Becoming a professional athlete is one of the highest accomplishments one can achieve. Becoming an NFL football player sits right up there with a superhero. That is why most people expect athletes to never have mere mortal problems. There is no way that they could ever struggle with mental depression or anxiety because they worked so hard to get to where they are.
The truth is, professional athletes suffer from mental health issues just like everyday people, if not more. With the pressure to win, family and maintaining their careers, professional athletes might struggle more so to maintain a healthy mental balance.
In the past, addressing mental health was tabu for professional athletes, but with the recent statements made by Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and NBA player Kevin Love, the message is starting to get across. Mental health impacts everyone, even professional athletes.
The year 2020 has led the US to a mental health precipice. The country is more divided than ever as Americans face historic racial and civic unrest along with the global coronavirus pandemic. As vulnerable populations face even more economic and societal injustices brought about by the COVID-19 lockdowns, feelings of fear, anxiety, and stress add to the country’s mental health crisis.
In 2017, 1 in 5 Americans were already living with a mental health disorder. It is projected that job loss and social isolation will only make this situation worse. There has never been a more important time to not only address the issue of mental awareness, but to also put real action behind it.
The Indianapolis Colts decided to take the issue of mental health head on after a successful campaign to bring awareness to the problem.
“We got an overwhelming response to the ‘My Cause My Cleats’ program,” said Steve Campbell, the Colts Vice President of Communications. “Ever since then, the Irsay family and the Colts organization have made a commitment to addressing mental health head-on with our ‘Kicking the Stigma’program.”
The “My Cause My Cleats” campaign is an NFL initiative where the athletes get to wear customized cleats during the game to bring awareness to any nonprofit organization of their choice. Darius Leonard, a Colts player, decided to address mental health and that started the “Kicking the Stigma” program.
“Darius took a huge step up to address the issue of mental health and now it has become a focus of the entire team and organization – so much so that we have made it a national campaign,” Campbell explained.
The team hopes to hold a virtual fund raiser for “Kicking the Stigma” and, recently, the Irsay family donated over 1 million dollars to Indiana University to address mental illness.
Campbell considers this to be the perfect time to be with the team and to deal with mental health as well. Steve is a home-grown talent hailing from Akron, Ohio and who attended Ohio State University.
He began his career in public service and helped found the Colts-Business Alliance, the public-private partnership of Indiana businesses that advocated for building Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts now play. In 2009 he founded Campbell Strategies LLC, a local communications and strategy firm providing media counsel to business, nonprofit, and public sector clients. Now Campbell and the Colts are building something new, a solid national campaign to tackle athletes and mental illness head on.
