by Jesse Haynes
 
TULSA, Okla. – Representatives from the American Athletic Conference and its 13 member institutions gathered for the third annual Academic Consortium Symposium on March 28-30. The symposium, held on The University of Tulsa’s campus, brought together scholars, practitioners and student-athletes engaged in multidisciplinary research related to student-athlete well-being, with a special emphasis on student-athlete mental health.
 
President Dr. Gerald P. Clancy and Faculty Athletics Representative Christopher Anderson from The University of Tulsa served as the event’s facilitators.
 
Jessica Wagner, assistant director of prevention and health promotion for the NCAA and one of the Symposium’s keynote speakers, noted why mental health should be a key focus for the membership.


 
“Before the NCAA’s Sports Science Institute was formed, we expected to hear that concussions were the greatest concern coming from NCAA universities. It turned out that mental health was actually the greatest concern -- even more so than concussions,” Wagner said in her keynote address.
 
She added that mental health should be considered as great of a concern as a physical injury and should be treated as such. Because of this, the Institute is trying to implement a support protocol for all NCAA student-athletes, along with developing specific programs to address these issues and developing partnerships that will eventually help the programs extend beyond student-athletes across campus.
 
During his keynote address, Dr. Clancy, a psychiatrist who treated patients up until being introduced as The University of Tulsa’s president in 2016, explained the neuroscience of depression and suicide.
 
After sharing images of human brain scans and outlining the activity or disease associated with each, Dr. Clancy went on to explain how depression can be identified, managed and destigmatized.
 
“Clinical depression is a brain disease. It’s very important for all of us to fight the stigma of mental illness,” he said. “Clinical depression should be treated early, as this can help prevent additional episodes later in life.”
 
Dr. Clancy then transitioned into a discussion about suicide, pointing to the dangerous extreme of brain disease to explain why depression needs to be held with the utmost importance and highlighted potential treatments or remedies on the horizon.
 
Anderson said the Symposium was a step in the right direction for The American.
 
“This event couldn’t have come at a better time, seeing as the autonomy conferences (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12 and SEC) passed the mental health legislation in January. Now the Symposium is pushing The American to the forefront of these conferences. And just as important as the knowledge we gained during the conference, the Symposium itself is a powerful symbol that shows our conference is pointing forward.”
 
The American’s Academic Consortium awarded six grants centered on student-athlete wellness, and each recipient or team of recipients shared their research through a formal presentation.
 
In one grant presentation, Lisa Cromer, associate professor of psychology at The University of Tulsa, discussed her Golden Strategies and Techniques for Achievement, Resilience and Transition (START) program.
 
“You can’t go to the gym and gain physical strength overnight, and we made sure the student-athletes understood that same concept applies to the psychological issues we’re discussing,” Cromer said. “Just like gaining muscle, learning these skills is done with reps.”
 
Lauren Miller, a mental health specialist and a doctoral candidate at Tulane University, shared her research on end-of-athletic-career transition from her point of view as a former field hockey player at Duke University. Cincinnati’s Thomas Palmer, assistant professor of athletic training, discussed how alternative training programs along with wearable technology can improve student-athlete fitness and help prevent injuries.
 
The Symposium also offered looks at other important wellness issues in the sports world.


 
In a special presentation, Rachel Hildebrand, The University of Tulsa’s director of athletic training, co-presented with Laura Wilson, assistant professor of speech-language pathology, about wearable technology and concussion monitoring. Hildebrand and Wilson discussed the wide range of devices currently available to monitor head trauma and the pros and cons of such technologies. In addition, they outlined the improvements that they are currently working on to improve concussion safety.
 
“All the devices out there offer indirect measurements of the trauma,” Wilson cautioned. “There is not as much directionality associated with it, so their output is still one step removed from thinking about how the brain is actually moving in the head.”
 
Throughout the Symposium, a recurring theme was that none of the progress made toward helping student-athletes would be possible if it wasn’t for the student-athletes’ input and voice.
 
The Symposium made this voice heard. Several panels consisted of student-athletes or former student-athletes from The American who spoke on topics such as depression, resilience, transitioning from athletics, ways current athletes can have their experience improved and other mental-health related topics.
 
In one panel, student-athletes discussed the culture of college sports, suggesting a positive change toward improved mental health is a process that involves the athletes’ willingness to discuss issues with coaches and the coaches’ willingness to listen and respond appropriately. This two-way dialog, along with other changes to sports culture, could advance health care for student-athletes.
 
The panel’s moderator was Enna Selmanovic, a former swimmer and diver at Cincinnati, who serves as vice chair of the Division I NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), and chair of The American SAAC. Selmanovic said the Symposium is a positive initiative for the Conference.
 


“The American Athletic Conference truly continues to put science and research, two things very dear to me, at the forefront of our stakeholders in order to make honest and data-driven decisions,” she said. “I’m appreciative of both the Academic Consortium and the faculty athletics representatives for their willingness to learn more every day. As a student-athlete, it is comforting to see how much the conference cares.”
 
To wrap up, Kevin Grawer shared in the final keynote how being a student-athlete can prepare one for the real world. Grawer, a former basketball player at The University of Tulsa, is now the principal at Maplewood Richmond Heights in St. Louis, Missouri.
 
His leadership is heavily influenced by the disciplines he learned as a student-athlete, and Grawer shared a message of hope to the researchers, professionals and student-athletes in attendance: The end of sports participation isn’t the end of happiness, rather a bridge that leads to another exciting chapter of life that will carry-out the lessons learned along the way.
 
Looking back at two full days of powerful discussion, Dr. Clancy might have best summarized the Symposium: “This was a great opportunity for the American Athletic Conference to distinguish itself, focusing on an important topic. The responsibility of universities is to get the most pressing issues in front of people, and the de-stigmatization of mental illness -- specifically how we can help students do better -- is really important, so that’s what we’ve done.”