An Alumni Spotlight on Caitlin Broadwell
May 12, 2023 
BATON ROUGE, LA - Caitlin Broadwell is a recent graduate of the Masters of Education in Counseling program the LSU Lutrill & Pearl Payne School of Education.
The Journey to LSU...
Caitlin graduated from Colorado State University-Pueblo with a degree in Psychology. She was an amazing athlete that played volleyball. She was then about to move to Australia to be a nanny to a family. She was given an opportunity to come and play beach volleyball for LSU and decided it was a worthwhile venture. She started a master's degree in Pedagogy and Psychological sciences, because she always knew that she wanted to do sports psychology. Quickly into her time at LSU, she had a conversation with Professor Császár. This conversation helped her realize that she was a great fit for the counseling program, and she applied.
Tell us more about your work now.
Caitlin works as the Athletics Case Manager for the California State University, Long Beach location. She is the only mental health personnel a lot of these athletes are coming in contact with. She meets with them to help them with adjustment issues and connects them with food stamps, psychiatric care, programs for wellness and other resources that ensure their success. She sees a lot of cases of athletes struggling with perfectionism, hard thoughts after injury, and balancing schoolwork with intensive practices and competition. Initially nervous because of the title “case manager”, she loves her position as it is a brand-new position that she has been able to build from the ground up. She works directly under the head athletic trainer and is working towards becoming an official PLPC. She is able to use her counseling skills learned from Professor Curry and feels they give her a gut feeling about what to say when she is in the room with athletes.
Life After Long Beach, Athlete Transition Program
Caitlin has worked tirelessly to develop a program to help athletes in their overall adjustment. She has a passion for helping athletes adjust to life after athletics. These students find a lot of identity and resources in their athletic programs, and this is essentially stripped of them when they graduate. The goal of this program is to help this transition go easier. Alumni come and speak, athletes create schedules, think of new hobbies and even articulate their transferable skills. The goal of the program is to fill current athletes with confidence and excitement. Caitlin hopes it will become an annual event.
Final Thoughts and Tips to Current Tigers
Caitlin would like to thank all her professors from LSU, especially Dr. Pole of sports psychology as she now feels over-prepared because of their priceless training. To current students, Caitlin has a message of hope. She tells them to get excited as mental health is finally at the forefront of everyone’s mind. She believes NCAA positions are going to start opening up and there will be an influx of jobs for counselors. She encourages new graduates to be picky and know their worth. She is so grateful she remained patient and found the perfect job for her not only professionally, but also financially.
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