When Tough Love Goes Too Far

For student-athletes, your coach can be your biggest cheerleader... Or a seriously toxic presence in your life. Here, a cautionary tale about coaches whose harmful behaviors can cause you to lose yourself in the name of winning.

- By Sarah Wassner Flynn

Picture this: You're a track star who has earned a college scholarship to one of the most successful running programs in the country. You're working hard, adjusting to the strains of being a collegiate athlete and trying your best to crush it on the track and in the classroom.

Then, your coaches tell you you're just not good enough. They test your body fat percentage and suggest you lose weight. Your role on the team may depend on it, they say. The comments make you feel awful about yourself. Just eating a cookie overwhelms you with guilt. Before long, your love for running is replaced with stress and anguish, and you quit the team.

This is the scenario alleged by six female runners at the University of Oregon who left the team after accusing their coach of body shaming and using body fat and bone density scans to suggest when athletes needed to slim down. (The head coach of the program has since been replaced.)

And it's a narrative that's been seen on the high school level, too. Reporting by Runner's World magazine highlighted the toxic culture of high school running. Coaches, subscribing to an intense, win-at-all-costs mentality, can encourage behavior such as over-training and undereating-which can lead to long-term mental and physical health struggles.

When I read about the struggles these athletes are going through, I could totally relate. As a high school runner, I had a toxic relationship with my coach that almost destroyed me-emotionally and physically.

FEELING THE PRESSURE