Athletes Connected: Program Supports Student-Athlete Mental Health
1/13/2015 12:00:00 AM | General, Athletic News
Jan. 13, 2015
The Athletes Connected pilot project, funded by an NCAA Innovations in Research and Practice Grant, is a collaboration between the University of Michigan School of Public Health, U-M Depression Center and U-M Athletic Department. Its goal is to increase awareness of mental health issues, reduce the stigma of help-seeking, and promote positive coping skills among student-athletes who are often reluctant to seek help when it comes to mental health. The program features engaging, personal videos -- "Will" and "Kally" -- and informal, drop-in support groups.
Check MGoBlue.com tomorrow for part two in this series, a personal example of how Athletes Connected impacted a current U-M water polo student-athlete. Also look for a follow-up report from the NCAA Convention on Friday after findings on Athletes Connected are presented.
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- There's nothing more powerful than connecting in a time of need and finding that there is someone else who understands your distress, desperation and feelings.
Will Heininger, former defensive lineman for the University of Michigan football team, found that person in athletic trainer Lenny Navitskis, who noticed him in distress and suspected he needed help.
Kally Fayhee, former U-M swim team captain, found that person in a teammate and good friend. She was struggling with anxiety and an eating disorder, finally breaking down to someone she felt confident confiding in. Fayhee was given an ultimatum by her friend to seek help.
Both made it through the toughest of times with support from coaches, teammates, friends and family. And, perhaps most importantly, they got on the path to recovery by connecting with athletic department counselor Barb Hansen.
They wept in private while trying to tough it out, doing what they were taught as athletes, but found that they were facing an entirely different opponent -- one that required more than inner strength to defeat.
And while their quests to wellness came with plenty of trials and tribulations, they got help and stayed the course to understand what was happening in their minds and how to address it.
Now, they are the helping hands, the people other Wolverine student-athletes can reach out to for answers, direction and hope.
Heininger is a driving force behind Athletes Connected, a program designed to remove the stigma attached to mental illnesses while raising awareness and providing solutions. After first sharing his story at the U-M Depression on College Campuses Conference, he left a job in finance in Chicago to become involved with the initiative and is contemplating making it his life's work.
"My mom said, when I was struggling, 'I know you don't think you're going to get better. But you have to trust me, and trust people who have come through the other side, that you are going to get better. I know it doesn't feel that way.' It was so hard to believe her. But, look, I did get better. I made it my job to. I allowed other people to help. And now I can confidently say my life is better than it ever was before I had suffered from depression. To understand what had happened and why, that's invaluable. And to be able to help other people ... it's a pretty good deal."
Barb Hansen and Will Heininger
Heininger saw light bulbs go on when he spoke with others.
"The most rewarding thing," Heininger said, "is the engagement from student-athletes or the high school students I also speak to. I spoke with about 5,000 high school kids this fall and it's gone spectacularly -- it's so well received. And these kids are the parents of the future, so if their kids come home one day struggling, they are not going to say, 'Suck it up.'"
Sitting in a swivel chair in his office at Schembechler Hall, he couldn't stop smiling at the thought.
"The other thing that means the most to me is that this is happening at Michigan. I love this place with all of my heart. It's responsible for so many positives in my life. It's the reason I was able to grow up here and fall in love with Michigan Football. It provided my parents employment. It provided me a world-class education and exposure to so many different ideas and people. It provided me challenges and injuries and adversity, and the ability to overcome it because there were such great people here in Ann Arbor.
"There are so many things this university is spectacular at, and I love that we are getting at the forefront of well-being and mental wellness in college athletics. It's a win-win. If you have healthy, happy athletes, they are going to be successful on the field and off the field. They are going to be successful when they leave here, and that is a recipe for sustained success."
Fayhee works for the Leo Burnett ad agency in Chicago but has flown to Ann Arbor to help Heininger address all 31 varsity teams and coaches with their message. She joined Heininger in filming compelling videos that tell their stories.
"I had read about the work Will was doing, and we were able to connect through Barb," Fayhee said, "Will and I had lunch shortly after, and through sharing our stories we found we experienced very similar pressures as student-athletes, those pressures just manifested themselves in different ways -- his depression and my eating disorder. It was so reassuring to hear that someone understood what I had gone through. That's one of the benefits of Athletes Connected. It not only gives student-athletes a place to discuss the pressures they face, but it also lets them know they are not alone, which is so important.
"Barb gave me a call about two weeks after meeting Will and said, 'We have been awarded a grant from the NCAA, would you like to work with us?' I didn't know what to do at first, because at that point only a handful of people knew my story and I was worried about hurting those I loved the most with what I had gone through.
"With guidance from my family and close friends I realized helping break down the stigmas surrounding mental health trumped hiding my struggles. I'll admit, I'm still worried about what people will think of me after they hear my story. But if this program can keep a student-athlete from ending up in the place I was, it is worth it."
They had powerful stories to tell and share.
"At the end of my freshman year, going into my sophomore year, I began to struggle with race anxiety," said Fayhee." I didn't seek help because I thought that if I toughed it out, I would be able to overcome the anxiety; that was how I'd gotten through every other struggle before. What I didn't realize until later was I had no control over the anxiety. I became very aware of my weight and what I was putting into my body. I thought lighter in the water meant faster and so my eating disorder became a way to control the anxiety.
"I thought it was weak to reach out and say I was struggling, so I internalized all of my feelings, thinking I was the only one feeling that way," Fahee continued. "I sought help from Barb Hansen my junior year but continued to keep my story a secret because I feared people would look at me in a different way. It was not until this program that I was honest with everyone about what I had gone through. I feared the judgment, but what I was met with instead was support and love from those around me."
