The latest in the Coaching Positive Mental Health series is entitled Benching the Stigma and featured:
-Betsy Cutler, M. Ed., President and CEO, Cutler Wellness Programs
-Dr. Gary Bennett, Ph.D., Associate Athletic Director/Sports Psychology, Virginia Tech
-Rennel Marshall, LCSW at CHKD, former collegiate football player and high school coach.
This forum was produced by the Hampton Roads Sports Commission, Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, and CHKD Sports Medicine
move forward tonight we share with you coaching mental health, our panel series benching the stigma produced by the Hampton Roads Sports Commission, Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and C. S. K. D. E. Sports Medicine. Before we begin, we'd like to honor and mentioned some of our other partners optimal health dot con, inc atlantic bay mortgage priority automotive town bank, Pepsi, the city of Virginia beach in the Hampton Roads chamber for making this possible. Tonight we want to touch and and talk about a very important topic, a very important subject in our community and our youth community, uh, mental wellness and mental health. As many of you know, it's okay in many cases to get private lessons, it's okay to get athletic and physical training but sometimes it's not so okay or it's frowned upon to address our use mental health, address our use mental wellness, address our use mental problems in some cases. So tonight we pulled together this panel to address these things. We pulled together this panel to make and bring awareness to this most important topic so that we can help those of you who are listening on behalf of one of our partners. ChK D C S K D s greatest strength and in the community is working together to give our young athletes to support that they need to be successful. We work together to venture the stigma around mental health and wellness. No single agency, family or athlete can do this alone. This crisis is too deep, too wide. Uh, if you can believe it, one in five, uh, youth between the ages of zero and 18 have diagnosable psychiatric illness and the second leading cause of death is youth, 10- 24 is suicide. This is why we were having these discussions. Our athletes are not excluded, excluded from these statistics, but we're often overlooked them because they are active and seem okay on the outside. But oftentimes they're not, we need you to as a repeat bench the stigma and give a voice to those who are suffering and send the message that is okay and necessary to reach out for help. Also as a call or as a part of this call to action and a part of ch cady's mission. Uh they are committed to improving health and well being of all Children 0 to 18 that includes our athletes who suffer in silence again as we said before we've pulled this panel together, this esteemed panel to address these issues tonight. To speak to you As we're speaking, please put your comments in the Q and a box uh, so that we can address your questions on top of the ones that will pose to the panelists tonight. We have with us Dr Gary Bennett, associate athletic director, licensed clinical and sports psychologist and certified mental performance consultant at Virginia Tech. Dr Bennett will be phoning in so you won't see him but you'll hear him dr Bennett. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Not good to hear from you also we have with us renal marshall medical social worker, Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters, an area high school football coach Rainelle, good evening to you. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for having Yes sir. Elliot Elliot Francis with us cox high school student athlete there on the soccer team. Elliot was actually with us as a Panelist back in october for our our first edition of our Mental wellness forum, the Pandemic Playbook but we wanted to have Elliot back to share his experiences with us. Elliot, good evening to you. Alright and Betsy Cutler, President Ceo of Cutler wellness program LLC. That's a good evening. Good evening. Great to have you and our guest host Will Driscoll, executive director of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. Will always good to see you. Always. Good to see you, Claudel. Good to see everybody as well. And looking forward to this event tonight. Good. Well, as we move forward, we will we're working to give Betsy Cutler our first participant who has a very key power point for us. We're working to give her screen sharing abilities and she will get started, Betsy, if you will please get started with uh your slide number one and we'll pull that up on the screen. Are we good? Yeah, we can see it Betty. Okay, we're ready to roll. Yes, we are. All right. Well thank you Claudel and thank you all for being a part of this presentation tonight. Um I want to just basically, let's start at the beginning. What is mental health? Mental health refers to cognitive behavioral and emotional well being in its simplest form, it's how we think, how we feel and how we behave. So what are the factors that specifically affect our student athletes? Mental health, basically, we're asking what factors affect our student athletes, what they think, what they feel and how they behave. So in athletics, we know what physical trauma looks like, but oftentimes we don't know or can't see what emotional trauma looks like. First factors we're going to look at is emotional trauma from a can be a single episode or complex. A single episode is something that is a significant long time event, House Fire, a robbery, a car accident. Perhaps the death of a very important loved one sounds like trauma or post traumatic stress disorder. Is trauma experienced in multiple episodic events such as repeated violence, neglect or abuse complex. PTSD is thought to be more severe if it occurs when you are younger or if it lasts for a long period of time. So not everyone deals with significant emotional trauma, but it can be a hidden factor that's affecting our student athletes mental health. Next these are factors that affect our students on a daily basis. Their academics, any family issues or dynamics throw in their work if they need to earn some money managing their peers and their friend groups, managing and figuring out their sexuality and their partners, managing social media, which today can be very difficult introducing their social life, which is integral to a youths life, their spirituality, figuring out what is their faith, what is their spirituality over this last year? The next two pieces are just unfathomable how much they have affected our students, mental health, hope in isolation and social injustice. So in addition to emotional trauma and daily student factors, these next set of factors are for athletes specific the physical toll on your body sleep and their nutrition, an injury or a demotion perceived or real pressures by coaches, parents, social media, teammates or peers. And I want to highlight here that whether it's perceived or it's real, it is internalized the same way for our athletes. College recruitment. It was already stressful trying to figure out college recruitment as a high school athlete, throw on covid and we're having offers rescinded or they're asked to take the back here. It has been unbelievable stress for our student athletes. So I want to pause right here and I'm asking our parents and our coaches to just look at the slide. These are all the factors are, student athletes are dealing with every day and for our athletes, I want to point to you all that. First of all we see you, we see and look at all the things that you're dealing with every day and we want you to know we are here for you and we are here to help you. The next thing that we're going to look at our, what are the barriers for student athletes to actually seek mental health support? Our first one is athlete mental health illiteracy, basically for our coaches and our parents, really not a lot of specific information that you can go to to learn about athlete, mental health and student mental health. Um, and for our athletes, there's really just a sprinkling of mental health curriculum in your school systems. 