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Mental health awareness has become an elemental aspect of the modern cultural revolution we are experiencing in the past decade+. Mental health and physical wellness have become mainstream topics of conversation. Sports and society have mimicked one another, in the importance of athletes voicing their opinions about mental health and wellness, as well as how their mental state affects their ability to perform.

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Mental health and wellness was long hidden in sports behind a vail of "toughness", in particular for male athletes who are forced to display traits of traditional "masculinity". These societal expectations lead to a high rate of anxiety and depression amongst athletes, both at the youth/recreational level, all the way to the elite/professional level. According to Benyan Mental Health, studies show the rate of anxiety and depression amongst elite athletes to be around 26%, compared to 20% for the general population (Walonin et al, 2016).

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It's not even real to begin with.

"It's great to be part of the generation where the narrative is continuously changing," Brown said Monday morning at the Auerbach Center, "because 10 years ago it might not have been as popular or as likely for somebody to open up and speak about their feelings and do it publicly.

"I definitely think it's still a problem, for sure. Where I was raised [outside of Atlanta], masculinity was one of the things that my friends talked about. There was a problem over masculinity, people portraying toughness and then people trying to 'out-tough' each other, and that ultimately leads to violence.

"That was a problem. Everybody's walking around with a chip on their shoulder, trying to be something that they're not. They feel like that's a need for them to survive.

"So now, it's creating a community and atmosphere for anything to grow, or feel comfortable and feel safe about.

"Frankly, living in Boston, some of those conversations need to be had, too. There's places and areas where people don't care how you feel, they care about how you perform. A lot of young players in this city struggle with the balance "

Brown spoke at a panel dedicated to sports and mental health, held in conjunction with NBC Sports Regional Networks and Religion of Sports' November mental health initiative. The panel, moderated by NBC Sports Boston's Trenni Kusnierek, also featured former Patriot Ted Johnson, Celtics coach Brad Stevens, and mental health professional Dr. Jonathan Jenkins.

The documentary "Head Strong: Mental Health and Sports" airs this Friday at 8 p.m. on NBCSB.

To have athletes such as Brown and Johnson confront and confess to toxic masculinity and mental health problems off the field should become as organic and natural to sports as discussing the ins and outs of a team or athlete's performance.

The goal is not to separate the two. Don't even try.

"This is not a sports thing, this is an everybody thing," said Stevens. "We're all just here to support each other as we try to find our own happiness. Jaylen is a heck of a basketball player but I don't think Jaylen sees himself or defines himself as a basketball player, and I think that's every one of these guys in this sporting world.

"The idea of them having to put this cape on can be really tough."

The notion of male athletes as unfeeling superheroes has been passed down from generation to generation, and the stigma of seeing them showing weakness will not dissolve overnight.

Johnson, who has been forthright about his struggles with addiction, expressed his admiration for Brown and NBA commissioner Adam Silver who "makes it OK for players to talk about it. I give it up to Coach Stevens here, supporting his player Jaylen and talking about this.

"I'm a little jealous. I think it's awesome. No offense, I just can't imagine [Patriots coach Bill] Belichick being here with me here today, but I respect that Coach Stevens is here."

Johnson acknowledged there is still a long way to go before mental-health issues are completely destigmatized, but it starts with hearing truths directly from their lips.

"To hear an athlete, someone you look up to and admire, talk about personal struggles, it is one of the most courageous things," said Johnson. "In sports, we buy into the propaganda, too, we buy into the image of we are cyborgs and we don't have feelings and we are warriors and we are gladiators. I get that. That's the image we want to project, but there's a lot going on behind that."

Stevens said he tries to get his players to shut out social media as much as possible.

"I think the praise can be intoxicating and I think the negativity can be debilitating," said Stevens. "I think that that is real, whether people want to say that or not.

"Without question, the negativity specifically can contribute to or trigger the onset of depression, anxiety, and that is real. That's the unfortunate part of all of this."

Jenkins's final thoughts echoed those uttered in a clip from the documentary.

"Like the gentleman in the film said, emotions are part of your human experience, so why are we stigmatizing people for having emotions?" said Jenkins. "Because we all have them.

"We should be embracing them, and really helping [people] get the help that they need or just providing them support when they're in need."

Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeSilvermanBB

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Jaylen Brown addresses 'toxic masculinity' in sports - The Boston Globe

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It's not even real to begin with. "It's great to be part of the generation where the narrative is continuously changing," Brown said Monday morning at the Auerbach Center, "because 10 years ago it might not have been as popular or as likely for somebody to open up and speak about their feelings and do it publicly.

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1. Why are athletes suffering from a higher rate of mental health issues compared to general populations?

2. How have cultural expectations determined what is traditionally masculine behavior in sport? How have these tropes negatively effected the mental health and wellness of athletes?

3. What type of interventions are being used to counter-act the negative effects of mental health and wellness, in particular the effects of self-imposed or societal pressures?

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From the very origins of sport during the first Olympic Games (776 BC), the Ancient Greek people used sports as a tool to prepare for war or to train as hunters (Bellis, 2019). These life or death events were necessary for survival during this time period. As sports have evolved into the modern western context (mid to late 1800's), they no longer carry the same weight as a training tool for such serious events. Rather sports have evolved from a leisure and recreational activity to the major social and economic powerhouse we see in society today.

