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'We never put anything in front of that': Lincoln Riley urges players to focus on mental health during time of pandemic, racial strife

Daily Oklahoman - 6/15/2020

Jun. 15--With OU football players returning to campus on July 1 for voluntary workouts, the program will see its first step in a return to normalcy.

In the past three months, the team has been spread all across the country as the coronavirus pandemic brought the sports world to a halt. In that time, players have had to deal with mental health challenges they've never been forced to deal with before.

In order to help players through a challenging time, Sooner coach Lincoln Riley is using some of his allotted time to help them get the resources they need to stay on top of their mental health.

"(Mental health is) a big factor. Our health and well being of our players, we never put anything in front of that," Riley said on a Zoom call with reporters June 3. "I think we've taken some positive steps, but certainly as these guys get back on campus, it's something we're gonna really be watching out for."

OU was a pioneer in mental health services for student-athletes long before Riley came to Norman in 2015. In 2004, OU established Psychological Resources for OU Student-Athletes (PROS) as a means of helping student-athletes work through mental health challenges.

According to PROS director Cody Commander, student-athletes are generally used to a structured day. From classes, to team meetings, practices and everything in between, their days are often scheduled out for them, and they are often taught to focus on what they can control and not on world issues.

"COVID is on every station, every newspaper and you can't go to a store without being confronted by it," Commander said. "So one of the specific challenges to that is: This isn't something that you can just ignore, and you have to be confronted with it. So that leads to some athletes having to be vulnerable in ways that they never have before because they're not able to block this out."

Now that they are in the midst of a global pandemic and weeks of protests in the wake of police brutality, it's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid current events, and this is one of the more universal challenges players are facing.

Commander and the PROS staff have been working remotely with student-athletes on Zoom and phone calls since March. He estimated one-third of student-athletes at OU work with PROS, and they've retained about 75% of them since they started working remotely.

Finding a way to help players structure their days with school, personal time and working on their respective sports has been one of the key focuses in assisting them with their mental health.

"We've had some that are able to transition pretty well and they use their phone pretty well and talk to Siri to create appointments and reminders," Commander said. "We also have athletes that almost feel lost that they just sit in their home not doing anything because they don't know how to organize, when to do what, and so we meet with them and actually teach them how to create their own schedules."

Working remotely has presented issues for Commander. In a typical in-person session, he's able to look at non-verbal cues and student-athletes' body language to help him better understand the players he's working with.

But when sessions are conducted on Zoom, he can only see the player's faces, and if it's on the phone he can only hear their voice. Despite the challenges this presents, Commander said student-athletes have been generally adaptable and receptive to the remote sessions.

"It's definitely a little bit harder, especially if we're talking about emotionally impactful sessions to where I'm trying to read the whole body language to see how someone's doing," Commander said. "And now I can only see their faces. If it's a phone call then I can't see anything, so it also limits some of the non-verbals that I use to provide effective treatment."

Even with players returning to campus next month and the likelihood of a college football season is seemingly increasing, questions still remain.

Riley and OU athletic director Joe Castilgione have both said the process of returning to play is fluid, and both are willing to adjust the plan as circumstances around the virus change. With nothing officially set in stone, Commander said the work the PROS staff is doing can pay dividends in the future.

"A lot of (student-athletes') training involves cognitive skills -- you have to be alert when watching film and while you're learning specific techniques," Commander said. "And if you're sitting in a film room and all you're thinking about is what's going on outside the film room, then that dramatically decreases your productivity. If we can meet with a student athlete and teach them how to manage these stressors or compartmentalize them, they're going to get way more out of practice."

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