2nd 1 is mental health accessibility, that's both time and proximity as well as finances. So it is important parents and athletes that if you feel like you need mental health support, you need to make the time to get it done. Another issue is how close, what's your proximity to a clinician? And then the third piece of that is finances. Are there free services? Does your insurance cover it? Our 3rd 1 here is stigma. So how do we overcome the stigma of seeking help? Well education and I have to tell you tonight is an amazing start and learning about basic mental health and how it affects our student athletes. Mental health accessibility. It is important to normalize seeking mental health, supports our parents, our coaches and our athletes. And now stigma have a really good friend of mine that started a mental health movement called ST here below. He believed that most of the stigma around mental health was because of a we weren't using terms like mental health And be the statistic that has been around for over 25 years, that one in five adults suffer from mental illness. So at the beginning of 2020, he had a huge push and he decided that he wanted to start #5 & five, basically, he wants to communicate that all of us Deal with mental health issues. That is five people out of five, deal with mental health issues, #5 & five. So tonight, our coalition would like to introduce our call to action for our athletes and that is hashtag bench the stigma. So, if you're on social media throughout this presentation or after the presentation, we ask that you throw in there, the hashtag bench, the stigma. It helps to promote our goal of reducing stigma around student athletes seeking mental health supports. So, to further illustrate this concept of we all deal with mental health issues is the mental health continuum. And so you're now every single day, every single person is on the mental health, continue. Your coach, your parents, your athlete, your educator, All of us at any given time is somewhere on this mental health continue. And when we start to understand that we will understand that stigma can be broken because we all have been there. So I'm going to close out with this, what does an overall athlete mental well being needs? So I briefly introduce you and explain some of the mental health concepts. Another major component that I just touched on was physical health, workout, endurance and strength, nutrition, sleep. This 3rd component of athletic performance for specific skills may be talking about how our alignment, how quickly are they coming up out of their stance to engage in the defender for our basketball athletes? What is their free for a percentage. Mental skills and techniques and sport performance psychology. And I know going forward that we have Dr Bennett who is going to be able to really talk about the differences between mental health and clinical health, athletic and sport performance psychology. So this is what the overall mental well being is meant for an athlete. It's these three components working in union together. Okay, thank you Betsy. Very valuable information. And again as we go through the program tonight we encourage you to ask any questions that you want to put those in the Q. And a box. As we take a round two with our panelists, they will answer those. Next we will go with next we will go to Dr Gary Bennett, very associate athletic director and licensed clinical sports psychologist from Virginia Tech. DR Bennett, Girl Card L good evening to you and I'm glad you could join us. We would love to see your face but we will take your voice and your expertise. I'm not so not so sure about that, that that's nice for you to say. But in your profession and the student athletes that you work with, you know, in what ways do you bench the stigma or encourage positive positive mental health with the athletes that you work with and come in contact with at Virginia Tech? Well, I mean, I would sort of piggyback off some of the things that he said. I think in large part at our department it starts with our administrators and our coaches who recognize the importance of mental health and recognize um that as Betsy was saying, we all fall in that continuum. Some days were more down on the end where we're driving. Yes, you know, on top of our game, whereas other days we are just struggling to survive. And I love that five out of five metaphor because we just really emphasis that we all we all have issues. We need to be aware emotionally of where we are, where other people were at and when folks are in need of treatment to get them pointed in the right direction. And, you know, we've we've been fortunate Virginia Tech, um, for 20 years, we've been working on this, so it didn't happen overnight. But um, you know, over time, the message has gotten clearer and stronger that this is something that we all deal with and there's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not a sign of weakness, actually, it's a sign of strength to be able to acknowledge those problems and to seek help were needed. Certainly, a certain kind of courage as well. You know, what are some of the negative effects that you've seen for student athletes or youth sports athletes? You know, who have not sought out help? And you know, what are some of the negative things that come from this? Because we're really trying to dispel this notion that seeking out mental health and seeking out ways to learn more about this. You know, we have just kind of throw that out, We have a bench that stigma as well, keep saying so, you know, what are some of the negative things that can come from not addressing these issues? Well, I mean, there's quite a few, um, when we suppress or ignore those kinds of problems, they find their way out one way or the other. It might be alcohol or drug misuse. Um, with the lobby athletes I've seen over time, it comes out and misplaced anger. Um, certainly if someone is suffering from sent out a clinical disorder not getting treatment over over time, that's probably just going to get worse and more difficult to treat. So, those are a few of the things that come to mind for me Claudel, Well, good as as we're having this conversation, we're also sharing valuable links in our Q and a chat box to go along with and supplement, you know, the the answers and the feedback from our panelists, dr Bennett staying, staying on that same vein. Uh, and what ways once we've identified these problems? In what ways can athletes, youth athletes, collegiate athletes, In what ways can uh, the athletes and their families seek out this attention? And what ways can they go about starting to get help? Yeah. You know, again, I would go back to some of Betsy's comments. You know, it's so important, and then, you know, your local communities that there are identified and accessible mental mental health resources. Um, so, you know, knowing where to go when you need to go is really important, um you know, at the high school level, you know, I would hope that there are more, again accessible and free resources for student athletes to seek out within the school system. Argument at the collegiate level, you know, the N C double A has really made it a priority to have these kind of resources available ideally within the athletic department. But, you know, beyond those more professional resources, I just think it's so important that family ministers, friends, whoever it might be, that the students are able to identify kind of their safety net of support. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a licensed mental health provider. It just needs to start with somebody having a go to person when that is needed. Well, we're good, and, and dr Bennett, you know, how can, you know, youth coaches and youth administrators and and high school athletic directors, even collegiate athletic directors, how can they better dispel this notion? How can they better dispel this mentality that, you know, there's a stigma around mental health and uh, you know, families shouldn't go get the help that they need. How can how can we better dispel this notion in your opinion? Yeah, no, I'm glad you asked that majesty coaches play such an important role in this. Um, and a lot of times the coaches that go to person for an athlete, because coaches and athletes have a special relationship and, you know, athletes just work their coach oftentimes as not just a support person, but someone they look up to respect. And I just think it's invaluable for a coast to be able to acknowledge. You know what, there was a time of my life when I struggled. Here's what I did to help um, at our school, you know, we've got several coaches who have come out, come out and spoken up in that way. In fact, our athletic director has done the same thing. So, when you're getting that message from the people you respect and look up to, I think that definitely helps lessen the stigma around having a mental health challenge. Well, Dr Bennett, I'd like to defer to a will dress school, executive Director of this Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, who is also co hosting with me, uh will would you like to direct anything toward Dr Bennett or Betsy at this kind of halfway point of things? Yeah, thank you, Claudel. Um you know, Dr Bennett, you you mentioned that and and one thing that we like to obviously prop up here in Virginia or things that were very good at in Virginia tech was one of the first Uh, colleges and universities in the country to really focus on sports psychology and bring a person like you on staff. So I think that's really a good feather in our cap. But looking at it now, you know, you've been doing this role for over 20 years when the student athletes get to you on campus, How many of them would you say have been exposed to the topic or the discussion of mental wellness and the resources available? And I'm talking current day now, as opposed to say, maybe a decade ago. Right? That's a good question. Will I mean, I don't really have a firm idea in terms of percentages. I will say this. I think the youth of this generation, college students, high school students are much more open. We're talking about mental health than probably ever before. So it's not nearly as much of a struggle to get people to To reach out as it was 20 years ago, but I think we've made some progress in reducing the stigma already. You see pro athletes who have come out and spoken about things like depression and anxiety, I think things like that have made um, make it more acceptable and, and easier to acknowledge when, when we're having a problem, I think until go ahead. I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I'm sorry. Please please continue. Yeah. Most the athletes. I see. And at Virginia Tech, we see we've got about 570 student athletes and over the last five years every year, over half have come to seek services for one thing or another. Um, but most of them, when I asked, I've never talked to a mental health professional before, so, you know, I think there's more acceptance, how much treatment have they gotten beforehand, You know? Still that's probably a small percentage now. I think it's it's amazing when you, when you do start hearing the stories of the athletes who are now lending their voice to it. One of them is Austin Cannon who played at Virginia Tech and he's been very open and articles in national publications about it. Um, so it that's definitely helping break the statement bench the stigma as we're saying with this program for Betsy, you know, you talked about literacy accessibility and stigma. How are you seeing the improvements being made in all of these areas, or are you not seeing improvements? And this is still something that we have to continue working towards. Well based on my research and other research that's out there. Uh stigma is decreasing. Dr Bennett is right. It has come down significantly in the last 10 years. Um But what what I found specifically is that athletes are supportive of their peers seeking mental health help and they are open to helping and supporting them but they are not willing to disclose that they are struggling. So it's it's only a one way stigma release. Um In regards to illiteracy I have to tell you that's really my biggest push. That's why I do education is that I don't I feel like our athletes our coaches and parents as well really have the basic mental health information um in how to deal with or look for or know what are signs and symptoms are for their athletes. You know it's what's so interesting about this subject is I'm not a mental health expert. But in doing this now in Ch. K. D. And the Sports Commission for for the past year and a half you just continuously learn and it really is that literacy that you're talking about and you know, talking about the continuum that we've been speaking about over the last month or so as we've been prepping for this. It's so surprising to hear that even right now, I am on it at some point. How surprised are people when you say that to them that no matter how they're feeling or at what point they are in their day in their life, They are on that continuum there on that spectrum. You know, I did a mental health seminar for a high school football team and we did a pre test and post test. And at the end I would say 75% of the players put in hashtag five and five, I think that that and I told them of all the things I'm going to tell you, I want you to walk away knowing hashtag five and five, we all are in this together and I feel like if we give it to them then they will understand it and they will get, it's a matter of letting them know their coaches, their moms and their dads are all dealing with mental health issues that as long as we keep promoting that we're going to keep um decreasing that stigma and stigma, honestly is more difficult for our high school level and younger than it is for our collegiate athlete. What what do you what do you think that could be attributed to? Oh my gosh, just a lesson. You know, they don't want to acknowledge that they're struggling on Hamburg. There is no way they want to acknowledge that they are struggling on mental health. Um, I think they've gotten a lot better and we've gotten a lot of school groups that are interested in supporting their peers, mental health, um, but we still have a long way to go. And I think for the athletes to I think our athletes haven't matured from high school to college ideology, um, in order to understand that, um, you don't have to be Bmoc at your high school and it's okay to show vulnerability, but that's just going to come in time. Well, I want to know that we we've already, you know, thank you for being here. But the resource that you and Dr Bennett have provided and we'll continue to provide is definitely an asset to this program in this initiative. So, Claudel with that, I'll give it back to you because I know we got some more very interesting topics to get to. Good. Thank you, Will Betsy Dr Bennett, uh, next we have with us Dr Rendell Marshall, social worker from medical, social worker from King's Daughters, our Children's Hospital. The King's Daughters, Excuse me, and also area high school football coach. Good evening to you right now. Good evening. Good evening. How are you? Good, good. And again. And I know you've taken in and and heard and kind of gotten warmed up to this dialogue, but, you know, working with the young people, we had a great conversation leading into this, working with the young people that