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From Rocks and Spears to Laser Tag

The documented history of sports goes back at least 3,000 years. In the beginning, sports often involved the preparation for war or training as a hunter, which explains why so many early games involved the throwing of spears, stakes, and rocks, and sparring one-on-one with opponents.

With the first Olympic Games in 776 BC-which included events such as foot and chariot races, wrestling, jumping, and discus and javelin throwing-the Ancient Greeks introduced formal sports to the world. The following by no means exhaustive list takes a look at the beginnings and evolution of some of today's most popular sporting pastimes.

Cricket: The game of cricket originated in south-east England sometime in the late 16th century. By the 18th century, it had become the national sport, making inroads globally in the 19th and 20th centuries. The prototype for the modern cricket bat featuring a willow blade and a cane handle layered with strips of rubber, and then tied with twine and covered with another layer of rubber to form a grip was invented around 1853. (The longest recorded game of cricket took place in 1939 and spanned a period of nine days.)

Baseball: Alexander Cartwright (1820-1892) of New York invented the baseball field as we know it in 1845. Cartwright and the members of his New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club​ devised the first rules and regulations that became the accepted standard for the modern game of baseball.

Softball: In 1887, George Hancock, a reporter for the Chicago Board of Trade, invented softball as a form of indoor baseball that was first played on a cold winter day inside the warm Farragut Boat Club.

The first formal rules for basketball were devised in 1892. Initially, players dribbled a soccer ball up and down a court of unspecified dimensions. Points were earned by landing the ball in a peach basket. Iron hoops and a hammock-style basket were introduced in 1893. Another decade passed, however, before the innovation of open-ended nets put an end to the practice of manually retrieving the ball from the basket each time a goal was scored. The first shoes specifically designed for the game, Converse All Stars, were introduced in 1917 and were soon made famous by legendary player Chuck Taylor who became an early brand ambassador in the 1920s.

Rugby: The origins of rugby can be traced back over 2000 years to a Roman game called harpastum (from the Greek for "seize"). Unlike soccer, in which the ball was propelled by means of the foot, in this game, it was also carried in the hands. The game made its modern debut in 1749 at a newly built school in Rugby in Warwickshire, England, which boasted "every accommodation that could be required for the exercise of young gentlemen." The eight-acre plot on which the game evolved was known as "The Close." Between 1749 and 1823, rugby had few rules and the ball was kicked rather than carried to move it forward. Games could go on for five days and often more than 200 students participated. In 1823, player William Webb Ellis was the first to took pick up the ball and run with it. This was the beginning of the modern version of the sport as it's played today.

Football: American football is a descendant of rugby and soccer. While Rutgers and Princeton played what was then billed as the first college footballgame on November 6, 1869, the game did not come into its own until 1879 with rules instituted by Walter Camp, a player/coach at Yale University. On November 12, 1892, in a game that pitted the Allegheny Athletic Association football team against the Pittsburgh Athletic Club, AAA player William (Pudge) Heffelfinger was paid $500 to participate-marking him as the first-ever professional football player.

The game of Golf is descended from a game that originated in the Kingdom of Fife on the eastern coast of Scotland in during the 15th century. While there were similar games in other parts of Europe at the time that involved swatting a rock with a stick around a predetermined course, the game as we know it-including the innovation introduction of the golf hole-was invented in Scotland.

During the mid-15th century, the games of golf and soccer suffered something of a setback. As Scotland prepared to defend its borders against English invasion, the rising popularity of the games was thought to be responsible for men neglecting more useful pursuits such as archery and swordsmanship. Golf and soccer were officially banned in Scotland in 1457. The prohibition was lifted in 1502 with the signing of the Treaty of Glasgow.

In the 16th century, King Charles I popularized the golf in England and Mary Queen of Scots, who was French, introduced the game to her homeland. (In fact, it's possible that term "caddie" is derived from the name given to the French cadets who attended Mary when she played).

The first reference to golf at Scotland's most famous golf course, St Andrews, was in 1552. The clergy allowed public access to the links the following year.

The golf course at Leith (near Edinburgh) was the first to publish a set of rules for the game, and in 1682, was also the site of the first international golf match during which a team pairing the Duke of York and George Patterson playing for Scotland beat two English noblemen.

In 1754, the St Andrews Society of Golfers was formed. Its annual competition relied on the rules established at Leith.

Stroke play was introduced in 1759.

The first 18-hole course (now standard) was constructed in 1764.

In 1895, St Andrews inaugurated the first women's golf club in the world.

While the exact origin of ice hockey is unclear, the game likely evolved from the centuries' old Northern European game of field hockey. The rules of modern ice hockey were created by Canadian James Creighton. The first game was played in Montreal, Canada 1875 at Victoria Skating Rink between two nine-player teams, and featured a flat circular piece of wood that served as a prototype for what would eventually evolve into the modern hockey puck. Today, barring penalties, each team has six players on the ice at a time, including the goalie, who guards the net.

Lord Stanley of Preston, Governor-General of Canada, inaugurated the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup-known today as the Stanley Cup-in 1892, to recognize the best team in Canada each year. The first award went to the Montreal Hockey Club in 1893. The awards were later opened to both Canadian and American league teams.

Around the 14th Century, the Dutch started using wooden platform skates with flat iron bottom runners. The skates were attached to the skater's shoes with leather straps. Poles were used to propel the skater. Around 1500, the Dutch added a narrow metal double-edged blade, making the poles a thing of the past, as the skater could now push and glide with his feet (called the "Dutch Roll").

