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Mental health has become an increasingly important topic in society due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sports world witnessed that athletes aren’t vulnerable to these types of issues this summer, either. Like tennis star, Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open to preserve her mental health. In the Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles withdrew from several remaining events after she said she got the twisties where she becomes disoriented in the air. NBA star Kevin Love has also spoken out about his struggles with mental health. Over the last week, the Florida football team and coaches have been asked about how they navigate those types of issues.
Its linebacker coach Christian Robinson noticed firsthand the impact mental health has had on student-athletes.
“We have people that help us just through the medical side of what we do and the doctors and things like that to help our athletes in all areas that are health and mental health,” he said on Tuesday, according to the Gainesville Sun. “I know I can speak for myself. A lot of what I try to do is sit down and talk about what the end goal is, and hey, I’ve had guys — Lacedrick Brunson last year, he decided to sit out for personal reasons. And with everything that’s going on with our world, with health, it adds stress.
“And I know that as coaches we’re supposed to be there, we’re supposed to push our players, but a good coach has to pull back and say, ‘OK, where’s this player at and where does he need to go and what does he need?’ And that might not be always telling him, ‘Hey, you got to correct this, you’ve got to do that.’ Hey it’s, ‘You’re OK as you are,’ and ‘I can help you in those other areas.'”
He said his ultimate goal is to build better people rather than better players.
“I know (Brunson) and his son, he’s around our team all the time,” Robinson said. “He has a higher purpose than a lot of other guys right now in where they’re at in their life. I don’t have kids, but I have 10 of them. So my job is to make sure that I show them what it’s like to administer to somebody in need. We sit down. We meet regularly. Coach (Dan) Mullen has us meet with the players individually regularly to check in and put all football aside. And we’ve been really doing things well as a team as well, where we’re breaking up and talking about the experiences that we have.”
Coach Mullen commented on what Florida tries to do to help its players. He said he considers the team family that has a strong support system filled with checks and balances. The Gators also offer a counselor program to their players.
“The biggest thing I tell our guys the hardest problem for me to fix is one that I don’t know exists,” he said. “So if I don’t know a problem exists, it’s really hard for me to fix. So we just have a constant open communication, start every staff meeting with player issues, what have you noticed, you know, does anybody have a faraway look in their eye, anybody sad about something.”
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