"The World Ain't All Sunshine and Rainbows": Enacting the Athlete Identity Narrative in Stigmatizing Mental Health Communication

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine how athletes construct mental health by researching how mental health is communicated to athletes and the role of athlete identity in contributing to stigma of mental health. The following research questions guided this research: 1) What influences athletes’ interpersonal communication about mental health? 2) How do social media outlets and online forums impact athletes’ communication about mental health? 3) What role does athlete identity have in stigma of mental health? Using the theoretical framework of the communication theory of identity as a guide, this dissertation examined how multiple frames of identity contribute the construction, communication, and perceived stigma of mental illness in college sports through a qualitative design where data were collected through individual interviews with 30 former and current college student-athletes and fieldnote observations. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling. They completed an online questionnaire to collect basic demographic information and completed the individual interview on Zoom. Individual interviews were conducted via Zoom, an online video conferencing platform to abide by public health guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results of a thematic and narrative analysis in Chapter Four, yielded five themes: “Athlete Identity: Constructing the Narrative of What is an Athlete,” “Illness as a Mentality: The Toughness/Weakness Narrative in Navigating Mental Illness,” “Staying Strong: How Athlete Identity Contributes to the Stigma of Communicating Mental Illness,” “Social Media: Breaking the Barrier of Communication,” and “Moving Forward: Normalizing Mental Illness Disclosure in Sports.” Woven together, these results create a narrative that demonstrates how athlete identity affects the stigma and communication of mental illness in the sport environment. These findings add to gaps in existing literature of how mental health is communicated and defined in the sport environment.