CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Not just a game Without football, some players, coaches worried about mental health Football

Maryland Gazette - 8/26/2020

Shaun-Trent Okoye walks. His vision swims with nature. He listens to nine songs. It's what he does to banish the bad thoughts in his head, if only for an hour.

For some players, losing a football season means losing the thing they loved the most. For others, training for a potential spring season comes with complications. For others, it's even more precarious.

Okoye would have lost his first season at Bowie State no matter what. The former Arundel wide receiver suffered a shoulder injury during a playoff game in his senior year, and after having surgery a few weeks back is sidelined through at least November. The Bulldogs' conference, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association, postponed fall sports in July.

That fact doesn't ease Okoye's mind. What's worse is now he can't fill his days like his friends and teammates can, with workouts and conditioning, to block his thoughts. Football is truly gone.

"If I wasn't injured and I had the option to sit because of COVID or play football, I'm playing football. Football is the getaway. It's a difference-maker in my life, for sure," Okoye said. "When I'm in a game or practice, there's nothing outside of that. Anything's going on in my life, as soon as I put those pads on and step in the lines, it's gone."

Okoye's happy his friends are conditioning. He thinks this should be the best season of football in history come spring, if it happens, since everyone has so much time to train. He knows he'll catch up. But regardless, he's alone. There's really no one he can share with, and so those anxieties fester.

"I'm not the type of person to speak on my feelings," Okoye said. "The way I see it, if I speak, who really cares?"

When Okoye's home, he watches film and tries to focus on images of him making a big play in a Bowie State uniform. Of winning a national championship. Of buying his mom a house.

All his life, Okoye has soaked in his mother's struggles. He felt he had to grow up young and fend for himself. His sister, now just 13, already acts like a grown woman.

"At the end of the day, I told her, I'll make sure I pay you back for everything you've done, the sacrifice you've made, the struggle and pain you've put yourself through for us," Okoye said of his mother.

It's because of her that he fears his world without football.

"Honestly, if I lost football, I don't know what I'd do. Football is literally all I've got," Okoye said. "People always tell me have a plan B. There is no plan B. It's football or nothing."

Jumping over hurdles

Early into quarantine, working out came with complications for Bowie State offensive lineman and Meade graduate Darius Wilson. The Hanover native lives with his sister and grandparents because of his mother's battle with drugs and his father being in and out of prison. He couldn't risk spreading the virus to his grandparents, so they lived in different parts of the house.

It strained him mentally to be apart. It was like being a stranger, Wilson said, in your own family.

Now, months later, things have gotten looser. His grandparents allow him to go work out, usually at Meade or Arundel's high school fields, so long as he gets tested for the virus every now and then. Back in April, Wilson said he would face his fears and trust God to protect himself if he wanted to be first-string at Bowie State next year. He always knew the risk of infection was there and does now.

"It's worrisome, but at the same time, some people still have to work," Wilson said. "Playing a college sport is like work. They take the risk going to work, I take the risk working out."

It's lonely working out alone. Wilson misses the camaraderie, especially after a long, hard workout. He's anticipating a long, cold fall season, as some Division I schools and potentially the National Football League play.

"It's going to be difficult either watching professionals or a division higher than you play when you've got to sit at home and do nothing but just watch," Wilson said. "You got to take it as a learning experience. You got to realize after college, what else is there to do for you? You've got to think of it as, this is life after sports."

Structure is what keeps Archbishop Spalding rising senior Zakee Wheatley going. He has it all mapped out: from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., he works at Shoppers. Then he naps, and afterward he trains.

"I like it. It gives me something to do. Keeps me occupied during this time," he said.

Coronavirus lurks around Wheatley every day he's out in the workforce. He never removes his mask or gloves, unlike some of his co-workers. He can't bring the virus home, not with two younger siblings, his grandmother, and his and his father's asthma.

Spalding's football workouts had given Wheatley purpose, but those ended Aug. 11 just before the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association shut down the fall season. Before, Wheatley had been able to work out at Gold's Gym, but his father pulled him out when the franchise refused to enforce mandatory masks.

Wheatley's lucky nonetheless. He can lift at home and do speed workouts with his father outside. The coaching staff at Penn State, where Wheatley committed in the spring, assured him that despite the lost college season, Wheatley would not be losing his spot.

He knows not everyone is as fortunate.

"I can feel their pain right now," Wheatley said.

Slipping through the cracks

Yazid Jackson can't see his players in person right now. The Meade football assistant coach has to abide by rules laid out by Anne Arundel County Public Schools athletics, which forbid coaching staffs from interacting with their players in person. Jackson is limited to talking with the team in Google classroom meetings, which feel too formal. Some players appear disengaged in the group chats. You can't read body language or have a long heart-to-heart on a screen.

"Our responsibility right now is not football," Jackson said. "Our responsibility right now is making sure they have the care that they need in order to move forward. That's been tough."