you work with. You know, what are some of the ways that you've identified some of the stigma and some of the reluctance and some of the hesitation for, you know, your student athletes to kind of come forward when they might have had a problem. I think the biggest thing is that, um they're afraid of what their peers might say. You know, as much as they may struggle and as much as they may have these concerns and these issues, um, they're afraid of what other people may say. Um, you know, this can come from teammates. This has come from maybe family members, friends, uh, social media even so, you know, it's it's very, very important for them to understand that hey, you can have these conversations with people and let someone know, um that I'm struggling, you know, and then of course we would have to identify what that exact struggle lives. Certainly, you know, so again, the question that we had and a question that's kind of coming from our Q. And A also as well, interject, you know, how can you as a coach tell, you know, if your student athletes is struggling with performance or mental health challenges, you know, what are some of the ways or indicators that you've seen? Um I would say definitely it starts with just um kind of their performance. You know, if you've noticed someone who started this season, I mean extremely strong, they played well, they've done everything they're supposed to do. And then you start to see a decline been someone in this field, working in the mental health field. I have extra questions other than, you know, why aren't you making a tackle? Why aren't you catching the ball or making the shot? I'm asking are you getting enough sleep at home? You know, how is your relationship with your family? You know, do you have a girlfriend? Um you know, if it's a female, do you have a boyfriend? Um our school going? You know, those are different type of question that I'm asking because they all contribute to your performance. Um So I feel as if you can, I guess work with the youth and and help them to understand that they can have their ducks in a row prior. Um You know, the physical performance will take care of itself because that's just the gift that you've been given, but you gotta, you kind of got to take care of the other things as well. So that's definitely something you just noticing. Uh for me, it would just be the performance and then I'm gonna uh you know, talk about the performance and then we're just going to kind of work back from there. Certainly. So, you know, knowing these things, Betsy talked about these things have been around for some time. We've been addressing these things, We've had other panels and discussions put together. So we all know these things exist. We all know this problem exists. You know, when when the student athlete comes onto the team in september or whenever your season starts, do you begin to address these things then or do you wait until you see warning signs? No, you definitely, it's something you want to address them um before and you let them know that hey, there's a possibility it may happen. Um, and that doesn't mean that it's bad. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you because it does. Um you know, for example, you know, I coached linebackers at the high school level and I can let a young man, no, hey, you may start the season starting, which is really, really good, but then your role may decrease. Um now that role is based upon you. And then one of the things that I have to be very mindful of is that when when you are talking about playing time with young people, it's a huge thing, it means a lot to them because they can show this and this can be seen for other people and if it's not I'm not playing or I'm not baby performing, then someone may think, or you're not good. Well that just that doesn't mean that they're not good. It's just that, you know, they need some time to develop, they need some time to work. So um and then also for myself, you know, just pulling the young person to the side and let them know, hey, don't get down, you know, because that's that's the easy thing to do. The easy thing to say is coach, I'm gonna quit. Well, I don't wanna do this anymore. Well that's the easy thing to do because you you don't feel right or something. So do you think you're playing a background and your coaching background and your athletic background, you know, do you think you have, this has helped you to identify with what the student athletes are going through at this point? Yeah. Yes sir. Absolutely. Um you know, coming up in high school, you know, I didn't have a lot of social media, social media was around, but it wasn't as big as it is now in college even, it was sort of kind of a platform, but not as big as it is now in general. So um you know, I tried to just tell the young people, you know, stay focused on what you're doing um and I wish that I could really put it truly into words, but like sometimes you just see it, it's just a body language. So I think it's the way that young man will walk is the way that he'll talk and you just kind of see it as more of a confidence thing that, um, when, when you start to see that lag, you know, okay, I need to, I need to go say something to him, I need to go address that and identify that right now because maybe another coach may not see that he may be caught up in the fact he's trying to get the game plan together, but you know, I'm assisting with the game plan, but I see that we got this young man who's really struggling. Um, you know, you got to make him feel important. You got to give him a role or make him feel contribute to the team. Good, Good. Well, if you uh had come back to, you want to get your questions for renal while you're here. Yeah, you know, you're talking about making making the kids feel important um you know, kids, particularly in the school system, whether it's private public, kids are coming from all different backgrounds, what resources are available for the coaches, you know, not the full time coaches, but just, you know, the coaches who are there because they love the sport, what resources are available and how are you potentially even helping them kind of develop their own techniques to help deal with, you know, the potential um Challenges that may come from dealing with 40-50 kids, all from different backgrounds who may be struggling on a daily basis. Well, I definitely tell the coaches to reach out to maybe guidance counselors. Um I also being uh you know, mental health clinician in the area also always tell them, you know, you can reach out to the different agencies within the area and I think that just myself having that insight, I'm just telling people or the coaches specifically, hey, you can try this agency or you can try this specific agency. Um And I've had, you know, plenty of talks with our coaching staff, just basically explain the difference between getting in home counseling and an outpatient therapist because they think that that's the same thing or they may get the Burbage confused, you know? Well, he's an outpatient counselor. Well, Being honest, that's not a real thing, your outpatient therapist, so, um and they're just, you know, saying that maybe that's something that we can offer to a kid, you know, maybe a kid just need to talk to somebody for once a week. You know, they don't need someone in their home 2-3 times a week for 6, 6-8 hours. Um, and then for the coaches, you know, just, just letting them know that I don't have a problem with saying, hey coach, you know, x, y, and z. He's been struggling for a while, you know, I'm not sure what the problem is. You know, some of the coaches are in the school, so they may see exactly what's going on. I'm just coming to practice for two hours. Um, you know, and I'm noticing it within two hours, so I know somebody has to see it in the school because a teacher identify, maybe