May is Mental Health Awareness Month and we’re highlighting a new tool that student athletes are trying out to help maintain their physical and mental toughness in competition.
For Boston English High School basketball player Nisaiah Nieves, the sport is an escape.
“Once you get in the gym, nothing else matters,” he said.
For Nieves and his teammate Janeuey Brea, playing the sport is more than just a way to stay in shape. It’s an opportunity to achieve goals, make connections and develop leadership skills.
“We tried to talk to each other as much as we can, stay connected. Because at the end of the day, we all had the same goal, the same end goal. We always wanted to win,” Brea said.
And they did — advancing well into the playoffs despite having a brand-new team with players who didn’t speak the same language. They credit a bit of their success this year to a focus on their mental game.
“The mental is like 90% of the game. It’s like 10% physical,” Nieves said.
This past fall, through a partnership with Let’s Play Boston, they met with former NBA Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams, a Massachusetts native, to learn about a new startup, NDUR. Pronounced “endure,” its app provides a unique platform for student athletes to chat with each other on issues and pressures they face.
Carter-Williams has been vocal about his mental health struggles in the league and is a co-founder of NDUR.
The first game for the season was called off when a bus never showed up to take the East Boston High School boys’ basketball team to Fall River.
“Just by, you know, speaking to them about my own issues, it kind of had let them open up about their own issues and it really was impactful,” he said.
NDUR’s president, Darren Orr, has worked with hockey players as an agent most of his career. His father is the legendary Boston Bruin Bobby Orr.
“He had some amazing skills,” said Orr of his father, “and he had a supportive family and all those things that are really important. But he had no one to turn to … to talk about that mental barrier he was running into.”
Orr said NDUR aims to be a free starting point for athletes, meeting them where they’re already at — their phones.
“You can’t always fix every single issue that’s out there. But what we try to do is tamp down those embers before they become a forest fire,” he said.
Through his Marked as Winners foundation, Baltimore Ravens safety Marcus Williams is empowering young people to overcome challenges and achieve their full potential through education and mental wellness.
The young players tell us they’ve taken strategies learned on the app, from others’ first-hand experience, to the court and the classroom.
“Other people like sharing their point of views on their mental state. Like, for example, like an injury, they’re sharing how that affected them. And you can, like, build off of that and either help the person or you can use that information to help yourself as well,” Nieves said.
“Breathing was a big part of, like, processing everything that was going on during the season because there was a lot of stuff we went through and breathing really helped,” Brea said.
NDUR founders plan to incorporate more advice from pro- and collegiate-level athletes on the app to keep the conversation going. The city of Boston is on board hoping this partnership will change the game around mental health.
“The more that we normalize it, the more that people can ask for help and get the help that they need,” said Tyrik Wilson, Boston’s Youth Sports Initiative manager.
“If you make a bad play or you have a bad practice, like, it’s not the end of the world,” explained Brea. “We got each other because this is like a family. It’s brotherhood. So we all hold each other down.”
