, I didn’t even know NYU had a basketball team’.”

Makar was unsurprised when hearing about the exponential growth of mental health concerns among NCAA student athletes. “These are teenagers who are thrown into adult life and expected to know how to perfectly balance their time,” Makar explained. “Their stress is inevitable.”

In recent years, NYU’s athletic department staff has recognized the growing number of struggling student athletes, and has remodeled certain departments to center around bettering their mental health.

Matthew Devens, an athletic trainer for all NYU student athletes, has witnessed firsthand the physical and mental toll of collegiate athletics at NYU.

“First of all, if you can survive four years, in New York City, as a college athlete, then you are prepared for pretty much anything,” Devens claimed. “But it does challenge you.”

Devens attributes much of NYU student athletes’ struggles to the fast pace of New York City itself. “We’re in the most stressful place in the world, the most stressful place to work, and to study and even to survive, and it often brings many student athletes to their breaking points,” Devens claimed. “It’s my job now to make sure my athletes don’t reach that breaking point.”

NYU’s athletic department however, has not always been tasked with providing mental health resources. When Devens was first hired, he was solely focused on the physical health of his athletes, while his conversations about their mental well-being were much more conversational.

“Around seven or eight years ago, we started offering mental health resources through athletics. It has gotten stronger over time, specifically in the last four years, and really ramped up during quarantine,” Devens explained.

Devens, and NYU’s athletic faculty, have credited the implementation of these services in limiting the number of student athletes who have had to give up their sports. “Our approach basically comes down to recognizing the stresses [the student athletes] are under, offering decompressing resources like places to talk, and allow them to destress and be vulnerable,” Devens described.

Despite the athletic department’s recent mental health push, many NYU student athletes have turned to different facets to escape from the pressures.

Tyler Walters, a sophomore on NYU’s largest team, swimming and diving, has been tasked with juggling a demanding 20-hour-per-week practice schedule with his Stern Business School classes, but has found solace within the athletic community.

“I know that NYU has tons of mental health resources, but what helps me is knowing that my teammates support me and that they are all going through similar things,” Walters claimed. “Our 3 a.m. Bobst study nights are all the therapy I could ask for.”

Source List:

Jordan Janowski- 917–833–1412

Nikola Lipovic- 949–878–8785

Ivan Makar- im38@nyu.edu

Matthew Devens- md2645@nyu.edu

Tyler Walters- taw8245@nyu.edu