grades are not turning in homework. Um, you know, and, and then maybe we can try to go from there. You know, you, you mentioned that the kids, you said social media, that's kind of where my mind is going right now, and I try not to is particularly when it comes to coaching kids, you don't really want to play the well, we didn't have this growing up, so, you know, we didn't have to deal with it, so the kids, you know, they should learn how to deal with it on their own, that that's not really the approach we should be taking. How important is it for the coaches to say, to look at the external factors that the student athletes are dealing with now and make sure that they're kind of educating themselves from the coach's standpoint, the coaches are educating themselves on these factors to potentially identify a problem before it becomes a long term issue. I definitely believe that, you know, coaches should try to, you know, get on, get on social media, you know, make themselves known to the social media world. Try not to, I guess, you could say stay stuck in their ways because they can, you know, teach themselves about social media. How does it go? You know, you're seeing these comments that people are saying to these kids, um, and that's what they are. They're kids, you have grown adults criticizing kids based on performance. Um, so I think that is important for coaches to be able to maneuver within that avenue and just kind of just see how it's going. You know, you don't have to be an expert at it, but to just be able to understand, hey, this is what they're going through. Maybe this is what someone is saying. It may not even be an adult, it could be, appear it could be another teammate, you know, that's criticizing them and, you know, they're doing on social media. You know, again, it just really comes down to creating that strong support system for the student athletes and it starts at the top. You know, Dr Bennett talked about, uh, the athletic director at Virginia Tech currently is with babcock. You know, if he's, if the message is coming from him well, it's going to filter down and Claudel before I go back to you, I do have one more question actually for Dr Bennett, Dr Bennett just kind of talking about your experiences in the role that you have. How can a coach tell if they're athlete is struggling with performance versus a mental health struggle? Yeah, I mean, I think there there can be some overlap there. Um you know, if the student is basically doing well in other parts of their life and just struggling on the field than it would probably be more of a performance issue, as opposed to someone who, you know, is struggling with school with relationships with. Um as coach mentioned, they're not sleeping well, their appetite seems to be disturbed, just normal daily activities are being impaired. Then you're looking at more of a clinical kind of counseling type issue and of course it can get more severe than that they're having um against substance misuse issues or self harm or suicidal types of statements. Then you're kind of getting to the far end of that continuum where obviously that's probably affecting performance as well. But um you know, at that point seems far more serious. I think I think the biggest thing that we continue to learn and want to put out there is if you see something, say something, if you have a concern, you know, raise a concern. If you have a question, ask a question. Um you know that this we're not asking people to be experts, but we are asking people to learn and inform themselves. And so with that Claudel, I'll give it back to you again. This is a great resource and I'm just really happy to see everybody out here available and willing to talk about this. I do have one last thing to say as well. Um I think it's extremely helpful um to I always inform our athletes the ones that I work with to create a routine for themselves and stick to that routine daily. Um I think that if you have a routine for yourself, it helps create a level of comfort opposed to um you waking up every morning and then you kind of just kind of just chaotic for you. Um if you have a strict routine for yourself and this works not just only as an athlete, but in life is general, so um having a routine, it definitely makes things um, you know, a lot better and it makes things smooth for you, which could lead to improving a performance looks like Betsy. Yes, I did want to throw out there that I do believe, and I strongly advocate when I do coaches seminars, I believe that coaches should introduce mental health on their very first team meeting doesn't mean you have to go into much depth. It's just an introduction because just introducing it to your players, lets them know the door is open and if we start with the door open, you may find more athletes walking through and you know, Claudel, before we, we move on. One of our, one of our steering committee members on, on this, uh, this panel that we put together is Michael Cuddyer, who is a two time all star, he's in the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame and he's been a great resource and a big advocate for mental health, particularly on the, on the student athlete level. And he actually lent his voice to this program, a program we did last March, but he, he's actually in the chat and he wants to know and this, this could be for any, any of our panelists. What about the coaches who are struggling with social media and getting caught up in what other coaches and teams are doing? Where can they turn to and how would you advise them to stay true to their belief system and not get caught up with keeping up with the joneses. This could be answered by any of our panelists. Um, I definitely believe, you know, just having a little bit of um expertise on this just over the summer. You know, the covid restrictions really not supposed to be practicing, not supposed to be having large team gatherings and looking on social media, twitter anything and seeing that other coaches are having um open practices at random fields and also seeing that some of your players from your actual team are going to these actual workouts to simply just get some work in as they would say. Um, and as much as a coach, you know, you want to be able to text you guys in the group chat, say, hey man, let's let's get 20 to 30 of our main guys and go work out and it, you know, unfortunately we can't do that. You know, we couldn't do that over the summer. There were strict protocols that we had to follow. You know, practicing social distancing keep if you're not working out, but your mask on as much as you want to talk to your friend, I'm sorry, you got to get away from not today. So, um, it's worked both ways, you know, unfortunately have some, some teams, they follow the rules, do what they're supposed to do and others they just don't um, if you want it as a coach, if you want to go the route of, you know, I guess you could say telling without telling on someone or just making it known, hey, I know I've seen this, this or that. So, um, I know that that's out there and I know that there are some coaches who are doing in other coaches who are not, that's just the example that I can, I really don't have fantastic, I was gonna say, I really don't have fantastic advice for Michael. But um really it just comes down to um, if you set the standard at the very beginning that you as a coach nor your team need to compare what you're practices are, what your workouts are, what anything is, that, that is your individual teams playbook and you're not going to share it and you're not going to compare it with other teams. Maybe that can also move and parlayed to your social media extent as well, you just really kind of insulate yourselves and say this is how this team is going to work and perhaps it can translate to your social media as well. I think that comes down to