Sunday Henry, Tyler Hilinski, Mike Leach

THE MOST IMPORTANT person in Cougar football today may be a 40-something woman who grew up in Nezperce, Idaho. Her name is Sunday Henry – Dr. Henry to those in and around Washington State athletics. And in the wake of Tyler Hilinski’s suicide she is filling a role in the WSU football program that no coach is trained for: mental health leader.



Head coach Mike Leach, whose pick-yourself-up-and-get-on-with-it approach to life has produced big results on the football field, obviously isn’t a clinical psychologist and, by temperament and experience, is an awkward fit for the situation, say a half-dozen people – all exceedingly close to the program – who were interviewed by Cougfan.com over the last several weeks.



Henry and her staff are filling the breach – and Leach, in an exclusive interview with Cougfan.com last week, said their guidance cannot be overstated.



“We’ve got counselors around everybody,” he said. “We’re doing all we can and we’re following the advice of the experts, the school psychiatrist and the medical people and the counselors.”



Upbeat and energetic, Hilinski was widely considered the most popular player on the Cougar football team, and he was the heir apparent to Luke Falk atop the Air Raid offense. He died of suicide on Jan. 16, shaking Cougar Nation to its core and bringing the mental health challenges of athletes, and young people generally, to the national fore.



The statistics are sobering. The American College Health Association said in 2014 that survey results show 30 percent of college students felt depressed in the past 12 months and 50 percent reported experiencing overwhelming anxiety during the same period.



The Hilinski family is launching a nonprofit initiative, called Hilinski’s Hope, to promote awareness of and education about mental health wellness among student-athletes.



Nowhere is the need to address mental health in sports greater at this moment in time than within the Washington State football team, where players are in varying stages of grappling with the loss of The Comeback Kid.



“People handle a tragedy like this differently,” said one person close to the program who requested anonymity. “Some talk it through on a regular basis, some are more reserved and so forth. A couple guys really had us concerned shortly after we lost Tyler – it’s not appropriate to go into details there but it points out how important it is that mental health wellness be a top priority for every team, every coach, every administrator in every sport.”



Leach, according to multiple sources, is finding his own way in part through frequent phone conversations with Hilinski’s dad, Mark.



“The biggest thing is just to be supportive of the Hilinskis,” Leach told CF.C. “It’s a tragedy and they’re part of our family … and so any way we can we want to be there for them.”



In terms of leading the team through this difficult transition time, said a reliable source who requested anonymity, Leach’s primary challenge is coming to grips with the fact “there’s a healing process and you can’t just get back to work and bark at guys like it’s business as usual. It’s not how he’s wired – he’s ill-equipped for this kind of trauma and he’s been kinda absent at times since this happened, and that’s where Dr. Henry and her people have been so good.”



Multiple sources said Leach’s lack of communication with the football team in the first 48 hours following Hilinski’s death created what one called “an unnecessary leadership void that complicated a tough deal.”



In that time window, Leach was grounded at the Atlanta airport due to inclement weather.



“He’s not what you’d characterize a warm guy, and that influences the view, but I think he cares,” said another source.



Leach is matter of fact when asked about his handling of a coaching challenge in which there is no clear road map: “If there are any critics they can come talk to us. We’re always available as we have been from the beginning.”



As for the new normal around the program, he says, “I think the biggest thing is just be there for the players, get all the counselors that you can around everybody and just be there for one another as you go through the grieving process. I’d say that is the biggest thing.



“And I’d say the healthiest thing is when you get back to work and you have the support of the whole team … I think we could have done that better, the memorials kind of drew out for nine or 10 days and it probably would have been healthier if it were five but there’s not a lot you can do about it.”



Leach said he and his staff are encouraging players to visit with counselors. “And us coaches are just trying to keep an eye out for somebody that may need help or something like that. And of course I think education is a big part of it.



“Everybody is supporting one another and I think everybody helping each other move forward is an important step and has helped everybody,” he said.



Asked to assess Leach’s leadership over the last two months, new WSU athletic director Pat Chun said, "The loss of Tyler was tragic and devastating for the entire Cougar Family but the incredible response from his teammates, coaches and athletic department staff was uplifting and hopeful. The students leaned on one another for support and the coaches, staff and university counselors provided around-the-clock care and resources ..."



