Review: ‘The Price She Pays’ offers solutions to mental health ‘crisis’ in women’s sports

When Katie Steele and Tiffany Brown began conducting interviews for their book, The Price She Pays, they expected to hear stories of athletes dealing with internal struggles, external pressures, mistreatment and abuse.

As licensed therapists with long and direct connections to the world of sports, it was no secret to either of them that the journey for women in sports can be fraught with trauma.

What Steele and Brown didn’t expect was the sheer volume of shared experiences and the clarity of solutions they could offer in the book, which examines what the authors describe as a mental health “crisis” in women’s sports from the level of youth to pro. The Price She Pays is released next Tuesday, with a book signing event set for 7 p.m. Thursday, June 27, at Powell’s Books in Beaverton.

The Oregonian/OregonLive obtained an advance copy for review.

“Part of what we’re trained to do with our background and the type of therapy we use is to look at the whole system,” Brown told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “If you’re coming into therapy and you’re dealing with depression, we’re not just going to focus on one or two different things to get better with your depression. We’re also looking at what’s going on around you and what’s going on within all the systems around you that make that depression make sense, and what we can do differently within those systems.

“In order for there to be change in women’s sports, there must be change within the systems in which women operate and compete.”

As women’s sports continue their rapid ascent in popularity and financial viability, it is Steele and Brown’s belief that the growth of women’s sports must occur concurrently with a solutions-based approach to mental health. If women are to be properly supported in the athletic space, then parents, fans, coaches, media and institutional leaders have a responsibility to reframe the way they think about the positive and negative impacts of sport on the well-being of women and girls.

Body confidence and acceptance, creating healthy player-coach relationships, parenting with patience and emotional sensitivity, identifying mental health concerns or potential mistreatment and abuse—these are just a handful of the heavy topics “The Price That she pays.”

“It’s essential,” Steele said. “We have to pull back the veil, because if we don’t know what we don’t know, then it’s hard to generate change. We needed to pull back the veil so people had a full understanding of what’s happening in women’s sports and create solutions. We don’t just want to name the problem. We can know that there are things that aren’t working and we also know other things that are working, and there are athletes, programs and coaches that celebrate women athletes and elevate them to where they deserve to be. A big part of mental health is coexistence. It can be all at once.”

The book is sometimes not an easy read, but it doesn’t have to be. What he’s facing is systemic, and — for women or those with women in their lives who play or have played sports — it’s proven in some heartbreaking ways.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, or a howl in the void: Steele and Brown wanted to make these problems clear and create as much, if not more, space in these pages for tangible, nuanced solutions. and thoughtful.

“We wouldn’t have done this if we didn’t believe change was possible,” Steele said. “We wouldn’t have done this if we didn’t love the sport. These sports are amazing, and the athletes who participate are incredible. We want to see all of these raised and believe in the possibility of that.”

Steele is a former track athlete at the University of Oregon and co-founder of Thrive Mental Health along with the Athletes’ Mental Health Foundation. Brown is a senior faculty member at the UO’s couples and family therapy graduate program and provides mental health education to coaches and staff. They co-wrote The Price She Pays with journalist Erin Strout.

The first few pages include Steele’s retelling of her motivation to pursue a career in the mental health space: her personal history of trauma during her time in the UO track program, which she said included multiple pressures that affected her image. her body and general mental health along with the alleged mismanagement of medications prescribed to her by a doctor.

“The Price She Pays” makes it clear that all the trauma—”big and small T,” as the book mentions—is worth it. All of this is a reason for systemic change, whether it’s the fourth-grader who quits basketball because she doesn’t feel comfortable in her uniform or the widespread failures by teams and institutions to protect female professional soccer players from abuse, as described in the report. of Yates. in the year 2022.

Leagues, teams, coaches and parents can no longer take half measures and pat themselves on the back when it comes to addressing mental health, Steele and Brown explain. They need to look carefully at these issues, listen to the athletes and act on solutions that put their well-being first.

“It’s a business,” Brown said. “And because of that, like any other business, we have to look at how ’employees’ are being treated and what the expectations are. Unfortunately, in sports – and especially in women’s sports – there are not many clear expectations in terms of how women are treated.

Those in the sports world will need to understand that establishing clear solutions to mental health challenges is just as important — if not more so — than winning, Steele explained. And that the two are inextricably linked.

“Most teams, most established leagues and programs, know that mental health needs to be addressed,” Steele said. “The NCAA just released ‘best practices’ for mental health. And we’re like, best practices? We are in 2024. These must be mandated. There is a box that is checked by sports teams, leagues and institutions when it should actually be integrated. We need athlete well-being to become as important as winning, and we need to quantify it.”

“The Price She Pays” is straightforward, instructive, heartbreaking, and consistently comprehensive. It should be required reading for those who love, appreciate or have a special interest in sports. It is available for pre-order through Powell’s, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and elsewhere.

The book signing event with Steele and Brown begins at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 27, at the Beaverton location of Powell’s, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd.

— Ryan Clarke covers the Oregon Ducks and the Big Ten Conference for The Oregonian and co-hosts the “Soccer Made in Portland” and “Ducks Confidential” podcasts. He can be reached at rclarke@oregonian.com or @RyanTClarke.

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