Headball.
How might we support the mental health of student-athletes?
Designing Support Systems for Collegiate Athletes
For decades, collegiate student-athletes have been juggling the demands of academics, athletics, and life. In an environment where high performance is not only praised but expected, athletes often struggle silently beneath the weight of their responsibilities. As a former Division I volleyball player, I have witnessed and experienced these challenges firsthand.
While the conversation around mental health is gaining broader attention and institutions are funneling more resources into support initiatives, significant gaps remain. Coaches, teammates, and athletic trainers are on the front lines of this issue, playing a crucial role in supporting the mental well-being of athletes. Yet, they often lack the tools and training to navigate this complex responsibility effectively.
Over 8 weeks in Carnegie Mellon’s Persuasive Design course, our team—Jae Kim, Clare Lee, Marlon Mejia, Vinod Reddy, Roshan Selladurai, and myself— aimed to address these gaps by creating systems and solutions tailored to the needs of student-athletes and their immediate support networks.
“Among college athletes with mental health conditions, only 10% seek help”
Solution.
Headball: Strengthening Bonds and Breaking Stigmas Through Play
Headball is a multiplayer game designed to help student-athletes build stronger relationships with their teammates and coaches while fostering an environment where they feel confident seeking support. Through collaboration and conversation, Headball aims to address the stigma surrounding mental health and promote open, supportive dialogue within collegiate sports teams.
How It Works
Players embark on a shared journey, navigating a series of engaging mini-games to reach their ultimate goal. Each mini-game is thoughtfully designed to:
Spark Conversations: Encourage players to discuss topics related to mental health in a natural, engaging way.
Build Connections: Create a foundational bond between athletes and their coaches or teammates by sharing personal anecdotes and experiences in a low-pressure setting.
Reduce Stigma: Normalize open dialogue about mental health, paving the way for athletes to feel more comfortable seeking help and offering support to others.
Key Benefits
Strengthening Relationships: Encourages team cohesion and trust by facilitating meaningful interactions in a fun, supportive environment.
Safe Space for Sharing: Provides a low-stress context for players to open up and connect on a personal level, fostering empathy and understanding.
Promoting Mental Health Awareness: Destigmatizes conversations around mental health and empowers players to recognize and address challenges collectively.
By blending the power of play with the importance of mental health advocacy, Headball offers a transformative experience that goes beyond the field, helping athletes thrive both as individuals and as part of a team.
Research.
To better grasp the current state of mental health in athletics, our team conducted a literature review that evaluated existing academic literature, institutional surveys and athletic wellness applications. We conducted focus group sessions and interviews with 14 collegiate student-athletes (former and current) from Division I to Division III athletic programs within the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) with the goal of better understanding college athletes’ experience.
Additionally, we conducted interviews with two athletic trainers and two college coaches (also from Division I to Division III athletic programs). Our purpose was to better understand the role coaches and athletic trainers play in an athlete’s collegiate experience, available resources for mental health support, and the role that athletic staff play in supporting both non- and injured athletes. In the distribution of team responsibilities, my primary research focus was speaking to these individuals.
The Double-Edged Sword of Stress
“There is a constant pressure that you have to be perfect; you’re rather terrified to show that you’re not doing everything right...”
“It was a never ending cycle... of achieving goals; the pressure; constant need to be at certain places; being accountable not just for yourself, but the team ”
Our conversations with student-athletes illuminated the complex relationship they have with stress and pressure, revealing both its empowering and damaging effects on their mental health.
Strengths Built Through Stress
Athletes acknowledged that their exposure to high levels of stress often equipped them with unique abilities to thrive under pressure and overcome challenges, surpassing the resilience of the average person. They attributed this adaptability, in part, to the mentorship of upperclassmen on their teams, who served as guides and role models in navigating the demands of collegiate sports.
The Cost of Pushing Through
Despite this resilience, athletes frequently admitted to hiding injuries and playing through pain, driven by fear of losing their spot or disappointing their team. Many felt valued only for their athletic contributions, not as individuals.
Struggles with Validation and Self-Worth
Athletes often questioned whether their mental health struggles were valid, suppressing emotions in environments where vulnerability was seen as weakness.
The Perfectionist’s Burden
Consistently, athletes described the immense pressure to excel in all areas of life—academics, athletics, and personal conduct. This constant demand for perfection took a significant toll on their mental well-being, creating a pervasive sense of inadequacy when they fell short of the near-impossible standards placed upon them
The Front-Line Challenge
Despite the growing availability of mental health resources from universities and athletic governing bodies, coaches, teammates, and athletic training staff remain on the front lines of support—often without the necessary qualifications to provide it effectively.
Hesitation to Seek Support
While many coaches promote an "open door policy," athletes still hesitate to seek help. Coaches noted that creating rapport through conversations about topics outside of sports—such as family, friends, and personal interests—helped foster trust. This made it easier for athletes to open up when facing struggles.
The Role of Teammates
Strong relationships with teammates can also serve as a vital support system. However, these bonds can be complex; while they offer potential for connection, they can also become an additional source of stress and anxiety if not nurtured carefully.
“Coaches will send athletes to us if they suspect they are having trouble, but despite our close relationships with the athletes, the athletic training staff has no mental health support qualifications to advise.”