building that culture and we've seen it work at Virginia Tech, you know, speaking on a mental health from a mental health perspective, we've seen it there and, you know, if you, if you build that culture then then everybody will follow. And uh, and I think Mike brought up a great point that we are always looking to see what our competitors are doing, but staying true to your belief system I think is probably the best path forward. And so with that club, I'll give it back to you great dialogue. We encourage that from the Q and A from our panelists. Eli, Good evening to you. And I realized with us from cox high school on the soccer team there and then, and it's so valuable that that you're here with us because we talked about so much high level information and information from subject matter experts here, coaches, administrators, persons who have been licensed to do all sorts of things. But you know, it's so important that you're here because you're the one on the field, you're you're the one who is going to through some of these things. You're the actual high school student athlete that we wanted to examine and to accept to to assist and to kind of bring it to light and expose about being on this continuum at any one point in time. You know, they're at cox, you know, what resources are available for you guys to address some of these mental health issues or mental health challenges if they occur. I mean, of course, we have our guidance counselors that are open to any of the students along with our athletes and especially now with our athletics, opening back up and having a team and like a sense of that's another outlet that the students have just having that team there and those coaches there. And then I would say, also our trainers, because one thing that I see a lot is that athletes that get hurt, their mental health deteriorates because they're not able to play. So, having the trainers, there are trainers are from Ch Katie, they're wonderful. There are a great help for those students that are uh struggling with mental health because of injuries, certainly, certainly. So, you know, as you've seen your teammates and you've seen uh, or no teammates or no student athletes on other teams, have you noticed uh more of of awareness and more of the it's okay to kind of come out and talk about mental health and mental wellness and seek out help. Or do you feel like there is the stigma to where, you know, people are not not really open to talking about these things? You know, what is the climate in your eyes, uh, with your teammates and other student athletes that you face? I would say that it's not talked about as much as it should be, but uh, and just that our team, There was uh, an instance where we hadn't played in a year, we weren't able to have team dinners or make those connections and with 11 of our seniors leaving two years ago, our team is really disconnected. but our coach reached out in october and we hadn't seen each other in such a long time and he just sent a simple text, Hey, make sure to reach out to you guys, make sure to just kind of touch base with them and see how it's going. Good, good. And again, you know, you have been so valuable to this panel and been a great student athlete, Derek cox. But you know, during this time of covid and during this time of um, you know, tough challenges to get the high school season started again. You know, how these things affect your mental wellness and, and you know, how do you feel like you've dealt with maybe the stigma to kind of keep a great level of mental health? I mean, it's definitely been hard not having soccer part of my life. Part of my journey has been to focus my efforts on other things other than sports, which has been, it's been hard to find other interests. And soccer has been such a big part of my life. And I think for a lot of student athletes, the athletics are such a big part of their life, in such a big part of their social life, especially that it's hard to stay, stay connected to school, stay connected to yourself when you don't have that part of you connected with you. And also we talked academics or athletics, excuse me, you know, but have academics been a part of this uh, you know, challenge or struggle for you, or. And how is that weighed in to this equation? I mean, for sure, it hasn't only been the sports seasons that have been getting canceled up until about two weeks ago, we were completely online. And the the type of learning that you get from a screen is definitely not the same as an in person interaction that goes with sports or with academics, when you're not able to get that face to face interaction, that training, training your mind or your body, it's hard to really advance yourself as a person and not get down in the dumps about your situation that you're in. And the only thing that really keeps me going is that everyone else around me is going through the same exact experience and reluctant to see that now that restrictions are getting lifted, that we are going a little bit back to normal. And there's a little bit of hope there that there will be normalcy in our season, in our academics, in our lives as we move forward. Certainly. Certainly. So, you know, we have a question from our Q and A. For you, you know, you talked about the guidance counselor, you talked about your coach and the resources that you have at the school. But do you feel and maybe you speak for some of your teammates? Do you feel like mental health education would be valuable if that were kind of brought to life by your school or by your team? For sure. Coach that especially at cox high school, we've had a few instances of there being some issues of mental health and I think that our school, our community would really benefit if that was something that we focused on. Certainly. And we'll pose this as we kind of go back around the horn, so to speak. But we'll start with you. You know, what are some of the ways that this panel and your coaches and you and your teammates? You know, what are some of the ways that you, you feel like we can begin to even more so bench the stigma and dispel this stigma about the mental wellness issue. I think what Betsy said earlier was a really good advice that you just get on top of it, you just come straight out and you say, hey, we need to make this part of our everyday, like we need to make sure that we're checking up on each other. And uh, there was talk at our school of doing a student run, like help on just to have that connection between students. So I think really if you get out ahead of it and you start the talk and when you do that, it gets other people talking and social media and stuff like that, that is a great outlet to make sure that you really like. You really reach out to everyone that is around you in the community that is cox high school and in the community that is great neck and Virginia Beach, certainly before we go back to will, I know he has a few questions for you, but I really wanted to personally and on behalf of the committee, you know, thank you eli for being here because we know that's not an easy thing as a as a young student athletes to a young man and young student athletes to kind of speak out on these things. You get a little older and get some more experience and you get on the panel and get some different places and it becomes easier and you become more experienced with these things. But it is certainly admiral to to you and your teammates to speak out and help each other with this. I will not come over to you. Yeah. You know, you mentioned you brought up a great point about when, when there was that pause, but you still had a team, you know, your your soccer team was they were still your teammates, but you had a lot of transition from the upperclassmen moving on to the to the newer, the younger players coming in. How comfortable were you with making that outreach to