Schoolwork, performing well in their sport and everyday life can weigh on college athletes.
And these stressors are intensified for Black student-athletes.
That’s why schools like the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss, have built programs focused on their athletes’ mental health and overall well-being.
From licensed counselors to media training, and even internships and dinner etiquette.
“It's not just about treating someone for anxiety and depression,” Shannon Singletary said. “It's also about preventing anxiety and depression.”
Singletary leads internal operations and human and sports performance at Ole Miss. He wants athletes to excel not only in their sport, but in life.
Ole Miss has staffed its sports program with qualified counselors, psychologists and social workers — like Dr. Marlon Bailey, a Black man and the director of sports psychology.
“I think it's best practice to have in-house counselors,” Bailey said. “I think the NCAA would agree with me, and I think that the [Southeastern Conference] would agree with me, but that's just not how every school does it.”
Louisiana State University and Auburn University also have in-house counselors. It can be a strength, but Bailey said there’s also skepticism. Some athletes question whether the school’s interests could impact their counseling.
“I think there's a lot of confusion on that from athletes because I work for the university, but they're my primary client,” he said. “That's what's important to me. And so it may be that sometimes what they want or need is contrary to what would be best for the school."
Bailey emphasized that his team’s work helps every student-athlete, regardless of race or gender, but acknowledged the value of being a Black psychologist.
According to NCAA data published in 2025, more than 40% of college football players are Black, and Black athletes are also highly represented in basketball and track and field.
SEC schools in the Gulf South have a history of racism.
LSU’s “Fighting Tigers” nickname for the athletics program was inspired by the “Louisiana Tigers,” famed Confederate Civil War infantry units.
Former LSU president Troy Middleton was a known segregationist and actively kept Black students from engaging with white students. LSU board member James Williams recounted reading an archival letter from May 1, 1956, where Middleton wrote, “I do not want negro students in LSU, I believe in segregation of the races, and no matter what may come I shall not associate with negroes.”
There’s also former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who blocked Vivian Malone and James Hood, the first Black students enrolled at the University of Alabama, from entering the school in 1963. This was after his infamous inauguration speech where he promised: “segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever”.
The University of Mississippi’s nickname “Ole Miss” originated from “old mistress,” a term enslaved people used when referring to the plantation owner’s wife. Elma Meek, a student at the time, suggested the name in 1896 while brainstorming ideas for the school’s first yearbook. “The Ole Miss Annual” has been published every year since.
In a Vanity Fair article published earlier this year, former Ole Miss head football coach Lane Kiffin said it was difficult recruiting top Black athletes because of the state's racist history and the university's legacy of celebrating the Confederacy.
Kiffin later apologized for his statements, but Bailey can attest that Black student-athletes say they’ve experienced racism.
“I won't say often because that feels a little unfair,” Bailey said, “but certainly more than once and certainly enough I hear stories about racist tropes being… portrayed to athletes and not necessarily just when they're at a game.”
Videos depicting white Ole Miss students mocking Black students have also garnered national attention in recent years.
During a 2024 pro-Palestinian protest on campus, a white member of a fraternity was seen on video dancing and making monkey noises toward a Black graduate student.
Earlier this month, Ole Miss launched an investigation after a video captured from a doorbell camera of two white students making monkey noises towards an apartment front door began circulating on social media. Three Black students live in the apartment, and one of them, freshman Jakiyra Metcalf, posted the footage online and tagged the university.
“Someone walking around somebody pantomiming being a monkey or walking around and having people threaten you or call you the N-word or something like that. That happens. And I think it's helpful to have a space to talk about that,” Bailey said.
The Ole Miss program also aims to help athletes discover their identity outside their sport and reduce the stigma surrounding mental health care.
Olivia Lackey-Benson, a Black woman counselor on the mental health team, uses art in her sessions.
“Some clients are doing clay. They get to create like their own thing… I do this because when you really look at those, it's kind of like a resemblance that you're not the only one that sits in my chair,” Lackey-Benson said.
She centers her work around athletes' identities and discovering who they are outside of their sports. She believes this approach can help block criticism from broadcasters and fans and keep the focus on athletes' well-being.
“How are we able to be comfortable with ourselves? Be comfortable with our performance… because the more that we focus on that score and the broadcasters and what people are saying or if we're trying to prove something to somebody else, the more it really does affect [you],” Lackey-Benson said. “ It’s not balanced — the internal with the external motivation.”
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Alabama, WWNO and WRKF in Louisiana and NPR. It was also produced as a project for the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism's 2026 National Fellowship.
