I am a fan of LeBron because of his large amount of success in the game of basketball. His career started so young; he set a bar for athletes coming up in the sport of basketball. He has set unreachable stats. Stats show his success with having 50,000 points, being the time scoring leader, the all-time leader in minutes played, and having countless other records. LeBron's legacy has been very long-lived. He started in the league straight out of high school, and he's been the best for 21 years, with nonstop domination. I love how physical he is, especially when he is dunking. One thing that differs from some basketball stars is his high IQ. His court vision is incomparable to that of other basketball stars. He doesn't just rely on physical ability; his understanding of the game is one of the big reasons he has been as successful as he is. Another amazing thing about LeBron is his efforts and ability to encourage countless young athletes. I admire him because of his long-standing commitment to the game, his resilience, his strong mind, his work ethic and his success. He is a good person and athlete, and I admire him greatly.

Being an athlete comes with all sorts of challenges, emotionally and physically. I am a wrestler, and I can tell you that wrestling is one of the hardest sports I have ever done physically and emotionally. I have noticed as an athlete that there is a lack of focus on the mental aspect of sports. Personally, in my sport I face injuries, burnout, lack of motivation, nerves, disappointment, athlete identity, etc. Thanks to an article sent to me, I made the discovery of Sports Psychology. Sports Psychology is a new field and as an athlete I recognize the need for it. Over the last 20 years the suicide rate in college athletes has doubled according to scientist at University of Washington School of Medicine becoming the second cause of death in this group. You may be familiar with the heart-wrenching stories about young college athletes who died by suicide including Katie Meyers (Soccer player at Stanford University), Lauren Bernett, (Softball Player at James Madison University) and Jayden Hill (Track Athlete at Northern Michigan University). These tragic deaths are just a few in the athletic world. It leaves you wondering what we can do to help athletes to prevent suicides from increasing and help their overall mental health. My goal, majoring in sports psychology, is to help athletes learn to manage the stress of their daily lives in healthy, proficient ways. Sports Psychology can help in many ways in an athlete's athletic career and their personal lives. Not all athletes struggle with things as extreme as suicide but need help overcoming burnout, performance slumps, or even coming back from an injury. Burnout is extremely common for athletes to. The term “burnout” is used to describe an athlete who is mentally and physically exhausted from their sport or activity. Burnout often results in athletes quitting their sport due to not knowing how to manage or work through the burnout feeling. I dealt with burnout as a kid when I played softball, and I had no idea how to deal with it. I ended up quitting and focused on wrestling. Even with wrestling, I still deal with feelings of burnout, but my love for the sport has overcome that feeling, leading to my decision to wrestle in college. In sports psychology, I want to one day be able to help athletes overcome their burnout, stress, and emotions and reach their full potential as an athlete and a person. Often, I feel like we forget athletes are people as well. Although athletes have a great deal of support and often success, they also deal with trauma, death, tragedies, anxiety, and depression just like everyone else. Athletes often must learn to compartmentalize the things they are going through to stay focused on their season and performance. Eventually this strategy causes more harm than good. My goal in this career is to open people's eyes to the importance and the need for more focus on the mental side just as much as the physical side of sports and their athletes. Growing up, I was always told that sports are 90% mental. As an athlete and now a soon-to-be college athlete I have grown to learn the importance of being coached mentally just as much as physically. Soon, I will be moving 7 hours away to Mount Vernon, Iowa to make this a reality as continuing the sport I love in college. With women's wrestling being new, scholarships do not cover as much as you might think. Although I am going on a partial scholarship, my parents worry and stress about how to pay the remaining balance.