Figure skating was introduced at the 1908 Summer Olympics and has been included at the Winter Games since 1924. Men's speed skating debuted during the 1924 Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, France. Ice dance became a medal sport in 1976, with a team event debuting for the 2014 Olympics.

Skiing: Although the sport of skiing in America is little more than a century old, researchers have dated a rock carving of a skier, found on the Norwegian island of Rodoy as more than 4,000 years old. Skiing was so revered in Scandinavia that the Vikings worshiped Ull and Skade, the god and goddess of skiing. Skiing was introduced to the United States by Norwegian gold miners.

Water Skiing: Water skiing came about on June 28, 1922, when 18-year-old Minnesotan Ralph Samuelson proved the theory that if a person could ski on snow, a person could ski on water.

Swimming pools did not become popular until the middle of the 19th century. By 1837, six indoor pools with diving boards had been built in London, England. When the modern Olympic Games were launched in Athens, Greece, on April 5, 1896, swimming races were among the original events. Soon after, the popularity of swimming pools and the related sporting events began to spread.

Several famous 20th Century swimmers, including three-time gold medalist Johnny Weissmuller who competed in the 1924 Paris Games, two-time Olympian Buster Crabbe, and Esther Williams, an American competitive swimmer who set multiple national and regional swimming records (but did not compete in the Olympics due to the outbreak of WWII) went on to have successful careers in Hollywood.

While there's evidence to suggest that ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians played some version of a game that resembled tennis, court tennis as we know it is descended from a game enjoyed by 11 th-century French monks called paume (meaning "palm"). Paume was played on a court and the ball was struck with the hand (hence the name). Paume evolved into jeu de paume ("game of the palm") in which racquets were used. By 1500, racquets constructed of wooden frames and gut strings were in play, as were balls made of cork and leather. When popular game spread to England, it was played exclusively indoors, but rather than volley the ball back and forth, players attempted to hit a ball into a netted opening in the roof of the court. In 1873, Englishman Major Walter Wingfield invented a game called Sphairistikè (Greek for "playing ball") from which modern outdoor tennis evolved.

William Morgan invented volleyball in 1895 at the Holyoke, Massachusetts, YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) where he served as Director of Physical Education. Originally called Mintonette, after a demonstration match during which a spectator commented that the game involved a great deal of "volleying," the sport was renamed volleyball.

Surfing: The exact origins of surfing are not known, however, most research suggests the activity dates back to ancient Polynesia and was first observed by Europeans during a 1767 voyage to Tahiti. The first surfboards were made of solid wood, measuring between 10 and 10 feet, and weighing from 75 to upwards of 200 pounds. Solid boards were designed for forward-motion only and were not meant to cross waves. At the dawn of the 20th century, a Hawaiian surfer named George Freeth was the first to cut a board down to a more manageable eight-foot length. In 1926, American surfer Tom Blake invented the first hollow board and later introduced the fin. During the late 1940s through the early 1950s, inventor and surfing aficionado Bob Simmons began experimenting with curved boards. Thanks to his innovative designs, he is often referred to as the "Father of the Modern Surfboard." Later designs would aim for lighter, more maneuverable boards. Boards carved from balsa wood, then laminated with fiberglass and coated with epoxy resin became popular, but as technology advanced, balsa core boards were eventually eclipsed those constructed of foam core.

Windsurfing: Windsurfing or boardsailing is a sport that combines sailing and surfing and uses a one-person craft called a sailboard. The basic sailboard is composed of a board and a rig. In 1948, 20-year-old Newman Darby first conceived of using a handheld sail and rig mounted on a universal joint, to control a small catamaran. While Darby did not file for a patent for his design, he is recognized as the inventor of the first sailboard.

According to the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), more than 240 million people around the world play soccer on a regular basis. The history of the game can be traced back more than 2,000 years to ancient China, where it all began with a bunch of players kicking an animal-hide ball around. While Greece, Rome, and areas of Central America claim to been seminal to the development of the game, soccer as we know it-or football as it's called in most places other than the United States-came to the fore in England during the mid-19th Century, and it's the English who can claim credit for codifying the first uniform rules for the sport-which made tripping opponents and touching the ball with the hands are forbidden. (The penalty kick was introduced in 1891.)

The earliest evidence of boxing can be traced back to Egypt circa 3000 BC. Boxing as a sport was introduced to the ancient Olympic Games in the 7th century BC, at which time, boxers' hands and forearms were bound with soft leather thongs for protection. Romans later traded in leather thongs for metal-studded gloves called cestus.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, boxing died out and did not make a comeback until the 17th century. The English officially organized amateur boxing in 1880, designating five weight classes: Bantam, not exceeding 54 kilos (119 pounds); Feather, not exceeding 57 kilos (126 pounds); Light, not exceeding 63.5 kilos (140 pounds); Middle, not exceeding 73 kilos (161 pounds); and Heavy, any weight.

When boxing made its Olympic debut at the 1904 Games in St. Louis, the USA was the only country entered, and as a result, took home all the medals. Since its initial admittance in the Olympic program, the sport has been included at all of the subsequent Games, with the exception of the 1912 Stockholm Games, since boxing was outlawed there. But Sweden wasn't the only place where fisticuffs were illegal. For a good deal the 19th century, boxing was not considered a legitimate sport in America. Bare-knuckle boxing was outlawed as a criminal activity and boxing matches were regularly raided by the police.