“It’s easy to say your door is open, but no one is coming in... There is an issue there, we need to make more of an effort to make students comfortable to come in.”
A Near-Term Solution: Fostering Unity and Community
While professionally trained support structures would be ideal for helping athletes manage their stress, building such systems will take time. In the meantime, we focused on creating a near-term intervention designed to nurture a sense of unity and community among student-athletes. By strengthening connections with peers and fostering a supportive environment, athletes can begin to feel more comfortable sharing their struggles and seeking help when needed.
Design and Playtesting.
From Brainstorming to Game Design
Our brainstorming sessions ultimately led us to explore game design as a solution. Each team member developed individual game ideas, focusing on different persuasive techniques. These ranged from self-affirmation and delayed revelation to boosting self-esteem, helping athletes connect their struggles with those of famous figures, and using mystery and guesswork to obfuscate the true purpose of the game.
After narrowing down to three distinct game concepts, we began parallel prototyping and conducting internal playtesting. During this low-fidelity phase, critical points of failure emerged, providing valuable insights that helped us refine our approach.
Sea-Turtle Soup
Game Concept: A verbal puzzle game where players are given a start and an imaginative end. Through asking questions, players work to identify the reason behind the given outline.
Critical Problem: While this game was the most fun and engaging, it failed to achieve our persuasive goals. The game’s structure didn’t effectively facilitate discussions about mental health or build meaningful connections between players.
Stay Afloat
Game Concept: A storytelling game that uses card-generated prompts to guide players in sharing personal anecdotes, helping them build connections with teammates and coaches.
Critical Problem: The prompt structure was too complex, leading players to struggle in finding related experiences to share. This hindered the flow of conversation and the overall purpose of fostering openness and connection.
Find the Facts
Game Concept: A matching game where players associate famous athletes with facts about their mental health struggles, aiming to educate and raise awareness.
Critical Problem: The game leaned more toward an educational activity rather than a truly engaging game. We struggled with how this format would resonate with a broader audience of athletes, as it didn’t provide the fun or connection-building elements that were essential for fostering open conversations around mental health.
Playtesting (again) and Final Design.
Iterating to Headball
Though each of our early prototypes revealed critical failure points, they weren’t without value. Reflecting on the insights from playtesting, we identified an opportunity to combine the elements that worked from each prototype into a cohesive experience: a series of "mini-games" that would come together in a single game, Headball.
Initially, the game board design of Headball was inspired by soccer, but we eventually shifted to a vertical tree structure, where teams would climb as they completed each mini-game. The choice of path would determine which of three mini-games the team would face:
“Word Rush”
A fast-paced guessing game where players collaborate to identify as many words as possible within a set time limit. The focus here was less on persuasion and more on creating an engaging, dynamic experience that subtly supported the game’s deeper goals. This mini-game effectively served as a smoke-screen, allowing players to enjoy the challenge while setting the stage for more meaningful interactions in the subsequent phases of the game.
“Identity Crisis"
In this mini-game, players aim to help their teammates identify public figures based on a series of clues, focusing on successful icons who have overcome adversity. By showcasing individuals who faced challenges and triumphed, the game fosters a sense of connection and identification, helping players see their own struggles reflected in the experiences of these figures. This creates a sense of belonging and inspiration, reinforcing the idea that resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity are universal qualities.
“Spill the Tea"
In this mini-game, players choose from 1 to 4 available prompts to recount a personal experience from their past. This serves the dual purpose of self-affirmation, reminding players of their positive traits, while also helping to build stronger, more personal bonds with their teammates. By sharing meaningful stories, athletes can connect on a deeper level, fostering empathy and creating a supportive environment where they feel valued beyond their athletic abilities.
From Prototype to Solution: Finalizing Headball
Playtesting confirmed that our "Frankenstein" game was the solution. It was not only functional and fun, but also aligned with our persuasive goals, effectively fostering connection and encouraging open conversations. We then transitioned Headball to a digital platform, enabling contactless play and providing the flexibility for future expansion and updates. This shift enhanced accessibility and scalability, allowing more players to engage with the game in a dynamic and seamless way.
Future Direction.
Next Steps and Future Expansion
As Headball moves forward, there are several key areas for growth and refinement. The game was intentionally designed with scalability in mind, allowing it to easily accommodate expansions in both content and mechanics. These enhancements will ensure that the game continues to evolve, remaining engaging and impactful for athletes as it supports their mental health and strengthens team dynamics.
Partner with a Collegiate Team: After refining the game mechanics through smaller testing sessions, the next step is to partner with a collegiate team to build and test Headball with a controlled group of athletes.
Gather More Insights: Conducting incremental check-ins following the introduction of Headball will offer valuable opportunities to assess its effectiveness, gather feedback, and make iterative improvements to ensure the game continues to meet its goals.
Game Expansion: Headball was designed with flexibility in mind, allowing for easy expansion of both content and mechanical components. This includes the ability to introduce new topics for mental health discussions and the addition of specific mini-games and game boards. As the game evolves, these expansions will help keep the experience fresh, relevant, and engaging for athletes, ensuring it can continue to support a wide range of needs and foster deeper connections.