Mental Illness is a common issue that runs in my family. Whether it is depression, schizophrenia, personality disorders, or even PTSD. It runs on both sides of my family. Growing up I started having signs of depression at a young age. It had never been super bad until I got older and the colorful goggles were removed and I could see the world in the true colors. As an athlete, I often find myself too busy to worry about my mental health as a whole because I overwhelm myself so much in trying to reach my goals and be successful. As time went on I had hit this point my junior year where the weight from pushing everything back and holding it in had outweighed me I had come to a defeat. I was never my normal self everything felt so black and white. There was never a day I could see the light and colors of the world. I never felt happy never felt there was much of a purpose for me. It wasn't unusual for me to be in a parking lot for 30 minutes working myself up to be able to drive home confident that I would do so safely. No matter how many people I had attempted to explain what was going on to I could never actually express what was really going on. I don't know if it was shame or fear but the words couldn't leave my mouth that I was depressed and have been harming myself. It wasn't until one day I was in class and started breaking down out of nowhere that I decided I needed help. I visited counselors at the school who asked me simple questions about how I felt towards and about myself. The counselor then decided it would be best if I went to see someone and get help. It is never easy admitting you need help or telling your loved ones that you need help. It was a long process, sitting in a room with different people coming in every 30 minutes to ask you the same questions. By the end of it I got to go home and they gave me stuff to help and advice and after a week I felt like the whole world had done a 180. Going through this I have learned that the hard times do work themselves out and get better and it's never wrong to admit that you need help. I have taken this experience to realize athletes also have to take the time to take care of themselves and if more focus was put into athletes on the mental side performance and mental health would increase drastically. I have made it my passion and goal to go into a form on psychology that focuses on athletes as a whole to reach their fullest potential. Sports psychology is an unpopular but needed field and I believe If teams had their athletes meet with one regularly performance would increase. I plan to use my experience with mental health issues to help others like me in ways I never received

Mental Illness is a common issue that runs in my family. Whether it is depression, schizophrenia, personality disorders, or even PTSD. It runs on both sides of my family. Growing up I started having signs of depression at a young age. It had never been super bad until I got older and the colorful goggles were removed and I could see the world in the true colors. As an athlete, I often find myself too busy to worry about my mental health as a whole because I overwhelm myself so much in trying to reach my goals and be successful. As time went on I had hit this point my junior year wear the weight from pushing everything back and holding it in had outweighed me. I was never my normal self everything felt so black and white. There was never a day I could see the light and colors of the world. I never felt happy never felt there was much of a purpose for me. It wasn't unusual for me to be in a parking lot for 30 minutes working myself up to be able to drive home confident that I would do so safely. No matter how many people I had attempted to explain what was going on to I could never actually express what was really going on. I don't know if it was shame or fear but the words couldn't leave my mouth that I was depressed and tried harming myself. It wasn't until one day I was in class and started breaking down out of nowhere that I decided I needed help. I visited counselors at the school who asked me simple questions about how I felt towards and about myself. They then decided it would be best if I went to see someone and get help. It is never easy admitting you need help or telling your loved ones that you need help. It was a long process, sitting in a room with different people coming in every 30 minutes to ask you the same questions. By the end of it I got to go home and they gave me stuff to help and advice and after a week I felt like the whole world had done a 180. Going through this I learned that the hard times do work themselves out and get better and it's never wrong to admit that you need help. I have taken this experience to realize athletes also have to take the time to take care of themselves and if more focus was put into athletes on the mental side performance and mental health would increase drastically. I have made it my passion and goal to go into a form on psychology that focuses on athletes as a whole to reach their fullest potential. Sports psychology is an unpopular but needed field and I belive If teams had their athletes meet with one regularly performance would increase.

From a young age, the idea of giving has always been a factor in my life whether its pulling over to help a car on the side of the road, helping an injured animal on the highway, or just helping a family member in a time of need. As a young child, I grew up with the tradition of serving the homeless at our local rescue mission every Thanksgiving and Christmas morning. It has always been a family tradition I have loved and enjoyed. Seeing people receive things they never thought of having or aren't fortunate to have always has brought joy to me. I find myself a lot of times in my free time helping people who need stuff, no matter how little. There are many times in my weekly routine that Ill leave the house during my only downtime to go give someone a ride that needs to get to work or even just make it home in time to have dinner. My school has an A+ program providing community college scholarships to kids who go to college locally. Though my scholarship isn't able to be used due to my commitment to playing sports in college out of state I still decided to go through the A+ program to solely be an outlet to kids younger than me. One girl in particular that I had in my A+ class was a very kind loving and appreciative girl but it was very evident she wasn't blessed with the love and support a lot of kids take for granted. I made it my goal to be an outlet for her and bring light into her life. Before we met she had never even been out to eat for meals or been able to experience things most kids get on the holidays like family time or even trying holiday pies. Every week I made it my goal to bring in something she had never had before so she had the opportunity to try it. She tried pie for the first time in my A+ class. She loved it and thanked me every day for doing something like that for her. I also took the time to take her to breakfast one morning before school because she had never done anything like that before. To this day she still texts me to tell me about what's going on at home or even just that she misses me. I try to make time to see her and am working on being able to take her to a couple of places to experience something besides our hometown which she has never been outside of. I've always been the friend to be friends with the people who are often outcasted in the social aspect of school and try and make sure everyone has someone in their time of need. I do feel taking on this role can often leave me feeling alone because I become the friend people go to in a time of need but if I know it's helping someone or that someone feels comfortable coming to me over anyone else it feels worth it. This behavior is genuinely just who I've come to be and I wouldn't chose to live my life any different if I could go back and change anything.