Gymnastics

Gymnastics began in ancient Greece as a form of exercise for both men and women that combined physical coordination, strength, and dexterity with tumbling and acrobatic skills. (The translation for the word "gymnasium" from the original Greek is "to exercise naked.") Early gymnastics exercises included running, jumping, swimming, throwing, wrestling, and weight lifting. Once the Romans conquered Greece, gymnastics became more formalized. Roman gymnasiums were mostly used to prepare their legions for the rigors of battle. With the exception of tumbling, which remained a fairly popular form of entertainment, as the Roman Empire declined, the interest in gymnastics, along with several other sports favored by gladiators and soldiers dwindled as well.

In 1774, when prominent German educational reformer Johann Bernhard Basedow added physical exercise to the realistic courses of study he advocated at his school in Dessau, Saxony, modern gymnastics-and the Germanic countries' fascination with them-took off. By the late 1700s, German Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (the "father of modern gymnastics") had introduced the sidebar, the horizontal bar, the parallel bars, the balance beam, and jumping events. German educator Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths (also known as Guts Muth or Gutsmuths and the "grandfather of gymnastics") developed a more graceful form of gymnastics focusing on rhythmic movement, opening the Jahn's school in Berlin in 1811. Soon after, gymnastics clubs began to spring up in both continental Europe and Great Britain. As gymnastics evolved, the Greco-Roman events of weight lifting and wrestling were dropped. There was also a shift in emphasis from simply beating an opponent to the pursuit of excellence in form.

Dr. Dudley Allen Sargent, a pioneering Civil War-era physical education teacher, athletic proponent, lecturer, and prolific inventor of gymnastic equipment (with more than 30 pieces of apparatus to his credit) introduced the sport to the United States. Thanks to a wave of immigration at the end of the 19 th century, an increasing number of turnverein (from the German " turnen," meaning to perform gymnastic exercises + " verein," meaning club) sprang up as recently arrived Europeans sought to bring their love of the sport to their new homeland.

Men's gymnastics debuted at the Olympic Games in 1896, and have been included in all Games since 1924. An all-around women's competition arrived in 1936, followed by a competition for separate events in 1952. During early competitions, male gymnasts from Germany, Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland, dominated the competition, but by the '50s, Japan, the Soviet Union, and several Eastern European nations were turning out top male and female gymnasts. The widespread coverage of Olympic performances by the Soviet Union's Olga Korbut in the 1972 Olympics and Nadia Comaneci of Romania at the 1976 Games raised the profile gymnastics dramatically, resulting in a major promotion of the sport, particularly for women in the China and the United States.

Modern international competition has six events for men-the rings, parallel bars, horizontal bar, side or pommel-horse, long or vaulting horse, and floor (or free) exercise, and four events for women-vaulting horse, balance beam, uneven bars, and floor exercise (which is performed with musical accompaniment). Tumbling and trampoline exercises are also included in many U.S. competitions. Rhythmic gymnastics, a non-acrobatic performance of graceful choreographed moves incorporating the use of a ball, hoop, rope, or ribbons, have been an Olympic sport since 1984.

The use of swords dates to prehistoric times. The earliest known example of swordplay comes from a relief found in the temple of Medīnat Habu, near Luxor that was built in Egypt by Ramses III circa 1190 BC. In ancient Rome, swordplay was a highly systemized form of combat that both soldiers and gladiators had to learn.

After the fall of the Roman Empire and through the Middle Ages, sword training became less systematic and sword fighting took on a seedy reputation as criminals increasingly used the weapons to further their illicit pursuits. As a result, communities began outlawing fencing schools. But even in the face of such obstacles, including a 1286 London edict passed by King Edward I condemning the practice, fencing flourished.

During the 15 th century, guilds of fencing masters came to prominence throughout Europe. Henry VIII was one of the sport's earliest supporters in England. The English convention of using a cutting sword and with a buckler (a small shield worn on the free arm) was replaced by the rapier combat more prevalent in continental European countries. It was the Italians who first began using the point rather than the edge of the sword. The Italian fencing style emphasized speed and dexterity rather than force and was soon adopted throughout Europe. When the lunge was added, the art of fencing was born.

By the end of the 17th century, the changes in men's fashion dictated by the court of Louis XIV changed the face of fencing as well. The lengthy rapier gave way to the shorter court sword. Initially dismissed, the lighter court sword soon proved an effective weapon for a variety of movements impossible to achieve with earlier blades. Hits could be made with sword-point only, while the side of the blade was used for defense. It was from these innovations that modern fencing evolved.

The French school of sword fighting focused on strategy and form, and specific rules were adopted to teach it. A practice sword, known as the foil, was introduced for training. The first fencing masks were designed by French fencing master La Boëssière and infamous duelist Joseph Bologne, chevalier de Saint-Georges in the 18 th century. Basic fencing conventions were first organized codified by French fencing master Camille Prévost in the 1880s.

Men's fencing has been an Olympic event since 1896. After numerous disputes, the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime was founded in 1913 as governing body of international fencing for amateurs (both in the Olympics and in world championships) to ensure uniform enforcement of rules. Individual foil for women was introduced at the 1924 Olympic Games. The women's foil team event debuted at the 1960 Games. Women's team and individual épée arrived for 1996 Games. The women's individual saber event was added for the 2004 Games, and women's team saber followed in 2008.

