Dr. Yarlie Nicolas, LMFT, Sports Family Therapist, is a seasoned Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and founder of Home Field Consulting, LLC, specializing in athletes and their families. She is also the Assistant Athletic Director for Mental Health Services at Baylor University and a Mental Health Provider for the NBA.
They say home is where your heart is. No matter where you are in the world, the concept of home goes beyond a physical address and lies heavily on an emotional connection. What fosters one's understanding of home is birthed through the relationships formed and maintained. This term is often known as social constructionism (Gergen, 1976), in which meaning was birthed from social interactions, a postmodern philosophy. So, the social construct of home is tied to one's emotional dynamic. I think back to the famous quote from Dorthy in The Wizard of Oz. "There is no place like Home." This could not be further from the truth when relating to the concept of a home team in sports.
The term home team advantage refers to the advantage that sports teams have when playing in a familiar setting, commonly in their hometown, with the support of fans and community fostering and fueling the athletes to win. The term home-field advantage isomorphically used to illustrate the influence of community and family on the athletes' success. Schwartz and Barsky (1977) published a study that depicts the impact or factors associated with home advantage; the authors stated: For, like athletes, we all perform before and depend on the goodwill of many audiences. We assume that whatever our objectives, we will perform better when there is someone behind us than when we are left alone and forced to rely on our own resources. (p. 642).
The authors elaborate on various factors that foster sports teams to excel, such as familiarity and game location. Another key factor is the social support of the community.
They note:
The home team’s advantage is thus most pronounced when the social congregation before which it performs achieves its greatest compactness and intensity and when it expresses itself in the most sustained way. The main strength of this particular argument is that while it entitles us to credit the home advantage to social support, it also helps explain differences in the extent of that advantage among sports. (Schwartz & Barsky, p. 652)
Metaphorically, the term home team can mirror or represent our families in the field of life.
Disney+ recently released the film "Rise," a biopic of NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and his family's journey from Nigeria to Greece and his emergence to the NBA. I have followed the Antetokounmpo family's prolific story for years since the Milwaukee Bucks drafted Giannis. Although I am a passionate sports fan, it was not Gianni's blocks against the rim or how he plays with so much agility and dominance that drew me to him. It was the story behind the dunks and the beautiful Nigerian-Greek family that gleamed with pride as he made his way across the court one point at a time. Their story is one of resilience, hard work, and overcoming tragedy to make a way for a family to provide upward mobility. At a very young age, Giannis was determined to help his family, and I cannot imagine the stressors or sleepless nights he endured in a new place away from family and culture as he embarked on his journey to the NBA. His family was his fuel to help him stay grounded and work harder. As aforementioned, I believe that the family is a home team helping navigate the adversities and oppositions we face in this game called life.
The need for sports family therapy
Sports psychology is a critical field in the diaspora and field of psychology. Traditionally, sports psychology has focused solely on overall performance and individual athletes' mental agility in the game. It is vital never to negate the importance of this electric field. However, what happens when an athlete has to deal with contextual factors that go beyond a workout? What happens when they have to deal with the death of a loved one before a track meet? Or moving away internationally from their entire family to pursue their athletic dream and being homesick? What happens when their grandmother has a stroke, and is that the only reason they started playing sports? What happens when the weight of the community and economic or financial needs are the only reasons for joining the team? These are the questions I asked myself about how important it is for us not to look at the field of sports from a linear or individualized way but from a systemic and relational. These are just a few reasons I coined the term sports family therapy (Nicolas, 2020) in my dissertation to bridge the gap between sports psychology and marriage and family therapy. Almost every discipline has a subunit addressing sports: sports medicine, psychology, law, education, social work, sociology, and even anthropology. However, more research in marriage and family therapy (Gordon, 2017) needs to address sports.
The sports field is indeed a diverse and relational subculture; sports family therapy will highlight and train future clinicians on how to work with this particular diverse subgroup. According to Hardy (1995), the content-focused approach to multicultural education overemphasizes the characteristics of various cultural groups. Hardy (1995) articulated this well, "although it is beneficial for trainees to receive exposure to content highlighting the unique aspects of various, it is rare that such knowledge readily translates into sensitivity" (p. 227).
Sports are relational, and almost every organization uses sports metaphors to bring comradeship or a sense of community. Cliches such as "There is I in team" or "team culture" are just a few social impacts that stress how sports are relational. However, when it comes to clinically treating or understanding the mental health of our athletes, we revert to one linear model or medical model of psychology and neglect to address how relationships can impact one's performance and overall mental well-being.