I have decided I want to pursue a degree in psychology. With this degree, I intend to start a career in sports psychology. Sports psychology is a very new but needed career path. Athletes all over the country struggle with mental health. Over 50% say they have concerns or struggles related to mental health. Battling mental health as an athlete can often make focusing on your chosen sports very difficult. It can cause burnouts, off days, poor performance, and slumps. Athletes often have little to no time to focus on taking care of themselves which affects their everyday lives. I intend to use a degree like this to help better athletes and give them an outlet to get help taking care of themselves and finding ways to cope and work through their struggles while keeping up their performance and motivation. Not only do I want to help athletes individually but I also want to work with teams on the team aspect. A lot of times in professional sports you see teams get into conflict with their teammates. I intend to help teams overcome the mental side of their sport together while the coaches help them with the physical side. Athletes put a lot of pressure on their selves and if athletes had more of a focus on the mental side of things I feel they could be more successful and have higher performance rates. I have struggled with the mental side of life. The week before districts I hit a low point where I did not feel right nor did I have confidence in myself. My coach took the time after to sit me down and get to the bottom of what was really going on and helped me to get back into the right headspace to finish out the season on a good note. If it wasn't for that I would not have gone on to win districts or place third at state. Having a mentor like that in my life was impactful and game-changing for me on the mental side of my sport. That is something I want every athlete to have is the ability to sit down with someone and explain what's going on so they can come up with a way to work through it. Helping people has always been something I find a lot of joy in and doing it as a career helping driven athletes like me would be a dream of mine.

I have decided I want to pursue a degree in psychology. With this degree, I intend to start a career in sports psychology. Sports psychology is a very new but needed career path. Athletes all over the country struggle with mental health. Over 50% say they have concerns or struggles related to mental health. Battling mental health as an athlete can often make focusing on your chosen sports very difficult. It can cause burnouts, off days, poor performance, and slumps. Athletes often have little to no time to focus on taking care of themselves which affects their everyday lives. I intend to use a degree like this to help better athletes and give them an outlet to get help taking care of themselves and finding ways to cope and work through their struggles while keeping up their performance and motivation. Not only do I want to help athletes individually but I also want to work with teams on the team aspect. A lot of times in professional sports you see teams get into conflict with their teammates. I intend to help teams overcome the mental side of their sport together while the coaches help them with the physical side. Athletes put a lot of pressure on their selves and if athletes had more of a focus on the mental side of things I feel they could be more successful and have higher performance rates. I have struggled with the mental side of life and if I didn't have the mentors I did who would sit me down and help me with the mental breakdown and give me advice, wand ays to stay in the right mindset I would have never become the successful athlete I am today. That is something I want every athlete to have is the ability to sit down with someone and explain what's going on so they can come up with a way to work through it.