Rowing has been in existence as long as people have traveled by boat, however, the first historic reference to rowing as a sport dates to an Egyptian funerary carving from the 15 th century BC. Roman poet Virgil mentions rowing in the Aeneid. In the Middle Ages, Italian oarsmen zoomed across Venice's waterways during Carnevale regatta races. Beginning in 1454, London's early water taxi drivers battled it out on the Thames River hoping to win monetary prizes and bragging rights. A race between London Bridge and Chelsea Harbor has been held annually since 1715. America's first recorded rowing event took place in New York Harbor in 1756, and not long after, the sport took hold in the athletic programs at many of the country's elite colleges.

England's Oxford University Boat Club, one of the oldest established college teams, and its perennial rival, Cambridge, held their first men's competition, known simply as the University Boat Race, in 1929. The event has been held annually since 1856. Similar rowing rivalries, most notably those between Harvard, Yale, and the U.S. service academies, soon surfaced across the pond. Yale challenged Harvard to its first intercollegiate boat race in 1852.

Rowing became an Olympic sport in 1900. The United States took gold that year, and again in 1904. The English won gold medals in 1908 and 1912, after which the United States ditched professional rowers, and instead, tapped the best college team to compete at the 1920 Games. The U.S. Naval Academy went on to beat the British team, recapturing the gold medal. The trend continued from 1920 to 1948, however, by then, the nature of American sports was changing. As the immense popularity of collegiate basketball and football grew, interest in rowing waned. While still wildly popular at some schools, rowing will likely never regain its former widespread audience.

David N. Mullany of Shelton, Connecticut invented the Wiffle ball in 1953. A Wiffle ball is a variation of a baseball that makes it easy to hit a curveball.

While Frisbees date back to 1957, the game of Ultimate Frisbee (or simply Ultimate) is a non-contact team sport that was created in 1968 by a group of students led by Joel Silver, Jonny Hines, and Buzzy Hellring at Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Hacky sack (a.k.a. "footbag") is a modern American sport invented in 1972 by John Stalberger and Mike Marshall of Oregon City, Oregon.

Paintball was born 1981 when a group of 12 friends playing "Capture the Flag" added the element of firing at one another with the tree-marking guns. After investing with a tree marking gun manufacturer called Nelson, the group began promoting and selling the guns for use in the new recreational sport.

In 1986, George A. Carter III became the "founder and inventor of the laser tag industry," another variation of "Capture the Flag," in which teams equipped with infrared and visible light-based guns tag each other out until one side is victorious.

As anyone writing a compendium on the history of sports can tell you, there's a staggering amount of information to sift through and only so much time. Sports is such a huge topic (with events such as horse racing, wrestling, track & field, and mixed martial arts-to name only a few-that are more than deserving of coverage), it would take an encyclopedia to do it justice. That said, the ones included in this list should give you a fair sampling of the popular athletic endeavors that continue to fascinate sporting enthusiasts around the globe.

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From Rocks and Spears to Laser Tag The documented history of sports goes back at least 3,000 years. In the beginning, sports often involved the preparation for war or training as a hunter, which explains why so many early games involved the throwing of spears, stakes, and rocks, and sparring one-on-one with opponents.

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Historical Context of Mental Health in Sports

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Historical Context of Mental Health in Sports

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Due to the intense nature of sports origins and the current climate sports play within society, we can see how athletes could easily become overwhelmed by the sheer importance of their participation in a fundamentally recreational game. Mental health in sports have been researched since the early 1920's, when the first generation of sports psychologists were examining how exceptional athletes are able to excel in their sport. However it wasn't until the late 1970's that sports psychologists began actively working with athletes to improve their game. As professional sports became even more notable however, it wasn't until the next generation of practitioners began working on mental health and wellness with athletes, both for on and off the field issues.

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In many ways, the history of sport psychology mirrors the history of other longstanding disciplines, including psychology, physical education, and other kinesiology-related disciplines, and has been influenced by larger sociocultural trends for decades, for example, the growth of the Olympic movement, professionalization of sport, and women's liberation. Progressing through a number of eras, sport psychology has grown into a dynamic and continually advancing field. Although there are many detailed written histories of sport psychology, the purpose here is to provide a brief overview. Specifically, this entry begins with a summary of major time periods and key contributors and concludes with general remarks on sport psychology and its development. Importantly, most historical accounts of the field are described from a North American or European white male perspective. However, recent efforts have aimed to recognize and share a more holistic history inclusive of diverse individuals all over the world. Attempts are thus made here to present these global contributions. Finally, the history of sport psychology cannot truly be divorced from the history of exercise psychology. However, to highlight the historical accounts that uniquely shape these disciplines today, the history of exercise psychology is described in a separate entry of this encyclopedia.

Eras in the History of Sport Psychology

The history of sport psychology has often been organized into six key eras or time periods that mark the field's development. These eras serve as rough guidelines for retrospectively examining events that have shaped sport psychology today. The eras include (1) the prehistory of the field from antiquity to the early 1900s, (2) the development of sport psychology as a specialty in the 1920s and 1930s of the 20th century, (3) preparation for the discipline between the 1940s and 1960s, (4) the establishment of the academic discipline in the late 1960s and 1970s, (5) the science and practice of sport psychology between the late 1970s and 1990s, and (6) contemporary sport psychology over the last decade.

