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Emily Nadel

Ms Williams

Artist's Statement

December 1, 2023

Artist's Statement

For this project, I wanted to bring awareness to athletes about mental health and

understand that taking a break from the game is okay. From a young age, athletes will find their

love for playing sports, continuing to play throughout high school. Athletes will put hours of

hard work into their sport to become the best version of themselves and often forget the mental

side of the game. I understand what it feels like to become overly consumed in a sport and lose

yourself as a person. It wasn't until my sophomore year that I had no choice but to step away

from the game to focus on my mental health. I went through a tough time not understanding and

feeling like I failed everyone. Only with time did I know that this break helped me grow as a

player and understand there was more to life than the game.

I want to educate other athletes to understand and be aware of the importance of focusing

on health rather than the game. In addition, I want to mention when it's time to step down and

take a break, helping others not go down the same path as I did in the past. In an athlete's career,

they will experience a mental struggle and frequently suffer in silence due to not having the

resources to seek help, resulting in risk factors. In this project, I directed my audience towards

student-athletes in high school as they will face the most pressure in trying to juggle school,

sports, and other activities. They will experience additional stress in gaining exposure to college

coaches, as many want to advance their careers to the next level. From what I've experienced and
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watched, I've noticed that mental health is commonly forgotten and overlooked in high school

sports because of the few available resources out there for athletes as they do for physical health.

With this project, I want to bring awareness to high school sports to hopefully add more

resources available to student-athletes to prevent the mental game from limiting athletes from

furthering their careers.

I created a website during this project because most of this generation is online, and this

source would be most available to my target audience. While making a website, I had to think

about what would be most appealing to my targeted audience to keep them engaged throughout

the site. Initially, I had to think about the layout and how to present my information in a way that

would grab my audience's attention. I kept my lay straightforward. In addition, I had to figure out

my main topics to add to the website to educate people about the importance of mental health in

the sports world. While I figured out the topic and brought attention to all the common factors

related to the sports world, my next steps were to find out how to share my information while not

making it too long because this generation of people is known for their short attention spans. I

would say this was my main struggle: gathering all my information and not repeating myself

throughout the website. My solution was to add a brief description of what my topic would be on

for each page and add bullet points instead of all paragraphs to display my information.

The following steps were thinking about the navigation and adding resources to ensure

my website was easy to follow. I would add links and pictures to help separate my work. I have

then added signs and actions to grab the audience's attention and make them aware of the impact

of mental health in sports. On each page, I had a brief paragraph describing the topic. I added

pictures to sections of my paragraphs and, lastly, added resources to add more info for my
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audience. In addition to concluding my website, I had to focus on the details. I recommend how

my audience will contain the info on running the site. I had to find strategies that would help me

make this website functional. I tried to put myself in their shoes, understand what they were

going through, and find solutions to help them. Each site page lists the cause, effects, and actions

to help my audience understand each topic that was given.

Throughout my project, I would change how I started as the beginning was too complex

and made it hard to complete this website. I knew making a website was a lot of steps and had a

lot of notches, so making sure not to cram everything at once was a big thing. With this project, I

want to take away the importance of recognizing mental health struggles in high school athletes

and help them understand the importance of self-care both physically and mentally. I also wanted

to break the stigma on mental health and normalize the importance of athletes taking a break to

focus on their health rather than the sport.

In conclusion, I would say most of this project was easy. I think the most challenging

part was the beginning and adding little details. My strategies to help me complete my website

were staying organized with my research, using bullet points for my main topic, and

summarizing what I read to help me comprehend what I researched. In addition, using feedback

helped me understand my most vital points and areas where I needed more help.