By Tucker Paquette
@tpaquette17
Sports are beloved by many because of the glory of its highs: championships, unforgettable performances and the forging of lifelong memories and eternal hope. However, on the flip side, sports can also bring challenges: gut-wrenching losses and individual struggles have their own adverse effects on athletes and teams.
In the case of the late Morgan Rodgers, those two realities blend together. Rodgers was an outgoing and enthusiastic collegiate athlete, playing Division I lacrosse at Duke University. However, when she suffered a serious knee injury ahead of her sophomore season, Rodgers began to experience heavy mental health struggles. Ultimately, Rodgers kept her challenges bottled up, and the then-22 year old took her own life in July of 2019.
In the aftermath of Rodgers’ suicide, though, her loved ones decided to make something positive and long-lasting come of it. They started Morgan’s Message, a non-profit organization aiming to destigmatize mental health and make athletes comfortable seeking help if and when they need it.
Rodgers’ story and the Morgan’s Message campaign has also become intertwined with Springfield College Athletics. Numerous athletes on Alden Street have been struck by Rodgers’ story, and several teams here put on games or scrimmages dedicated to Morgan’s Message. Field hockey recently played its Morgan’s Message game on Sept. 24 against Western New England, while the baseball team is dedicating its Oct. 18 scrimmage to the cause.
Samara Skully, a junior at Springfield College and the field hockey team’s Ambassador for Morgan’s Message, organizes all of the program’s themed games and events. In her eyes, the value of dedication games can be found in the importance of the message, as well as the excitement athletes feel for these special nights.
“Just spread her story, spread the message,” Skully said. “Make it known that it’s okay to struggle with mental health, because everybody does. Everyone gets excited to participate in the Morgan’s Message game. It brings us together, an opportunity for us to play for something bigger.”
Meanwhile, the baseball team had a similar thought process when deciding to dedicate their fall scrimmage to Morgan’s Message. They’ll be wearing special t-shirts on the field, and they’ll be selling them, as well. All of this is done with the goal of raising as much awareness as possible for athletes’ mental health.
“Dedicating our fall scrimmage to the Morgan’s Message organization is a great way to get the name out, get the idea out to people who may not know,” said Ryan Duffy, a senior on the baseball team and an advocate for mental health on campus. “Spreading the idea that it’s okay to ask for help, it’s okay to get the help you need.”
When Duffy first heard Rodgers’ story, it really struck him, and it also made him think. Sometimes athletes get so caught up in the day-to-day grind of their sport that they forget that they are people, too.
That is one of the main themes of Morgan’s Message: not losing sight of the fact that athletes, no matter how talented they may be, are also human beings.
“Hearing her story and hearing about what she went through really puts an overarching thought over what athletics stands for, and what we go through as athletes on all levels of college athletics,” Duffy said.
Duffy connects with the mental struggles athletes go through simply because of the nature of his sport. In baseball, hitters fail more than they succeed, which obviously takes a toll on players over the course of a season.
The constant ups-and-downs of a baseball season give Duffy a unique perspective on the importance of being in a healthy headspace, and the value of being able to accept that not every single at-bat or moment is going to unfold how he wants it to.
“In a sport like baseball where you fail 95% of the time, 75% of the time, it’s mentally tough,” Duffy said. “It’s okay to struggle with mental health, it’s okay to identify those feelings, but it’s also really important and really okay that we reach out and get the help that we need.”
In the bigger picture, having this awareness is key so athletes are able to realize that nobody is perfect, and failure and setbacks are a natural part of sports. And if an athlete is struggling, reaching out to the various supports available to them, including mental performance coaches, can help address their challenges.
“At the end of the day, we care about each other and our best interests, and we don’t want to see what has happened in the past with past athletics and Morgan’s story to happen again,” Duffy added.
Skully believes some troubles may emerge for athletes when they get too engrossed in their sport, and lose sight of their life beyond athletics. In this sense, she thinks it’s essential to take the pressure off of mental health-based discussions, and make athletes more comfortable with the idea of seeking help.
“Make the talk about student-athlete mental health a little bit more normalized,” Skully said. “Sometimes you get really caught up in playing the game that you forget you’re also a person and you have a life outside of your sport as well. So just putting the person over the athlete.”
Both Skully and Duffy have experienced mental health struggles during their respective careers. Right now, Duffy is dealing with a UCL sprain, an injury that has him shut down for the remainder of the fall.
Injuries, on-field performance-related issues and a host of other concerns can make life difficult for athletes, only making organizations like Morgan’s Message all the more helpful (and necessary). To Skully, Morgan’s Message and similar programs have definitely succeeded in making mental health less stigmatized.
“I’ve struggled with mental health within my sport and I know a lot of other people have too,” Skully said. “I wanted to spread it and make the conversation more known because it’s more normalized now, but it wasn’t always like this.”
One common thread among those on campus who are involved with Morgan’s Message is the joy they take in advocating for the cause. Through their games, scrimmages and the care they give to mental health, members of the Springfield College community have joined alongside Rodgers’ family and friends in making sure her legacy and story lives forever.
“Being able to have our team stand up for something that’s bigger than ourselves is truly remarkable,” Duffy said.
(Photo courtesy of Springfield College Athletics)