Era 1: Pre-History (Antiquity-Early 1900s)

While most accounts of the history of sport psychology start in the late 1800s, interest in the area can be traced back to ancient times. For example, with the start of the Olympic Games around 776 BCE, the ancient Greeks embraced the mind-body connection and discussed both physical and mental preparation of athletes. In fact, the ancient Greeks are said to be among the first to systematically explore athletic performance with much of the work paralleling modern-day study in the areas of sports medicine and sport psychology. For instance, comparisons have been made between the Greek tetrad system used to prepare athletes for competition (preparation, concentration, moderation, and relaxation) and the contemporary concept of periodization where training occurs in phases.

Fast forwarding to the Victorian era of the late 1800s in the United States and Great Britain, athletes, educators, journalists, and others demonstrated interest in the many topics studied in sport psychology today, such as the psychological characteristics of high-level athletes as well as cultural issues in the sporting world. By 1894, French physician Philippe Tissie and American psychologist Edward Scripture had published some of the first studies in the field. While Tissie studied psychological changes in endurance cyclists, Scripture examined reaction time in fencers and runners. Notably, Scripture's work reflected efforts to establish a new psychology that focused on data collection and experimentation versus subjective opinion as well as an emphasis on applying scientific findings to the real world (e.g., enhancing athletic performance). Although less recognized, Harvard professor G. W. Fitz was also examining reaction time in athletes around the same time. In 1898, American psychologist Norman Triplett conducted the first known experiment to blend the principles of sport and social psychology. Examining the influence of others on cycling performance, Triplett's study contributed to the development of social facilitation theory often studied in contemporary sport and exercise settings. Researchers continued to explore these and related topics throughout the early 1900s; American psychologists Karl Lashley and John B. Watson conducted a series of studies on skill acquisition in archery.

Perhaps the person who demonstrated the most consistent interest in sport psychology during this era was the French founder of the modern Olympic movement, Pierre de Coubertin. A prolific writer, Coubertin wrote numerous articles relevant to topics studied in sport psychology today, such as the reason children participate in athletics, the importance of self-regulation, and the role of psychological factors in performance improvement. He was also the catalyst in organizing several Olympic Congresses, two of which focused on the psychological aspects of sport. Interested in the blend between body, character, and mind, Coubertin's efforts garnered publicity around the critical role of psychology in sporting activity and continued to influence the field's development well into the 1940s.

The contributions of this era involved several noteworthy psychologists, physical educators, and physicians whose work demonstrated interest in what is now referred to as the field of sport psychology. However, while the work of these scholars dabbled in the world of sports, none of these individuals were considered sport psychology specialists who made consistent contributions. Few concerted efforts were made to systematically study the area until the 1920s.

Era 2: The Development of Sport Psychology as a Specialty (1920s-1930s)

In the 1920s and 30s, professionals continued to show interest in the psychological aspects of sport through periodic writing, research, and exploration. For example, baseball great Babe Ruth was brought to Columbia University in 1921 and psychologically tested to determine the reasons for his exceptional hitting skills. In 1926, American psychologist Walter Miles, his student B. C. Graves, and legendary football coach Pop Warner conducted an interesting study on the influence of signal calling on charging times among the offensive line players.

However, it is also in this era that individuals from around the world began to specialize in the area by developing more systematic lines of research, presentations, and publications that marked a more sustained interest in the psychological aspects of sport. In Charlottenburg, Germany, Robert Werner Schulte started one of the first sport psychology laboratories in 1920 at the Deutsche Hochshule für Leibesübungen where he wrote a book titled Body and Mind in Sport and continued his work until his untimely death in 1933. In Russia, notable scholars Piotr Antonovich Roudik and Avksenty Cezarevich Puni began work at the Physical Institutes of Culture in Moscow and Leningrad, respectively. Roudik conducted studies on perception, memory, attention, and imagination while Puni examined psychological preparation and the effects of competition on athletes.

Around the same time, Coleman Griffith was directing the Research in Athletics Laboratory at the University of Illinois. Griffith, who is recognized as the father of North American sport psychology, published approximately 25 studies on topics ranging from motor learning to personality and character. He also published two classic books, Psychology of Coaching (1926) and Psychology of Athletics (1928), and outlined the key functions of the sport psychologist. Griffith's laboratory closed during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but in 1938, he was hired by the Chicago Cubs to assist in improving the team's athletic performance. Unfortunately, Griffith's applied work is said to have been far from successful because of resistance from players and coaches.

The 1920s and 1930s were characterized by not only scholars who dabbled in sport psychology work, but also those across the globe who set up sport psychology laboratories and devoted significant portions of their career to studying the area. Interestingly, with the exception of some Russian scholars whose work continued through the 1960s, the research findings of these early pioneers had little direct influence on the scientific advancement of the field. Griffith, for example, was ahead of his time but worked in isolation with few students to immediately build upon his work. Still, the emergence of sport psychology as a discipline was ready to begin.

Era 3: Preparation for the Discipline (1940s-1960s)

Scholars who trained future generations of students and professionals set the stage for the development of sport psychology as an academic discipline. As previously mentioned, Puni's work in Russia continued well into the 1960s and 70s and is still recognized today. The same is true in North America where Franklin Henry of the University of California at Berkeley established a psychology of physical activity program and trained physical educators. Upon earning their graduate degrees, these students initiated systematic lines of research across the country. While much of Henry's work focused on what would now be considered motor learning and control, some of his students examined social psychology topics such as athlete personality and the arousal-performance relationship. This era of sport psychology research was also likely influenced by sociocultural events, such as increasing emphasis on performance at the Olympic Games, the Cold War, and the space race, which spurred considerable interest in the development of science in many fields.

