Maintaining the well-being of today's student athlete.

As schools weigh how athletics fit into the educational model, the well-being of today's student athletes is becoming an increasingly important topic.

The task of dealing with this issue seems to fall mainly in the laps of women administrators. "Women are the ones who deal with well-being and senior women administrators need to be aware of and deal with the risky business of student athletes," said Darlene Bailey, senior associate athletic director at Southwest Missouri State University. She spoke on a panel at the NACWAA conference in Kansas City in October.

While many athletic administrators don't believe dangerous activity happens on their campus, Bailey advised talking with fifth year students who are most likely to be candid.

Being involved on campus, partnering with campus initiatives and bringing in great programs can make all the difference, she advised. "It is the responsibility of administrators to make the health and welfare of student athletes most important. These things are going on in our house."

Mental challenges

Student athletes face overwhelming challenges today. More than other students, they struggle with time management, performance issues, self esteem and coping problems. Dr. Laura Costello, team physician at Princeton University NJ, said that student athletes have trouble managing time in general. When balancing sports with social and academic lives, something will suffer.

Two of their more specific mental problems are depression and anxiety. Depression often follows a diagnosis of an eating disorder, overtraining or failure to recover from an illness or an injury. Anxiety disorders can include anything from excessive worry to panic disorder. "Athletes are driven by how they perform," said Costello. "We just need to realize something is wrong and look to solve the problems."