  urlLink Overcoming the Challenges of Counseling College Student Athletes. ERIC/CASS Digest. This ERIC Digest is by Joshua Watson. It examines ways that counselors can help college student-athletes. From the ERIC Digest: Introduction College student athletes have long been the most recognized, yet unofficial, special population on college campuses nationwide (Valentine & Taub, 1999).
Misconceptions and stereotypical viewpoints have hindered the development of effective counseling interventions with this population. Oftentimes, student athletes are seen as performers who are placed in public arenas to have their successes praised and their failures criticized (Valentine & Taub, 1999). Ferrante, Etzel, and Lantz (1996) noted that the general view of college athletes is that they are over privileged, pampered, lazy, out-of-control, and primarily motivated to attend school for the sole purpose of participating in intercollegiate athletics.
These misconceptions cloud the fact that student athletes are individuals with problems like everyone else, yet they are not receiving the potential benefits of counseling services. Recent findings have shown that this is more of an issue than originally estimated (Maniar, Curry, Sommers-Flanagan, & Walsh, 2001). In fact, researchers have shown that student athletes are not only hesitant to seek help from a counselor, but they are also reluctant to take advantage of sport psychology services (Brewer, Van Raalte, Petipas, Bachman, & Weinhold, 1998). 