In high school, it's prevalent that the only sports that get attention are football and basketball. My school falls into that category. Football and basketball have gotten all the coverage, win or lose. They were on the front line of every newspaper and at the top of everyone's Facebook page. This was very evident to me going into high school. Our wrestling team barely received coverage and had not had a state placer in six years. Though I had only been wrestling for 2 years I wanted to be the difference. The summer going into high school I spent over 70 hours at a popular wrestling academy. My goal was to be the first state placer in 6 years. Not only did I feel pressure because of how long it had been, I felt pressure because I was a girl. Girls wrestling was very new and my school barely had a program nor the funding for it. I always knew high school wrestling would be a bigger step because of the competitiveness but I was ready to attack it head first. Beginning my first high school season I dealt with many doubts from people. I was a girl in a male-dominated sport at a school that cared nothing about the sport in general. No one believed I would win matches with how difficult of a sport wrestling is. I would say wrestling is probably the hardest sport anyone could do. I ensured I always worked hard in practice even when people told me that I wouldn't do good. Our first tournament came around and I blew through the bracket pretty easy. As the season went on my record went up. The tournament before districts I was 31-0. I got into my first match and went for a throw-by so I could get the leg, but I got caught in a throw. I had lost my first match in high school. I was devastated but I knew I had to finish the tournament. I wrestled back and got third place. Preparing for districts the next week was nerve-racking, but I was ready. I wrestled through my first two matches easily and made it to the semis. The semis were slightly more difficult the girl I was going to wrestle came from a good wrestling school and had had a lot better competition that season. I went into the match very nervous but wrestled smartly. I ended up winning the match, just by an escape point. Now it was time for the finals match and my opponent was going to be the same girl I had lost to the week before. I talked to my coaches reviewed some film and set a game plan. I went out there nervous as could be but I was ready. I went into the match and got a 2nd round pin. What I had been working towards had all finally started to go into play IO qualified for state, and I had newspapers and news stations talking about my accomplishments. The only thing left was to place at state. State was very nerve-racking and I honestly wouldn't have been ready if my coach wasn't so personal with me when it came to my training. State came along and it was quite the experience. I wrestled my first match and won. I had almost missed my second match because I was in the bathroom from nerves and ended up losing my second match. I stayed out of my head and wrestled back to get 5th. At that moment I realized my name was going to mean something.

I've struggled with mental health since a young age. It never became apparent and real to me until it happened to me directly. I see the world as a big picture it starts very colored and over time becomes black and white cause it fades. Life to me is the same way. As you younger everything is full of color but as you get older you start to see dark spots. Poor mental health hit me kind of young. I was in the fourth grade, and my grandma passed away. I had never had anyone directly pass away so this was a different feeling for me. A constant feeling of heat flashes and like I had hundreds of pounds on my shoulders. I had no idea what I was experiencing but I hated it. Nothing felt right for me. My parents started to notice when my grades dropped tremendously. As I got older I noticed a pattern, I'd be really up for a while and suddenly it would completely do a 180 on me and be the opposite. During my down times, often I find myself shutting down, and not speaking to anyone, gaining weight tremendously, and putting off important things. Sometimes I'd even find myself hating this I'd normally love. Going to school became a challenge and I couldn't focus or get stuff done. The biggest time I can remember was early this year. One day suddenly everything started weighing down on me. I started doing terribly in my sport. Even if I was winning it was sloppy. My grades began to drop no matter how hard I tried. I found myself sitting in the car for hours at a time trying to calm down enough to feel safe to drive home. Driving down the road I constantly had to talk myself through driving to ensure I didn't hurt myself. I was at a loss I had no idea what to do to help myself. I had fallen into unhealthy habits to manage the pain I was feeling. It became a big enough problem that the school started making phone calls because they were worried about my well-being. At that point, I realized I needed to figure something out. I started forcing myself to be around people for mental distraction. I knew I needed bigger ways to cope and healthier ways at that. As much as I didn't want to talk to anyone about what was going on and what I was feeling I forced myself to. That was the first major step for me. The next step was finding healthy ways to cope and improve. Making sure I was in the gym, getting the healthy social interaction I needed, pushing through the hard days, and taking the time to write my feelings and talk to people about them. Another important thing I've realized is finding the positive in every day things when you're able to do that everything just feels so much better.

