When he's not pushing back opposing defenders, Johns Hopkins lineman Alan Gorny is helping his fellow Blue Jays student-athletes find a place to focus on their mental well-being. Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com

By Greg Thomas  
D3sports.com  

Large or small, directly or indirectly, we all have been impacted by mental health struggles. My Around The Nation predecessor, Adam Turer, shared a very personal story in this space that has stayed with me to this day. The importance of mental well-being is, it seems, is more and more a priority among teams and student-athletes that we cover here at the D3sports.com family of websites. 

Alan Gorny, an offensive lineman at Johns Hopkins and a grad student in healthcare management, saw the importance of that on his campus as well and decided to do something about it.

Gorny’s list of service is extensive and includes volunteering to register members of the Johns Hopkins community to the national bone marrow registry for the Be The Match program, working with the Johns Hopkins Food Pantry, and extensive work with his Beth Shalom congregation. Gorny was also named to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team -- an honor given to student-athletes for exemplary efforts and impact off the field and in their communities.

This is College Football Mental Health Week. Organized by Hilinski’s Hope , the week of Oct. 1-8 a week is a week of action designed to increase mental health awareness and resources for students on college campuses as well as continuing to eliminate stigmas associated with discussing and addressing mental health.

In fact, Alan credits his religion for his passion for community service. 

“I'm lucky that my family has really put an emphasis on community service, and I think that starts with my religion,” Gorny said. “One of the Jewish principles that we really try to hold dear, is a Hebrew word called tzedakah. Which basically could be translated to acts of kindness or, acts of giving righteousness to people who really need it.”

Alan’s instinct for community building led him to co-found Blue Jays Together, a peer-led group at Johns Hopkins focused on discussing mental health topics, during the summer of 2020. “This idea was conceived during the summer when COVID really hit. I was thinking that mental health is, you know, really affected by COVID and especially for myself and other student athletes.” Gorny said. 

After discussing his idea with student outreach resources on campus, Gorny’s idea crystallized. “I eventually came up with the idea to do peer mental health talks. I partnered with my friend and teammate Ross (Andersson), and we together really pushed this forward.”  Gorny continued, “We started meeting over Zoom with student athletes who just needed to come talk about really anything or, you know, we, we'd have a topic for the day we'd talk about.”

Blue Jays Together has grown since the community has come back together on campus and the group has moved away from Zoom calls. “The really great thing is now we are getting officially established on campus. As a group, so now we can get funding from the university and hopefully better advertising,” Gorny said. “Being able to meet in person, even since last year, has been really great for interacting with people face to face, especially when it comes to normalizing topics or rather normalizing talking about mental health.”

Participation in the group is also expanding beyond the Blue Jays football program. “There have been a lot of (players) from the (women’s) lacrosse team, volleyball team, and field hockey team especially who've come and have, at least I feel, have gotten something out of it. For me, the most encouraging thing is, you know, seeing somebody like either a teammate or somebody on a different team texts me personally and says, ‘Hey Alan, I think what you're doing is really great and it's actually motivated me to seek outside resources.’ ” Gorny said.

“Which to me is really what it's all about is eventually getting to that point where you, where you can decide for yourself, you know, what is the best thing for my mental health.” 

Across the country at Pacific Lutheran, the Lute football team is nearing one year since losing their teammate, Jordan Taff. Head coach Brant McAdams told Around the Nation that one of the ways his team is honoring Jordan’s memory is by promoting mental health awareness. “We didn’t issue jersey number 38 this year to make sure that we're highlighting the conversation around [mental health],” McAdams said. 

On being impacted by mental health struggles, McAdams continued, “Unfortunately more people have experienced being around it or being exposed to it. “We have a first year, you know, that came in and he had a high school teammate that he lost by suicide in spring of his senior year and he shared that in fall camp. When you look at the big picture, I think our guys are doing really well, but that doesn't make it an easy topic to talk about. It doesn't make it an easy topic to revisit.”

One way that Pacific Lutheran is fostering their community’s healing and mental health awareness is by partnering with Hilinksi’s Hope. “I think that [Hilinski's Hope’s] effort is valid in, in trying to normalize the conversation around mental health or, or any sort of struggle and to clarify and communicate the resources that are available in person, online, on the phone, or whatever it is.”

For junior linebacker Kalen Davis-White, the last year has changed the players’ perspective on mental health topics. “Since we lost Jordan last year, it was kind of a wakeup call. It kind of opened everybody's eyes saying, ‘We've seen Jordan every day with a big smile on his face, and it kind of just slapped us in the face to experience that,” Davis-White said. 