When Jackson and the other assistants arrived at Meade under the leadership of coach Mike Francis, the top goal had been to create a culture born from retrieving, protecting and empowering kids in their own communities that had been slipping through the cracks. Kids who suffered trauma and quit football returned and pulled their grades up.

Football had been the entry point. Consistent interpersonal interactions sustained the growth. The restrictions in place by athletics policies have boiled that down to steam.

"I wouldn't say it's been impossible," Jackson said, emphasizing the word, "but for our community, a group we support and serve, I feel like we're the most marginalized school. In terms of county rules and restrictions that have been developed for safety, I feel like the physical health has been addressed, but the mental, spiritual, emotional health of our kids has been a concern."

With any future plans, Jackson wants AACPS to address the needs of its underprivileged student-athletes. Already, the coach sees incoming freshmen, rising seniors falling away. Jackson, an educator in Washington schools, has seen an increase in legal entanglements, violence and even homicides, he said. He's fearful he'll see his kids' names in the newspaper for the wrong reason.

"I'm afraid to see what the next three months looks like. My biggest fear is we'll have kids that don't make it to spring," Jackson said.

Moving on to plan B

Delvin Johnson's brain is heating up.

Football was his way of cooling it. After a year at Annapolis, Johnson, who will finish high school at Kent Island in the spring, spent two at South River. Before each Seahawks football game, the team marches by a pile of rocks.

"I touch them and everything that's in my mind, it goes. I'm all ready for the game. I used it to get away from family stuff. My mom was on drugs really bad at first. I tried to get her to move with my aunt in Georgia, but she wouldn't take it," Johnson said. "She had a choice: Either keep doing drugs and die, or stop and live. It's good that she chose to stop and live."

Football was a better outlet than his old ones. From around ages 13 to 16, Johnson punched holes in the wall, broke things. His uncle Blue, who had watched all his youth games growing up, died of cancer before Johnson's freshman year. Last year, one of Johnson's best friends met the same fate.

Just as he began his freshman season at Annapolis, Johnson tore three ligaments and suffered a level-3 shoulder separation on the football field. The summer after, he'd been walking the street when the mother of his friend and South River linebacker, Nasir Franklin-Branch, stopped and asked him a record-scratch question: What are your future plans?

Johnson didn't know. He'd lived with his aunt, who is struggling like his mother. She told him to talk with James Prince, an assistant coach at South River at the time. He'd taken in kids before.

Both Prince and his wife came from unstable backgrounds. He had family that helped him at Johnson's age. When he got a phone call from Johnson's aunt, he invited Johnson to his house.

Johnson wasn't sure he wanted to make this move, but after talking with the couple, he made his choice.

"He was a really, really angry kid when we took him in," Prince said. "He's not that angry kid anymore, which is wonderful. Counseling, therapy, things like that have helped him."

Johnson said he can't get mad anymore because he's grown up. He just looks at the world differently.

"By football being gone, I have everything on my mind. But I have a couple friends who get me through the day. My other family, the Princes, help me through a lot with school and keep me on track. They do the right things," Johnson said.

The Princes press Johnson about his schoolwork (his grade-point average rose to 3.0 since moving in), but don't restrict him from his friends and going out. They simply ask him to be smart about his choices, and Johnson respects it. He knows something bad could happen if he isn't smart.

After a breakout junior season, Johnson wanted better engagement between coaches and colleges, so he made the switch to Kent Island. Immediately, the rising senior and Buccaneers coach Damien Ferragamo clicked. Colleges, such as Delaware State, reached out.

Prince worried Johnson would drop out of school without football. At 18 years old, Johnson is too old to sit out a year and return to high school to play next year. Prince sat Johnson down to talk it out. Prince knows if he lost football, he might not have finished school.

"Delvin's luckier than some because at least he has a good support network now with us. I know his family cares, but they can't do any better for him. There's a lot of kids that don't," Prince said. "That's how I grew up."

Without football, possibly for the whole year, he and Prince know Johnson's shot to continue football in college is damaged. Prince is hopeful for a possible 7-on-7 season to create fresh film for Johnson's resume.

Johnson's grandmother always told him that football doesn't last forever, and this year has shown that. Johnson enrolled in more challenging classes. If he gets his GPA up, he might be able to get accepted by some colleges. He plans to major in health sciences and become a trainer.

"I worry more for his future and his ability to play at the next level. His grades aren't the best, so football was really going to be an avenue for him," Prince said. " ... With an outstanding senior year, he could have gotten more interest. Without his senior year, I think that's really going to hurt him and kids like Delvin."

Caption: Meade graduate Darius Wilson, who now plays football for Bowie State, has been working out at local schools in hope of a spring season.

Meade graduate Darius Wilson, who now plays football for Bowie State, has been staying in shape by working out at local schools in hopes of a spring football season.

Paul W. Gillespie/Capital Gazette

Paul W. Gillespie/Capital Gazette