For a long time, I was back and forth about what I wanted to do in the future. Sometimes I wanted to be a physical therapist other times I would flip completely around and think I wanted to go into law enforcement. Over the last year, I've realized what career brings me the most passion. I have been a student-athlete my whole life. From the soccer field to the softball field, and now on the wrestling mat. Sports have always been a part of my life. One thing I feel is not talked about enough is the mental challenge of a sport. Waking up and going to practice after a long or bad day. Battling your real-life problems while also trying to perform the best you can for your sport. It can be very mentally challenging, and often draining. A study by a New York University showed that around 45% of youth athletes quit due to psychological burnout. Being an athlete who has gone through this all firsthand has helped me discover that I want to pursue sports psychology. Athletes do not get a lot of challenge on the mental side of things and as an athlete, I think if there was more focus a lot of students would stick to their sport without the mental tiredness if more focus was put on that aspect. My goal with this degree is to help student-athletes learn to cope and overcome these battles while also becoming stronger mentally. If more student-athletes were given this resource, I think they would be more successful and persistent. Becoming a college athlete has always been a goal of mine. Now that I am a senior it is starting to be a reality. I found a school with my program, my degrees, and everything I need to get to where I want to be in the future. It is going to be pricey even after the athletic scholarship I have received for wrestling but in the end, it's going to be worth it. I feel that I am a good candidate because not only have I put work in to be where I am and need help paying for this next chapter in my life but I plan to use my degree to help so many athletes overcome their battles and find the light at the end of the tunnel while also staying on their feet to be ready to compete. One person I admire and is an inspiration to be is my highschool coach, Kelton Thompson. He helped me discover my passion for psychology. He had a degree in psychology and even though that wasn't his profession he took every opportunity to counsel and mentor me to learn to overcome to hard parts of life and stay focused on what my goals were. I always was very thankful for what he would do for me and I wanted to make that impact on athletes in my future as a career not for money simply because of the love I have for helping people and how passionate I am about athletes mental health. If it wasn't for coach Thompson I don't think I would of ever made this decision for my career or be anywhere near the athlete I am today. he has made me the most mentally toughest Ive ever been and I couldn't imagine myself without his impact.

Growing up, I was always desiring to find my place in my school. Kids had their friend groups, had their sports, and common interests. I also had a very bad self-image. Life never felt complete and always had a questionable sense of what my purpose was. In the 7th grade, I begged to do wrestling. My mom told me no over and over again. Finally, I convinced her and went. I fell in love with it immediately. After a year I decided I wanted to take it more seriously with wrestling on the rise. I began going to camps all summer long. Eventually, after 2 years High school wrestling began and I was nervous. The new setting of high school new mental battles and adjustments came with it. Wrestling always became the answer. If I was having a bad day, being on the mat at the end of the day was my relief. If I was feeling down about myself, being at practice and seeing myself progress flipped my whole mood around. Wrestling had become my only source of happiness through my trials in high school. When everything felt like it was falling apart I still had wrestling. Throughout my career of wrestling, I've always heard the quote " Once you've wrestled everything in life becomes easier. I always understood what it meant but I never experienced the quote to an extreme until Winter/Spring of 2024. It was January, mid-wrestling season we're about to compete at districts in 2 weeks. In those 2 weeks, the battle began the mental battle. No matter how happy I tried to be or how many great things happened to me, I genuinely felt myself falling into this hole of depression. I've battled depression in the past but this one was different this one felt suffocating, like I wasn't going to make it out. The one thing that fixed it all which was wrestling wasn't helping it was hurting. I had fallen at a stump unsure how to get back up.I felt no purpose to keep going if it meant I felt this pain forever. Through this feeling, I reminded myself of those times at practice the physical battle to keep going even when I was sore or hurting and I applied it to what was going on then mentally I was hurting but I knew through the pain, my life and my future still has time to go and I had to keep pushing threw so it no longer felt that way anymore. A week goes by and I keep that mindset. Districts rolls around 2 weeks later and I walked into it the happiest and most confident I ever have been because I knew that without that fighter mindset that wrestling taught me, I wouldn't of been standing there that day. That's when I fully realized what wrestling really has done for me and taught me and if I could get everyone in the world to gain the mental and physical strength wrestling has me I would. Wrestling has been my backbone and at times has been my reason to live. I truly think if it wasn't for wrestling, I would not be alive to this day. Wrestling has helped me decide to study sports psychology in hopes of assisting athletes like me who deal with their mental battles. It is a field I don't see much of but could be the difference in an athlete's life of finally seeing the light at the end of the dark tunnel.