by Maryland head football coach Mike Locksley became a staunch advocate for athletes’ mental health following the 2017 death of his son, who was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and posthumously CTE. This is part 2 of a two-part series on mental health in youth sports, knowing the warning signs and how you can help. Read part 1 here.
Mike Locksley coached college football at both Illinois and New Mexico from 2005 to 2011. His son, Meiko, was a star high school quarterback in both states.
Meiko signed to play at Youngstown State in Ohio, where he began to change.
He stopped going to class and developed unusual discipline problems. As he moved from school to school, he lost weight, began hallucinating and seemed unable to understand conversations. He also suffered a concussion while playing at New Mexico, not his first head injury playing football over the years.
Locksley remembers being ashamed of his son’s behavior.
“He’s dealing with schizophrenia,” Maryland’s head football coach recalled. “He calls people who were friends of mine and has awkward, weird conversations and they have no idea because he doesn’t have a cast on his arm or crutches [like with physical ailments].”
It took a lot of learning and reflection before his thought process changed – a thought process he now advocates and uses with his own teams.
“After a while I got tired of feeling sorry for it and said, ‘What’s so different from an ACL?’ My approach was to attack it. To make it cool. To make it up to you.”
When Locksley spoke at the Project Play Summit in Baltimore in May, he was asked to help the audience understand why mental health advocacy is so important to him.
“It starts with failure,” he said. “I had a son, Meiko Anthony Locksley, a Division I football player. …He was dealing with mental health issues before he was killed.”
Meiko was shot and killed in 2017 in nearby Columbia, Maryland, while he was a student at Towson and his father was coaching at Alabama. He was posthumously diagnosed with CTE.
“You know, mental health has never affected me, and now it was really personal for me, because at the age of 21 I saw a son who was a normal football player, who struggled with understanding the myth of reality.”
“And it just happened, almost like that for me,” he said, snapping his fingers.
Next, Locklsey talked about the look. The one he saw in his son’s eyes, but didn’t recognize at the time.
“It’s that look where you can all see the soul of a person,” Locksley said. “I said to myself, ‘I’ve seen that look from many footballers in 34 years, but I haven’t seen that.’ recognize it.’ The tragedy of losing my son, which may have been attributed to his mental health issues, has motivated me to care for the 18 to 22 year olds I have been able to develop from boys to men.
The crowd, filled with coaches and teachers, applauded. And did so again when Locksley said Maryland passed a bill requiring the Department of Education to train public school coaches to recognize indicators of mental illness.
Eight states require mental health training for high school coaches, according to a recent study from the University of Connecticut. Another initiative, the Million Coaches Challenge, has brought together organizations to train coaches on youth development issues, including mental health.
Meiko’s death taught Locksley to coach with a greater awareness of his players’ mental health. He hopes coaches at all levels will follow his example.
Treat the player’s injury and emotional state
How are you?
Tell me what’s going on.
Are you okay?
These are questions we can ask our athletes when something isn’t right. Be proactive even if you don’t suspect anything.
If he or she is recovering from an injury, ask, “How are you feeling today after treatment?”
Clayton Young, an Olympic marathoner who took part in a mental health briefing from the National Athletic Trainers Association last summer, says the athlete’s tone of voice and the way he reacts to the injury can give you a lot of information about his or her emotional state. .
More: From hating swimming to winning 10 medals, Allison Schmitt uses life stories to give advice
Young recovered from knee surgery to finish ninth out of more than 70 participants in the men’s marathon at the Paris Olympics. While in recovery, Young remembers the simple act of a late-night text from his athletic trainer asking about him when he was feeling vulnerable.
It made him feel like someone really cared about him.
“Running is not only my career and my way of providing for my family and my livelihood, but it is also my passion, my identity,” Young said. ‘It’s my medicine, you could almost say. And when all of that is taken away from you as an athlete, it can be very, very difficult.
And if it’s a serious injury, like an ACL tear, it could be nine to 12 months before they return to action — if they return at all, says Marci Goolsby, the WNBA’s director of sports medicine.
“They lose their social network in a lot of ways when they don’t play sports anymore,” said Goolsby, who also coaches her daughter’s high school basketball team. “And it’s higher in some sports than others, like lacrosse and women’s soccer, where we see a lot of these injuries, and it can be incredibly impactful.”
If you get injured, it can help to continue practicing with teammates and having social gatherings.
Coach Steve: Five tips for complete recovery from an ACL tear
While rehabbing, Young discovered that having a workout buddy who is also recovering from an injury can lift the spirit. For him, it was Olympian and two-time NCAA cross country champion Conner Mantz.
“We started building this relationship, but we also started motivating each other,” Young said. “We share a lot of struggles and train together. We relate to each other in many areas of our lives. He is someone who understands me best. And I think everyone should have a Connor Mantz in their life, whether it’s running, in the office, at work or with family.
Talk about it. Gain trust.
When new players and coaches join the Maryland football program, Locksley goes through a drill he calls “three H’s.” At the end of the training, everyone shares a moment of greatest happiness, a hardship and a hero.
“That way we get to know them personally,” Locksley said. “And we have an open-door policy when it comes to the mental health part. It’s real for us in our program. We talk about it a lot.”
Mayrena Hernandez, assistant professor of athletic training at Sam Houston State University in Texas, sat next to Locksley on stage at the Project Play Summit and spoke about the importance of children feeling comfortable.
Hernandez conducted a study among athletic trainers and adolescents of low socioeconomic status. She found that trainers noticed emotional cues when they were good listeners and understood mental health issues.
For example, the cross-country runners in the study were injured, but why? Athletic trainers were able to determine that their equipment was inadequate. They wore the same torn shoes.
“Or they’ve noticed that, oh, this kid takes the bus instead of having a new car like all his classmates,” she said. “Surprisingly, some of those kids are really good at hiding those things so they can assimilate with their peers. And so the athletic trainer can really step in and gather those clues to figure out, “Okay, is this athlete experiencing some of these inequities in society compared to his peers?”
Only about 37% of U.S. high schools have access to a full-time athletic trainer, Hernandez said. One initiative in Los Angeles, Team Heal, is a hospital community program that helps get athletic trainers into schools.
An athletic trainer is another resource for an athlete and their families. Another person who can look at that look.
“I always talk about that look,” says Locksley, “I know what it looks like now and it’s like, ‘What’s going on?’ Are you okay?’
‘These kids all want to tell you their problems. But you have to have the trust and know you care about them for them to open up.”
Steve Borelli, also known as Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer at USA TODAY since 1999. He coached his two sons’ baseball and basketball teams for 10 years. He and his wife Colleen are now sports parents to two high school students. His column is posted weekly. For his previous columns, click here.
(This story has been updated because an earlier version contained an inaccuracy.)