What is sports family therapy?
Dr. Gregory Bateson (1974) stated the quote that guides my professional philosophy, "Every behavior makes sense in context," and I firmly believe that when it comes to fully understanding strategies to aid with mental health and athletic development, a new approach is necessary to the field of sports psychology and marriage & family therapy. Thus, the birth of sports family therapy. Sports Family Therapy is a strength-based systemic approach when working with athletes.
Reflecting on Giannis' journey to the NBA, which is one of resiliency and grit, one cannot ignore the cultural factors that played a role in the rise of this electrifying dominant MVP. There are multiple layers of the Giannis and Antetokounmpo family process, and why sports family therapy is critical to uncovering and aiding coaches, agents, and collaborating with other sports psychologists, social workers, and mental health professionals who devote their work to athletes. The missing piece, you ask? Well, the family dynamic influences their athletic development.
Key components of sports family therapy
My goal and passion are that this research may aid in eliciting awareness of this gap and thereby foster a newly coined term and field: sports family therapy. Sports family therapy (SPFT) focuses on implementing a brief, strength-based, culturally sensitive, and systems epistemology in sports (Nicolas, 2020). SPFT will help create clinical research and applied practice within athletics. Through this model, MFT therapists can apply their training to working with athletic teams, organizations, individuals, couples, groups, and athletes' families (Nicolas, 2020). Three key components are below:
1. Please focus on the athlete and the family unit
During this summer, Paris Olympics 2024, we saw the impact of familial support and its impact on athletic development. I watched this beautifully depicted when USA Paralympic Champion Hunter Woodhall and wife, USA Olympic champion Tara Davis-Woodhall, embraced as she won and brought home gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the long jump after leaping 7.10 meters and she instantly became a star. She then turned her attention to the Paralympics, where she cheered on her husband, Hunter Woodhall. As Tara ran and leaped into her husband's arms after winning, this metaphorically illustrates how important family truly is. In the ocean of fans, she ran to her home team—her family.
2. Stress and conflict management
Another critical component of SPFT is how stressors can impact their overall well-being and performance. Athletes are humans; they have families and communities and are stressed, just like everyone else. They often are glamorized but often misunderstood. Another example of this crucial component is the need to address the stressors of athletes. The most decorated Olympian in track and field with 11 medals, Allyson Felix, also in the Paris 2024 Olympics, addressed this need to not just focus on the athletes, more specifically female athletes, and motherhood but decided to take the initiative and create Olympic Village's inaugural nursery to support parent athletes in partnership with Pampers ( Mikhail, A., 2024). This supports why sports family is essential in mental health, especially marriage and family therapy because focusing solely on the athlete's performance without focusing on the human behind the jersey or their origin stories dismisses the humanity of the athlete.
As mentioned, Sports Family Therapy(SPFT) aims to help shift the narrative and create a new branch and field where the focus is not limited to athletic performance. However, it explores the systems that impact the athlete on and off the field—a more holistic approach to interacting with athletes and examining how their relationships impact their well-being. Felix highlighted the need to address the stress of being an athlete and a new mother. She addressed how "the systems are not in place for mothers whatsoever," Felix, who retired from competing professionally in 2022, expressed in an interview. "I am just trying to use my voice and speak up for some of these pretty basic things and try to see what we can implement." Felix is an example of how important it is to address the humanity and systems of an athlete.
3. Cultural sensitivity in therapy
"I sustain myself with the love of family." – Dr. Maya Angelou.
Clinicians working with various cultural demographics and subgroups must be cognizant of preconceived notions or assumptions, especially if they are not empirically supported. According to Hardy (1995), training programs devoted to preparing culturally competent therapists must recognize and attend to the distinction between awareness and sensitivity. Awareness is primarily a cognitive function; an individual becomes conscious of a thought or action and processes it intellectually. In contrast, sensitivity is primarily an affective function: an individual responds emotionally to stimuli delicately and respectfully. Although these functions appear unique and separate, each is shaded with nuances of the other.
Essentially, awareness involves a conscious sensitivity, and sensitivity involves a delicate awareness. Although most individuals possess varying degrees of awareness and sensitivity, training programs to prepare culturally competent therapists must facilitate a more excellent interface between these functions. Hardy (1995) articulated this well: "To meet the demands of a changing world, it will be imperative for family therapy training programs to devote greater attention to preparing culturally competent therapists" (Hardy, 1995, p.1) (Nicolas, 2020).