Davis-Whie is among the leaders on the team that have taken a proactive role in promoting open conversations about individuals’ mental health. “When we're faced with opportunities to jump on that topic [of mental health], the older guys and the leaders have been more vocal and taken on more responsibility,” Davis-White said. “Letting the young guys say their feelings and letting them know that it's okay to not be okay. We all have one hundred brothers out here on this team. If you're not okay, you can go and talk to somebody, even if it's not one of us. We'll help you find somebody else and go talk to. We have a lot of resources here at our school online in person.”

One resource that PLU has added is assistant coach, Zach Willis. Willis is a 2019 PLU graduate who has a master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology. McAdams credits Willis for bringing psychological training to the Lute football program. “He brings a mental performance angle and a mental strength angle to our preparation as a football team. At the end of the day, a lot of it is mindfulness. Clearing your mind, being intentional about being present, being where you're at,” McAdams said. 

Davis-White has also benefited from Willis’s addition to the staff. “I talk to Zach multiple weekends, especially on game days,” he said. “Just asking him what else can I do to stay clear in my own head? And just other mental feedback points from Zach. I feel like I've felt the benefits in real time, real game scenarios.”

Like most football programs, Pacific Lutheran uses football to teach and train its players for life. “We don't just talk about football. Football's the greatest game in the world because it creates the same challenges in the moment that life can create,” McAdams said. “Our guys understand that you. Having that visual set point and having that conversation right in the middle of a game or in the middle of a practice is the same as having that visual set point or that conversation in the middle of a tough semester or in the middle of a challenging life experience.”

McAdams also believes that Pacific Lutheran is a place uniquely suited to be at the forefront of the larger conversation about mental health. “I'd almost say that PLU was a place where it was easier for us to have that conversation and grow into it ourselves. Our hall of fame head coach, Frosty Westering, he was, ahead of his time with positive psychology,” he said. 

“Kalen and I are sitting in a room that has our core values on the wall – thoughtful inquiry, service, leadership, and care,” McAdams continued. “I think at PLU, living up to that mission, being very vocal and up front about it creates the space to make it easy to go have these hard conversations.”

“Our team culture, our values, and our family and brotherhood is what also makes it easier for talking about your mental health,” Davis-White said. “I guess the things that you keep in that you probably wouldn't tell people, because of our team and our brotherhood, it is a lot easier to go and talk to each other.”

Efforts like Blue Jays Together and PLU’s partnership with Hilinksi’s Hope are among the many initiatives springing up across the country to create spaces for student-athletes to be free of preexisting stigmas surrounding mental health. “Our culture really is what makes it easy to talk about mental health to each other and to our coaches,” Davis-Whtie said.

The efforts underway and co-founded by Alan Gorny at Johns Hopkins and at PLU are helping to not just create space for these difficult conversations, but to make them an embedded part of the culture of athletics. 

More Good Works

Alan Gorny is one of four Division III football players to be recognized on the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team. Other student-athletes recognized for being impactful leaders in their communities are Matthew Feldick (Bethel), Matt Lilja (Mount Union) and Michael Wozniak (St. John’s). Congratulations to each of these student-athletes on this honor. 

On tap

The Division III football regular season will pass its halfway point this weekend and as we make the turn and head for home over the next five weeks, D3football.com is going to have you covered. Here’s what you can watch for every week at D3football.com:

Tomorrow: Quick Hits featuring our panel’s predictions and insights into this weekend’s games

Saturday: Game day. The D3football.com Scoreboard has all of your links for stats and broadcasts. 

Sunday: New Top 25 poll 

Monday: Around The Nation podcast. Pat Coleman and Greg Thomas recap the weekend that was and preview the weekend to come in Division III football.

Tuesday/Wednesday: Team of the Week honors, features columns

Thursday: Around the Nation column

I'd like to thank ...

Special thanks this week to Alan Gorny, Kalen Davis-White, and Brent McAdams for spending time with Around the Nation. Additional thanks to Johns Hopkins Associate Athletic Director and Director of Althletics Communications Ernie Larossa and Pacific Lutheran Director of Sports Communication Mark Albanese for coordinating our conversations!

Read options?

Small college football is actually pretty massive. Division III is home to 240 teams, many thousands of student-athletes and coaches. There are so many more stories out there than I can find on my own. Please share your stories that make Division III football so special for all of us! Reach out to me at greg.thomas@d3sports.com or on Twitter @wallywabash to share your stories.