them when when your coach kind of told you this is how we're going to keep this team together. How comfortable were you and getting reaching out to the new players and making them feel comfortable. I have a personal advantage because I coached at breakneck middle, I was one of the assistant coaches there and so I knew a lot of the younger guys, so it was, it was easy for me to reach out and get those guys kind of incorporated as we're starting training. Uh seeing those guys kind of mold with each other and like see each other, There's a lot of uh smiling faces and a lot of new connections being made and a lot of the times for upperclassmen when I was a freshman on the team, one of the things that really like helps me feel comfortable is an upperclassman coming up to you. So seeing that interaction between our upperclassmen and underclassmen is amazing because I know that has an underclassman that really, really makes your day and makes you feel so much more comfortable on the team. So coming in after a year like this where there really wasn't a season and wasn't a team last year and now you're getting a second chance to be on a varsity team and actually have a season this year. I think it's great that you actually are able to feel comfortable going into this year now. You, you're obviously very comfortable talking about this subject and you know that and that's part of, I guess our task is to normalize the discussion, you know, that's gonna help us bench the stigma. Um, but kind of talk about your journey from freshman to now a senior and how you've seen the, the overall discussion kind of evolved. I think as a freshman, there were, there's been different characters going in and out through through our, our team and there's not, not only the soccer team, but other sports as well, There's been a lot of faces that have come and go in from my freshman year to my senior year and I think every year we get better and better at being able to have a team experience. And uh as I said earlier, like our coach just reaching out meant so much to me and I hope the other students as well, and I think that over the course of the four years, building a really solid team for across all of our, all of our different sports has been really important too uh to make people comfortable and start talking about mental health and making friends and making those connections. That's what really makes it comfortable, because I feel like it's kind of hard sometimes for people to stand up for themselves and go see even a guidance counselor who's a trusted person just because they don't know them. And I think it's better sometimes to have that, that team, people that you really trust to be able to talk to them, and I see that more and more as people are comfortable with me and the other upperclassmen and other students that are on the team, they're able to talk about their home lives and what's going on around their life and even like in school, other than just keeping it to themselves. Well, we we certainly appreciate your participation and just the student athlete perspective, because that's really what's what's important here is, you know, we're we're putting these resources out for student athletes, their parents, coaches and administrators, but, you know, we can't improve unless we're hearing from from you. So we we certainly appreciate your participation here, and I know Claudel I see a few questions in the chat, so I'll throw it back to you and we can get those out there. Certainly, we want to continue our way back around the horn and again, Thank you for that renewal. We wanted to come back to you. You mentioned the word routine. We talked about that back in october about how to get our young students and athletes through, through covid and we're still there, but like to think we're making some improvements. Yeah. Also talked about routine here in your most recent comments to, you know, maintain and increase that mental wellness. Tell us a little more about, you know, how you define routine and how you get that over to your student athletes, have that being assistance to them. Um, yeah, so, you know, speaking back on routine more, I think that, like I said, it's really important for us to have and um, you know, I've talked to some of the athletes that I coach and just kind of give them maybe an example or routine that I utilize maybe in college of making sure, you know, 23 days before the game, I'm hydrating, you know, I'm making sure that I'm getting extra sleep, you know, earlier in the week. Um, you know, I know sunday through Wednesday, I'm going to be cramming doing a lot of schoolwork, trying to study so that, you know, that thursday friday, I can get an extra hour or two hours of sleep. Um, also from what I eat, you know, I know that, you know what you put what you put in your body, it fuels you. So, um, you know, monitoring the food that I eat as well and then also, um, you know, trying to get my mind away from what I'm having to do or perform, which was football, you know what I mean? Watch a random movie or, you know, listen, listen to some music. Oh, that was just a routine that I created for myself and it was extremely successful. I found it to be successful. I had less worries. I you know, wasn't stressing as much of course, you know, trying to balance college and social life and playing sports. It was you know, the stresses that come with that in general, but being able to create a routine, it was extremely, extremely, I'm helpful and I told I told the guys on my team, you know, do that um and it definitely it makes it makes a great difference. Um Also I would like to mention um who's on the call with us dr Joel Brenner. Um He has a new program that's coming up called mindfulness coaching for the youth for young athletes um And in that new program he has, he just kind of talks about what is mindfulness um also the mindfulness techniques and also how mindfulness can help. So I think, you know, talking about the routine and then also how can you utilize mindfulness, it's definitely gonna is gonna be great. And um if you all can I know that Claudel you put the link in here, if you all could check that out something Dr Brenner has coming up and I know he's extremely excited about that. Well thank you, Colonel and dr Brenner certainly been uh instrumental to this panel and instrumental to this effort. Betsy, we want to go to you now and you talked about at least make the introduction, at least touch it, at least exposure student athletes to mental health and the positive and negative effects there and the continuum. Can you tell our coaches who are listening administrators, who are listening, you who are listening, you know how to best introduced this to your student athletes and your program when you get them? Well, I I do believe that um if you don't mention it in your first meeting, you definitely have to mention it in your second meeting. Um I do. I also agree with Gary. I think it is so helpful if we, as adults can communicate to our athletes things that maybe we have struggled with, it doesn't mean we have to tell our whole history and our whole life, but as adults, we have struggled and if we open up that door, if we let them know that they're a not by themselves and B, we all struggle at different times. I think that's going to continue to open the doors of um going through what is mental health and how can mental health um, supports make you better? Certainly, certainly. And and back to our most important topic of the night, you know, we talked about benching the stigma and all this supports that. You know, if if you could kind of go back to that praise, if you could go back to that hashtag you know, what is something that you leave the audience with on how to bench that and how to dispel that moving forward, because we know such a vital thing that we all need to help with. I'm always going