On the applied front, the work of David Tracy is noteworthy as he consulted with semipro baseball players as well as the St. Louis Browns' major league team. Tracy helped athletes improve their performance by teaching relaxation skills, using confidence building techniques, autosuggestion, and hypnosis. His work is crucial to this era in that it garnered a great deal of publicity for the practice of sport psychology. It was reported that the Browns' front office believed that if other industries used psychologists, then it would be logical for professional baseball to do so as well. This may have helped initiate a shift in the attitudes of sportspersons and administrators toward the usefulness of sport psychology practitioners.

In addition to Tracy, the work of female pioneer Dorothy Hazeltine Yates is also noteworthy. Best known for her consulting with university boxers, Yates emphasized the use of positive affirmations and relaxation to enhance performance. She also taught a psychology course for athletes and aviators. Embracing the science-practitioner model, she went on to conduct an assessment of her interventions with boxers. A reflection of her work reveals that Yates made important contributions in an otherwise male-dominated field.

Era 4: Establishment of Academic Sport Psychology (Late 1960s-1970s)

The latter part of the 1960s was marked by a major occasion. The First World Congress of Sport Psychology was held in Rome, Italy, in 1965. While few delegates were considered sport psychologists given that the field was only emerging as a discipline, this event marked the beginning of worldwide interest and institutionalization of the field. It was here that the International Society of Sport Psychology (ISSP) was born. With Ferruccio Antonelli of Italy as its first president, the inaugural issue of the International Journal of Sport Psychology arrived just five years later in 1970. Serving as a model, ISSP inspired the development of several other professional organizations of sport psychology across the globe, including the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity in 1966, the British Society of Sports Psychology in 1967, the French Society of Sport Psychology in 1967, the Canadian Society for Psychomotor Learning and Sport Psychology in 1969, and the German Association of Sport Psychology in 1969. Born out of disagreements within ISSP, the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC) was founded in 1969 with female pioneer Ema Geron of Bulgaria as its first president. Both ISSP and FEPSAC remain prominent influences on the field today.

In the late 1960s and 70s, physical education as an academic discipline was firmly taking hold in the United States. Professors were asked to begin research programs in all the sport sciences, curriculums were revised to include more academic sport science coursework, and graduate programs were developed. Sport psychology, now considered distinct from motor learning and control, was a part of this change. Increased activity on the applied side of the field was also occurring during this era, albeit not without controversy. In 1966, clinical psychologists Tom Tutko and Bruce Ogilvie wrote a controversial book, Problem Athletes and How to Handle Them, and developed the Athletic Motivation Inventory, a personality assessment that was said to predict athletic success. The book was controversial because it suggested that athletes were problematic and needed to be controlled, while some scholars felt that their personality test was based on questionable science. Despite the controversy, Ogilvie was active in working with elite athletes and teams and was seen as a role model for many young professionals with an interest in applied work. In fact, he has been called the father of applied sport psychology in North America.

Era 5: Bridging Science and Practice in Sport Psychology (Late 1970s-1990s)

As the name of the era implies, it was between the late 1970s and 1990s that sport psychology came of age as both a science and an area of professional practice. This era was characterized by increasing interest in the field with scientists devoting their entire careers to the field, and a growing number of practitioners working directly with athletes and coaches. For example, the U.S. Olympic Committee developed a sport psychology advisory board, hired its first resident sport psychologist, and sent its first sport psychologist to the Olympic Games. New academic journals, including the Journal of Sport Psychology (1979; known as the Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology since 1988), The Sport Psychologist (1986), the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology (1989), and the Korean Journal of Sport Psychology (1989), were published. The development of organizations to meet the needs of a growing field continued. For example, the Japanese Society of Sport Psychology was developed in 1973 followed by the Korean Society of Sport Psychology in the 1980s. Following the dissolution of other related organizations, the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences was developed in 1984 with The Sport and Exercise Scientist becoming its official publication. The Association for Applied Sport Psychology (formerly the Association for the Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology) was established in 1986, established its Certified Consultant designation in 1991, and continues to be the largest applied sport psychology organization in the world. In 1986, the American Psychological Association formed a new division, Division 47, devoted specifically to exercise and sport psychology. Born out of the First National Congress of Sport Psychology in Barcelona, the Spanish Federation of Sport Psychology was founded in 1987. Shortly thereafter, the Australian Psychological Association was developed with sport and exercise psychology as a specialization in 1988, followed by the creation of the Asian South Pacific Association of Sport Psychology in 1989.

Finally, women of this era were afforded more opportunities and entered the field in greater numbers thanks to the concerted efforts of several female pioneers, including Ema Geron, Dorothy Yates, Dorothy Harris, Jean Williams, Carole Oglesby, Tara Scanlan, Maureen Weiss, and Diane Gill, to name just a few. Recently, determined efforts have been made to write these female pioneers into the history of the field and recognize their many contributions.

Era 6: Contemporary Sport and Exercise Psychology (2000-Present)

Contemporary sport psychology is a firmly established discipline. The popularity of the field was evidenced by over 700 delegates from 70 countries attending the 2009 World Congress of Sport Psychology held in Morocco. A large number of universities now offer specializations at the graduate level with hundreds of research studies being conducted every year. Reflecting a shift in the field's focus toward the inclusion of both sport and exercise contexts, the International Journal of Sport Psychology changed its name to the International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology (IJSEP) in 2002. The British Psychological Society also developed a sport and exercise psychology division in 2004. Greater attention is being paid to the practice of sport psychology with the development of an applied journal, The Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, published by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology in 2010. As sport psychology becomes increasingly popular through media outlets and social networking, Olympic and professional athletes continue to work with sport psychology specialists, as do a number of developing and recreational athletes.

