|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Two teens are creating a program to promote awareness of student athlete mental health in high schools.
High school seniors Nikhil Berry, a swimmer at Menlo School in Atherton, and Sydney Randolph, a volleyball player at San Dieguito Academy in San Diego, have used their experience as student athletes to create an organization to promote awareness of student athlete mental health struggles.
GOAT Mentality, named after the acronym for “greatest of all time,” is a program to provide coping mechanisms and help for student athletes and those who support them. The two founded the program after the pandemic brought mental health issues to light, and took away the release of sports as a coping mechanism. Following the pandemic, Berry and Randolph said they saw a lack of assistance from high schools on the issue.
“There are high school athletes who are often training much longer than the NCAA requirement, because there is (no requirement) for high school athletes,” Berry said. “And at the same time, most high schools are not even equipped to handle the regular mental health challenges of their students, let alone the athletic mental health challenges.”
Berry cites Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka as proof that athlete mental health is still stigmatized, even at the highest levels of competition. Through a series of athlete interviews on the GOAT Mentality website, and creating curriculum videos with sports psychologists, Berry and Randolph said they are attempting to normalize discussions of mental health in athletics.
There are webinars held for coaches, athletes and parents that target a specific area of support for teen athletes. The goals include the promotion of mental health awareness and building a community of student athletes.
“(I’m) trying to create a more positive environment in my team itself, and providing some, like tips here and there from GOAT mentality that I’ve learned about in my … research with GOAT, I’ve kind of been able to incorporate that into a little bit of my team setting,” Randolph said. “And I’ve noticed that that has been some positive and healthy changes, both in the team dynamic and the team’s mental health and kind of the way that we run a little bit.”
The pandemic spurred the two to get the program off the ground in January 2021. For Berry, after the pandemic forced him to take an extended break from his sport, he found it intimidating to get back to training the way he had before, and experienced burnout. Sports psychology helped him get back in the pool and start competing again.
“For a lot of athletes, especially (in) high school, athletic sports is our escape … we’re so lucky that we go to school all day, and a lot of people have to go back to … doing something academic, but we get to work on our brains all day and then in the afternoon, we get to work out our bodies and kind of bond through with each other through that way,” Berry said.
According to Berry, the organization wants to partner with CCS (Central Coast Section, one of 10 regions in the California Interscholastic Federation for student athletics), as well as USA teams such as Gymnastics, Swimming and Water Polo. The organization aims to create a community of student athletes as well as providing sports psychology to a wider range of teens throughout the country.
Berry and Randolph have personal ties to the cause as well, both being high school athletes themselves.
“I’ve kind of just been balancing the school workload with the sports workload and found it very stressful at times, there have been times where I’ve had really big games before midterms that, you know, all just the crazy managing schedule stuff that I would have really appreciated having a resource like GOAT mentality, so I could turn to (it),” Randolph said.
Berry and Randolph said they hope to extend the program and provide the service to as many people as possible in hopes of creating a bond between athletes and providing them with somewhere to turn when stress gets too overwhelming.
“We really prioritize creating a community of athletes,” Berry said. “So it’s not just providing resources, but feeling the most important thing is feeling like you’re not alone.”
More information on GOAT Mentality can be found on goatmentality.org, or on Instagram at @goat._mentality.
‘The end of an era’: After 36 years in Palo Alto, Il Fornaio prepares to closeJanuary 13, 2026 2:05 pm
LA’s iconic 73-year-old doughnut shop is soon opening its first Bay Area locationJanuary 14, 2026 1:19 pm
Some gentle food for thought….If these kids are overwhelmed, adding “CEO” and the responsibilities of running an organization to their plate seems counterintuitive. This push to have a college resume builder is obvious and exhausting. Maybe they need to role model to their peers how to create balance instead.
Maybe if we dial back the craziness around sports, and start relying on academics as a pathway to college instead of athletics, none of this would be necessary