#27 Beth Launiere: Mental Health and Flourishing in Sports
Mental health in elite athletes is an elevated topic in 2021. In sports, there’s a fine line between growth and exhaustion, strength and breakdown, health and pathology—and this couldn’t be more true for athletes competing during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Yet sports also provide a unique playground for the development of mental tools, identity, and tolerance for discomfort.
In this conversation with Beth Launiere, storied head coach of the University of Utah Women’s Volleyball team (and my former coach), we discuss the mental and emotional facets of competition and the responsibility of the systems and leaders that support elite athletes. We also discuss the challenges of a season during COVID and social unrest and how tumultuous times can give way to a fresh start.
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“Learning how to have conversations, to disagree and still have each other’s backs—that is profound.”
Beth Launiere arrived at Utah in 1990 and took over a program that had compiled a 1-32 record the previous year. Inspiring a turnaround in the program, she recorded Utah’s first winning season in seven years (18-15) in 1992, just her third year. She has now registered 588 career victories, 275 conference wins and an all-time winning percentage of .606, and all of these marks rank first among Utah volleyball’s coaching records.
Beth was named the Pac-12 Coach of the Year in 2019 after leading Utah to a 24-10 record, a third-place finish in the Pac-12 and the program’s fourth Sweet 16 appearance (two in the last three years), with four players named to the All-American team. Along with earning her first Pac-12 Coach of the Year honor, she also was named the AVCA West Region Coach of the Year for the fourth time (2001, ’06, ’08, ‘19). She had also been named the Mountain West Conference (MWC) Coach of the Year 3 times (2004, ’06, ’08).