Reflecting on Giannis and the Antekompo family, Giannis's experience of transitioning from Greece to the USA was one of resilience and working diligence. In his 2019 MVP speech, in tears, he attributes his motivation to his late father and their journey from Greece to supporting him in being a dominant player. You can see how instrumental he was in his performance if you compare his rookie year coming to the United States and SPFT will help bring awareness to changing how we work with athletes of various cultural backgrounds. Cultural sensitivity is the awareness, understanding, and respect for cultural differences and similarities. It involves recognizing and valuing cultural diversity, being open to learning about other people's traditions, values, customs, and perspectives, and adjusting one's behavior to ensure interactions are respectful and inclusive. Having cultural sensitivity in therapy may mean to be:
Aware of how cultural social norms, external stressors, trauma, and racial tensions can also impact the athletes' emotional well-being.
Client-centered communication: listening without judgment. Culturally sensitive therapists listen to their clients' experiences and viewpoints without imposing their cultural biases. They create a safe space for clients to express themselves fully.
Incorporating cultural strengths: Rather than pathologizing differences, therapists recognize and incorporate cultural strengths, such as community support or spiritual practices, as resources for resilience.
Conclusion
I was privileged to introduce a new perspective and niche into the mental health space. A perspective that is often observed but often negated. Working with these brilliant, insightful, and lionhearted athletes is why I had to address the gap and need to be innovative--- a birth sports family therapy (SPFT). The challenges many of them endure to reach their optimal level are to be commended, and more specifically, the home team that empowered them when cameras and media were off deserves the championship rings. This highlights the need for more trained, culturally sensitive clinicians in the athletic space and a holistic and systemic approach when working with athletes of different cultural backgrounds. For example, with the constant pressures and cultural climate that seems to belittle, berate, and emasculate black men, the narratives focused on distorted images needed to be challenged. SPFT will catapult the industry by bringing awareness by focusing on the athletes and their families, addressing stress and conflict management, and cultural sensitivity. With the demographic of sports being heavily diverse, clinicians who desire to work in this space need to be not just culturally competent but in tune with self-evaluation of their own biases. Especially when working with black male athletes and athletes of color in general.
The limited previous literature is needed to understand that families are socially constructed and are mysteries to be appreciated. The rich stories of Black families are the genesis of where our Black male athletes were born, cultivated, and evolved. It is imperative that we, as researchers, clinicians, psychologists, and mental health advocates, never silence the voices of the athletes' home team.
Read more from Dr. Yarlie Ruth Nicolas
Dr. Yarlie Ruth Nicolas, Sports Family Therapist
Dr. Yarlie Nicolas, LMFT, is a distinguished “Sports Family Therapist” with over a decade of clinical expertise. As the founder of Home Field Consulting, LLC, she enhances the mental health and performance of athletes and their families. A dynamic speaker, consultant, and adjunct professor, Dr. Yarlie is dedicated to helping individuals thrive regardless of their jersey number or C-suite position. In her roles as the Assistant Athletic Director for Mental Health Services at Baylor University and a Mental Health Provider for the NBA, she brings extensive experience in stress management, self-care, and human performance, establishing herself as a top expert in sports and family therapy.
References:
Abdul-Jabbar, K. (2018). Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: What sports have taught me about race in America. The Guardian [Blog Post]. Retrieved here.
Abdul-Jabbar, K., & Obstfeld, R. (2016). Writings on the wall: Searching for a new equality beyond Black and White. New York, NY: Time Life Books.
Adair, D., & Rowe, D. (2010). Beyond boundaries? ‘Race’, ethnicity and identity in sport. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 45(3), 251-257.
Hardy, K. V., & Laszloffy, T. A. (1995). The cultural genogram: Key to training culturally competent family therapists. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 21(3), 227-237.
Nicolas, Y.R. (2020, August 20). An Appreciative Inquiry on the Positive Influences of Families on Black Male Professional Athletic Development [Dissertation Presentation]. Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL.
Ponterotto, J. G., & Mallinckrodt, B. (2007). Evidence-based multicultural counseling and therapy. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counseling psychology (4th ed., pp. 439-490). Wiley.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). Improving cultural competence (Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Series No. 59). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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