to preach education, I think we have to educate our coaches, we have to educate our parents and we have to educate our athletes. They are not going to be clinical professionals. I get that I'm not a I'm not a clinical professional, I'm an educational professional. And because of that there are certain things that I know they're not going to obviously commit to memory, but there are certain basics that they need to understand. So that way, when things do happen, they at least know where to pivot to find the resources that they need. Well, we certainly thank you for your weighing in on these things and your experts and your expertise to the panel dR Bennett and then we wanted to come to you last. Yes sir. Um, for you to, to finalize, you know, what are some of the ways that you can best and an earliest um, detect some of these mental health issues or problems or things that you may need to identify. And student athletes, we know you see and take in and work with so many student athletes who were entering Virginia Tech there and who were matriculating through. But you know, for a high school program or a college program. You know, what are some of these early detection strategies that you may leave with us? Well, it shall fall before fall sports start and the spring sports, we do a pre participates that pre participation exam. And part of that includes some mental health screenings. So that gives us some objective measure of if someone might be struggling with things like depression or anxiety or eating disorders. Um, and if we go was eli who made this point and I would just echo it our relationship with our athletic training staff. It's probably among the most important relationships we have because those folks have hands on experience with our athletes day in and day out. Often times, I think our athletes trust the trainer is more than just about anybody else in their lives. So, you know, it's important for us to be able to collaborate with other people who um, have write your contact coaches certainly fall within that as well. So, you know, we we've just worked hard at Virginia Tech to have a network that communicates with each other, um and again that we're all part of that stating that uh it's underneath all of our athletes lives and can be there uh to offer support, were needed good, good dr Bennett, we certainly appreciate you being a part of this effort as well, uh to finalize this around the horn and these these final questions, will we want to come back to you with your final thoughts for the panelists? Yeah. You know, Betsy that this might be for you or run l um you know, Claudel kind of touched on it a little bit, but we have somebody who's actually asking specifically from a football culture standpoint, you know, there's so much emphasis on being tough and no weaknesses and, you know, we hear the term mentally tough and I know that we brought it up in every single one of these events that we've done. But how can the coaches, how can the administrators, the league organizers create this culture that supports mental health when on this side, they're being told there are no weaknesses. You know, you have to go out and do your job basic. I think that was a fantastic question. And it is definitely, but I think a tough line to walk, um, for a coach that's just very honestly speaking, it is. But my best advice is going to be, um, it's this line between mental health and sport performance. So, and I think maybe Gary could talk more about that specifically. But here, here's what I would tell that code is, is the issue or the problem or the motivation that you need? Is it based on what they are doing and their performance or do you think it's something that is from something else outside of their sport? That's the line we have to find because if they are fine and and and thriving outside of their sport there, they don't have that hunger or that need um to be, you know, to be that defensive guy that's going after everybody. Um that is a sport performance mindset, and so that is the important difference between mental health and mental performance psychology, and maybe because Gary is both certified in both of those, he may be a better person to um further answer that question. Dr Bennett, the ball's in your court. Yeah, no good point, Bessie and you know, I think this kind of gets back to the stigma idea that you can't be mentally tough and have a mental illness, like if you have depression or anxiety that somehow you're mentally weak and you know, we know that's just not the case. Um, probably football is the more difficult sport, at least at Virginia tech for people to come forward and um, you know, acknowledge that they're struggling with something because there is that, I think misnomer that if mentally tough, I can't have this kind of mental health issue. And yeah, I think that that's part of benching the stigma. You know, we need to separate out that people can be really mentally tough and depressed. Those two things are not mutually exclusive and, and I just wanted to offer one other thing, uh, coach right now, you mentioned, and I loved the way that you said when you're just trying to find out, you know, how your athletes are doing, ask them about their boyfriend or girlfriend. One of the biggest challenges, I think for high school or college age athletes is for those who are struggling with sexual orientation because it just, that's worked at still, there's a huge stigma around that. Um, and every year I see athletes from just about every sport struggling with that. So I think it's important that when we're asking that kind of question that we don't assume that the person is in a heterosexual relationship. So asking about the relationship, I love that idea. But for someone who is struggling with being gay or lesbian and just depending on how that question is asked and you know, maybe complicate things a little bit. Just my two cents there. These are all this input is fantastic because as we move on through the beginning of this program until now, you know, these conversations have to be had. And so we're so thankful for the resource that all of you have provided. Um, I know that's from myself and Claudel and Ch Katie as well, but thank you all for participating and I'll give it back to Claudel and I think we can maybe start to wrap it up a little bit well, you know, tremendous job tonight to all of our panelists and uh, you know, those whose, who ask questions, we certainly appreciate that. And then, um, you know, are thankful for that. Again, the biggest thing. Um, we, we, we talked about a number of specific issues, but if you could take away anything from this, let's let's continue to raise the awareness, let's continue to attack this stigma. Let's continue to attack this subject and let's continue to educate as Betsy said. And other panelists stressed um, you know, on as we bring this program to a close in on on the behalf of Virginia, Sports Hall of Fame, Ched Sports Medicine on Hampton Roads Sports Commission Hampton Roads Chamber. We just want to thank all of you who are in attendance and participated and who contributed to this. Our steering committee members, We'd like to thank our partners again, optimal health dot con inc Alina bai, mortgage, Pepsi Town, Banksy, S. K. D. Sports medicine, priority, automotive city of Virginia Beach in new Hampshire Rose Chamber. And you know, we've got to continue to miss the stigma. We have to continue to assist our youth athletes. We have to continue to make them know that it's ok to uh be on any point at any point in time on this continuum and to seek out better mental health for all their needs. So, again, to everyone who has participated, you know, we thank you for your time. We hope that you stay safe and we hope that you have a great evening and continue to miss the stigma, continue to assist our youth athletes. Thank you
