MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Many of you probably aren't familiar with the name Thomas Eagleton.
He was a senator from Missouri who became George McGovern's running mate during the 1972 presidential election. Eagleton's place on the Democratic ticket lasted just 18 days before it was discovered that he was hospitalized on three different occasions for depression in the 1960s.
Back during the height of the Cold War, depression and proximity to the nuclear football did not sit well with voters.
Furthermore, mental health was simply not something people talked about comfortably in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, the 2000s or beyond, for that matter.
Even today, it's a topic broached with great trepidation, particularly in the macho (how about that 1970s term!) world of sports. But West Virginia's
Neal Brown brought up his players' mental health and well-being during one of his Zoom calls with media earlier this month, and he referenced it again last Wednesday.
It's a topic college football coaches would not have dared mention 10 or 15 years ago, or even during 9-11 when we last experienced uncertain times.
And how often have we heard "uncertain times" in the last eight weeks, by the way?
Since the coronavirus shut down college sports, it seems like we have been permanently stuck on March 12, which was the last time my desk calendar was flipped.
Elite college athletes accustomed to participating in structured training routines on campus are now back home with their families until social restrictions are finally lifted.
The new normal is abnormal - something Brown is beginning to sense with some of his guys.
"When I talk about player health and wellness I want to see them on one of these (video) meetings where I can look (them in the eyes)," he said. "I know the kids, and I can tell something is off, and if there is something off it's time to start asking questions."
Dr. Dayna Charbonneau is responsible for the mental health and wellness for WVU student-athletes as the department's director of clinical and sport psychology.
The London, Ontario, native is a member of the American Psychological Association and has been in the sports psychology field since receiving her doctoral degree at the University of Indianapolis in 2010.
She completed her doctoral internship at Utah State in 2016 and joined the athletics department in 2017 after a year of post-doctoral work at UC Davis.
Normally, her counseling sessions with student-athletes are done on a personal basis in her office. Conducting business today on a computer is less than ideal, she admits.
"It's different," Charbonneau said recently.
"With the folks I was already meeting with, we were just trying to find a way to continue this the best we could," she continued. "It's tricky. As a licensed psychologist in West Virginia, when everyone went home they got dispersed to their home states, and even to other countries, so we have rules within the Board of Psychology in terms of practice guidelines of what you can and cannot do when someone is in another state.
"Now that the Board of Psychology recognized that the pandemic is an emergency situation, they kind of relaxed some of the guidelines for other states so I have, for the most part, been able to have conversations with folks in other states," she said.
Charbonneau has also joined video meetings set up by staff nutritionist
Sina King and director of student-athlete enhancement
Tangela Cheatham to try and keep her fingers on the pulse of student body.
They recently hosted a virtual luncheon to discuss what the student-athletes were eating for lunch so King could gauge their nutritional intake while Charbonneau got a sense for how some of them were coping with the pandemic.
"It's tricky so I've tried to be creative," she said.
Charbonneau indicated a lot of her discussions have centered on helping the student-athletes cope with the abrupt changes they have experienced to their daily lives.
"There are a lot of emotions that might come up, especially earlier on when this first happened, so we give them some coping strategies on how they can experience those feelings and kind of get through them and settle into a place where they get to the new normal," she explained. "It's really hard to move forward until they feel some of those things that are natural and realistic to feel.
"What we've focused on, and you are hearing a lot of this from the coaches, is the importance of maintaining a schedule," Charbonneau said.
She continued, "(A schedule is) so helpful from a mental health perspective because when there is so much uncertainty about when they are going to get back, it can really provide them with a sense of control. It can help them with their confidence and feeling more productive. A lot of them have really done a good job of establishing that for themselves."
Charbonneau said boredom is a common theme coming up during a lot of her discussion with student-athletes. In many cases, their days were planned for them while they were on campus and now their personal schedules are more open.
She has also been discussing boundaries with their family members and other issues while they are home self-quarantining.
"What is tricky is the reality that a number of our student-athletes are back in environments that aren't great and so that's difficult," she pointed out. "Some of them might be worrying about finances and stuff like that. I think that's something we forget about that some of our athletes are navigating as well."
But not
Neal Brown. This has been on his radar, particularly now with daily football inactivity surpassing two months.
"We just have to be in tune with it," he said. "Probably anybody who has nearly 100 people on their roster or in their company or whatever, there are individuals within that organization who have struggled with this. We're not immune to that. We've had staff members who have struggled with this. We have had players struggle with it, but I think we've been able to help to this point, but it's an ongoing process."
The fact that a person of Brown's stature is discussing mental health is a big victory in itself in Charbonneau's eyes.
"All of the student support services agree that we view our mind and body as being connected, and, unfortunately, in the past society has tried to cut off what is happening above our neck and assume that focusing on the rest of our body is the most important thing," she explained. "When we are neglecting one it ends up having a detrimental effect on the other."
Charbonneau listed four important aspects of sports performance – physical, technical, tactical and mental.
"The mental part was the one neglected for so long, and if we are neglecting one of these areas it is impacting how we look at the whole athlete," she said.
Overall, Charbonneau believes WVU student-athletes have been surprisingly resilient through this.
"A lot of them are surprised at how well they are adjusting, and it's cool to see how proud they are in being able to handle it," she said.
Brown agrees.
"I think our guys have done pretty well," he concluded.