Fayhee with her coaches and parents on Senior Day 2013
Heininger was dealing with the recent divorce of his parents, balancing academic stress and a summer job, and the pressures of trying to become a great football player when he became engulfed by depression.
"I was dealing with a lot of prolonged stress that I wasn't quite aware of and didn't know how to be aware of. Stress itself is natural and adaptive. It can have a positive impact on us. We can use it toward positive outputs, whether it's good grades or exercising or performance in some area of our lives. We can also attempt to let it out in self-defeating ways -- abusing substances, anger, violence and those kinds of things. So, we want to deal with and channel stress in positive ways that can help us accomplish our goals. The first step to doing that is being aware of it. I was so fortunate to be taught how to do that -- to become empowered -- by the amazing people at Michigan, starting with Barb Hansen."
Heininger, 26, out of Ann Arbor (Mich.) Pioneer High, joined the team as a preferred walk-on after being offered a spot by Hall of Fame coach Lloyd Carr, and he redshirted as a freshman in Carr's last season. By his senior year, Heininger started 12 games at defensive tackle, helping the 2011 team go 11-2 and win the Sugar Bowl. He was a three-time Academic All-Big Ten selection and a two-time Big Ten Distinguished Scholar Award winner.
Fayhee, 23, was Michigan's captain as a senior. She finished 14th in the 200-yard butterfly, 20th in the 100-yard butterfly and 35th in the 500-yard freestyle at the 2013 Big Ten Championships and helped the 800-yard freestyle relay team to a seventh-place finish. She was a 12-time All-American on a three-time state championship team at Aurora (Ill.) Rosary High.
Now they are on a completely different team -- one that reaches out with compassion, counseling, peer support and solutions.
Fayhee made an instant connection upon teaming up with Heininger.
She said, "I always thought it was a cliché to say, 'It is all worth it if you help one person' but my views on that changed after the first presentation Will and I gave."
Fayhee was gathering her pens and notes after speaking to an entire team in a meeting room when she made a one-on-one difference.
"She came up to me and said, 'I am struggling with the exact same thing and I don't know what to do. I'm stuck. I have reached out to Barb, and she's helping me. But I don't know how to tell my coach. I don't know how to tell my parents.' It was the exact place I was four years ago. We had the opportunity to talk about what she was going through, and we brainstormed some things she could do.
"The best part was, I was able to look her in the eye and tell her she was going to be OK. That was important for her to know, because she is going to be OK."
What was the reaction Fayhee received after telling the student-athlete she "was going to be OK?"
"She hugged me. It was one of the best moments of this whole program, and there have been a million amazing moments. It made me realize the student-athletes want this and they need this. That's been a very rewarding thing -- when you see in their eyes that they want information and they start asking questions."
Fayhee watched the student-athlete walk out the door with so much going through her mind.
"I was overwhelmed because it was the first presentation we had done. The Athletes Connected team was very excited with what we were doing, but we didn't know what to expect. You never know what you are going to be met with, and we were met with open eyes and open ears and open hearts. That was very reassuring.
"We're very passionate about this, but will the 900 student-athletes be passionate? And what we found out is they are."
Heininger and Fayhee agree that the toughness that helped them succeed as athletes was the first obstacle they needed to hurdle in facing the reality that they required help in dealing with mental illnesses.
"Mental toughness is a double-edged sword because the thing that makes athletes so great is the thing that can truly destroy them," Fayhee said. "You're taught to tough it out. Resilient athletes are the ones that are very successful because they play through the pain. But when you apply that 'tough it out' mindset to everyday life, it can be a very dangerous thing. With mental health, tough-it-out is something you can't do. You have to seek help. And it doesn't mean you aren't tough. That just means you're stronger."
And there are benefits from that, too.
-- Kally Fayhee
"The student-athletes from Michigan have said that once they began practicing coping skills discussed in the Athletes Connected sessions and were able to talk about the stressors they were going through, their performance got better," Fayhee said.
"Once you reach out and seek help, it's a weight off your shoulders. It's a lonely place to be when you are struggling with mental illness, thinking you are the only person dealing with it. So, you don't want to reach out. But when you finally do, you find there are so many others who struggled as well or know someone who did.
"And they want to support you and help you get better. There's no judgment, but there is the perception that there will be. That is why I didn't reach out. I was afraid I would be perceived in a certain way."
Discovering worth outside of athletics is central to mental health.
"I remember Barb asking me, 'Give me three good things about you.' And I named them off and they were all swimming. She said, 'Take swimming out of it!' I just sat there, and she said, 'Well, I'll sit here.' And I had nothing; I'd fully defined myself as a swimmer. Working with her helped me figure out who I was.
"And my performances got so much better because not everything was determined by my race. I was so worried about races, saying, 'This race defines me.' But it doesn't; it's one race in a million. It was a perspective shift for me, and Barb helped me make that shift.
"And that's the hope for Athletes Connected -- to help you realize mental health and wellness is an all-encompassing thing, and it isn't just your sport. It's your sport, academics, family life and everything together that has to be functioning."
The program might never have taken root had Heininger not given that first presentation about his life-changing turn of events two years ago and realized what he had to offer others.
"I have friends here from when I was playing who have come to me and expressed the desire to get help, but they were afraid to do that on their own. And that's what we want to change. We want to make it that you know where to go, just like you know where to go when your ankle hurts.
"I spoke and shared my story of hope," Heininger said. "And my life's better than it ever has been after learning all of this."
The Athletes Connected project team will present its research findings at the University of Michigan Depression on College Campuses Conference, March 11-12 in Ann Arbor. For more information visit www.depressioncenter.org/docc.