With the growth of both the science and practice of sport psychology, a number of major changes are occurring in the field today. For example, fueled by rising obesity rates and a decrease in physical activity in many Western countries, there has been an explosion of interest in health and exercise-related research in the last decade. Exercise motivation and adherence, the role of physical activity in mental health, and the psychology of athletic injuries have all been topics of considerable interest (see also the entry "History of Exercise Psychology"). Life skill development, cultural issues, and diversity in the sport context have also become popular areas of inquiry. In addition to the topics studied, the methods employed are also expanding. An increase in qualitative research methods in particular is evidenced by the development of new journals solely devoted to this type of research like Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, and Health.

At the same time sport psychology has seen tremendous growth and advancement, several important challenges face the field. For example, although they are more widely accepted, qualitative research methods have been criticized for their subjective nature and have led to some debate over the best way of gaining knowledge. Economic support for higher education in many Western societies has declined and caused sport psychology laboratories to become more conscious of the need to secure external funding (e.g., grants, fellowships) to support their research efforts. Tension between researchers and practitioners of sport psychology continues, which has led various professional organizations to purposefully attempt to bridge the gap. Other concerns include the job outlook for many being trained in the field. While sport psychology has certainly grown, academic positions are somewhat limited, and few practitioners will land full-time positions working with athletes and teams. Finally, perhaps the greatest challenge is defining the educational training necessary to become a practitioner in sport psychology. Disagreement over the role of kinesiology versus counseling-based training has led to heated debates among professionals. Increasing attention paid to certifications, licensures, and ethical standards are intended to safeguard against those who may unethically practice sport psychology without the appropriate competencies. Addressing these challenges and embracing the aforementioned successes of the field will fuel the growth of sport psychology in the future.

Conclusion

While sport psychology emerged out of other disciplines, the field certainly has a longer and deeper history than has often been described. Recent efforts have unveiled the contributions of individuals who demonstrated interest in the psychological aspects of sport long before Coleman Griffith and brought to light a history characterized by diverse and global influences not previously recognized. Sport psychology is a worldwide phenomenon with strong research and practice components that parallels the growth of other established disciplines, including psychology and physical education.

1. Green, C. D., & Benjamin, L. T. (2009). Psychology gets in the game: Sport, mind, and behavior, 1880-1960. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

2. Kornspan, A. S. (2012). History of sport and performance psychology. In S. M. Murphy (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of sport and performance psychology (pp. 3-23). New York: Oxford University Press.

3. Krane, V., & Whaley, D. E. (2010). Quiet competence: Writing women into the history of U.S. sport and exercise psychology. The Sport Psychologist, 18, 349-372.

4. Ryba, T. V., Schinke, R. J., & Tenenbaum, G. (2010). The cultural turn in sport psychology. Morgantown, WV: Fitness Information Technology.

5. Vealey, R. S. (2006). Smocks and jocks outside the box: The paradigmatic evolution of sport and exercise psychology. Quest, 58, 128-159.

6. Weinberg, R. S., & Gould, D. (2011). Foundations of sport and exercise psychology. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

See also:

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Sports Psychology History - IResearchNet

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In many ways, the history of sport psychology mirrors the history of other longstanding disciplines, including psychology, physical education, and other kinesiology-related disciplines, and has been influenced by larger sociocultural trends for decades, for example, the growth of the Olympic movement, professionalization of sport, and women's liberation.

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According to Walonin et al (2016), there are a myriad of reasons as to why athletes suffer higher rates of depression and anxiety than the general population. Some of the more notable reasons are self-imposed, such as self-doubt, misuse of alcohol or other recreational drugs, and disrupted sleep patterns; whereas other reasons for the higher rates are externally based, such as pressure, high stakes environments, and academic/athletic rigor (Kerkhoffs et al, 2019).

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When considering the historical nature of sport, we can see how the stereotypically "masculine" ideals are founded, which in turn creates toxic masculinity. The more toxic masculinity is prevalent within a given culture, their is an increase of mental health issues amongst those athletes, due to the ideals of being non-emotional and holding things in (Miller, 2009).

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Henricksen et al (2018) constructed a core group of sport psychologist clinicians to create the "Consensus Statement on Improving the Mental Health of High Performance Athletes". This coalition of mental health experts found 6 key elements to intervene of negative mental health environments. they are as follows:

1. Mental health is a core component of a culture of excellence
2. Mental health in a sport context should be better defined
3. Research on mental health in sport should broaden the scope of assessment
4. Athlete mental health is a major resource for the whole athletic career and life post-athletic career
5. The environment can nourish or malnourish athlete mental health
6. Mental health is everyone's business, but should be over seen by one or a few specified members

(Henricksen et al, 2018)

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Athlete mental health has become a forefront issue within the world of sports. However I believe we need even further preventative mental health counseling for all athletes, which should be provided in the form of licensed psychologists being employed by college, club, and professional athletics programs to facilitate this process. As we continue learning about mental health in society, it is critical sports keeps ahead of the curve to provide the greatest resources available for athletes to remain healthy on and off the court, both physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.