SUNDAY HENRY IS A CREIGHTON-EDUCATED family physician specializing in sports medicine. Her title at WSU is director of athletic medicine. She oversees all of the healthcare, physical and mental, delivered within Washington State athletics.



In conversation, she speaks with the clarity and quiet confidence you might expect from someone in her role. She is informative, professional, to the point.



While she herself is not a mental health expert, she leads a cohort of professionals who are and have been thrust into the middle of a tragedy that no one in or around Hilinski's life saw coming. Her primary responsibility, she says, is to advocate for the physical and mental health needs of WSU’s student-athletes.



Asked how the buck-up-and-get-moving approach that has defined Leach’s coaching career is translating in the wake of Hilinski’s death she doesn’t hesitate.



“Coach has been supportive of our work," she said. "He’s met with me and members of our team several times and he has done what I would hope any coach would do: let us do our work and support his team. And he’s been supportive of that. We’re very appreciative of that. It’s kind of a big task to get over 100 guys together very quickly to do a mental health screener. He was very, very supportive of that.



“Coach touches base periodically with me and members of my team to ask how things are going.”



Hilinski’s suicide has generated discussion about elevating mental health to the same level in athletics as nutrition and conditioning.



“I think that’s a definite possibility (at WSU), I think we have a unique opportunity to take a very sad, tragic event and turn it into something positive,” Henry said. “Like nutrition, like strength and conditioning, we always have our pie-in-the-sky goal if money wasn’t an issue. I think there’s a possibility that we look at that.



“Our goal is to make sure our athletes have an opportunity to meet with a mental health care person as needed. And they have had that opportunity … and I would say currently we’ve been able to meet that need.”



Washington State has had a formal mental health program in place for many years, she added, noting that the athletic department ...





is staffed with an on-site licensed mental health care counselor (Jerry Pastore, associate director of student-athlete development and wellbeing), who has been on board for the last seven years

is contracted with a clinical psychologist (Dr. Kate Geiger), who has been in the fold for the past five years for phone consultations with athletes, and now is available on site.

rolled out a series of suicide prevention training courses more than a year ago for athletic department staff, including academic advisers and trainers.

HENRY SAID HER STAFF MOVED QUICKLY WHEN WORD of Hilinski’s death arrived, working with assistant coaches to gather the football team to break the news before social media could.



Jason Loscalzo, WSU’s director of strength and conditioning at the time and who is now with the Chicago Bears, led the meeting. The painful news, said multiple sources, produced an almost-ghastly sounding shriek of collective shock, horror and grief among the players.



“We had all of our mental health care staff there: our clinical psychologist, our licensed mental health care counselor, we also in a huge event like this ... had the (university-wide) director of our counseling and psychological services with us. And then you go from there.”



Assessing for high-risk individuals and providing support to everybody else is the first step, she said.



“And then reassess, and continue to provide counseling support and access,” Henry said. “And we’ve been doing that around-the-clock since this happened – reassessing, making sure that if anybody new pops up that we’re able to get them in with a counselor.”



The around-the-clock mental health care she refers to includes team debrief sessions and education, close monitoring of what she terms “high-risk” individuals, crisis appointments, and routine mental health appointments.



“We also did a full mental health screen on every single football athlete. And they sat down with a licensed mental health care professional, every single one of them. And then did follow ups on those for anybody that wasn’t already on our radar. And we continue to do follow ups and follow along and provide access.”



HENRY SAID THAT WITH WSU’S SPRING FOOTBALL practices soon to commence, mental health vigilance will be especially important because this will mark the first time the players have lined up to play the actual game of football without Hilinski. It could trigger deep emotions.



“The spring game, spring ball, absolutely, and things in the fall, other things on campus … we keep checking in with the guys, lots of conversations with the folks who spend a lot of time with the team … This is exactly what you do right now, provide counseling and hope and support.”



Clinical staff, coaches, trainers, academic advisers and others are and will continue to be especially mindful of how players are (or aren’t) coping, she said.



“Anytime you have a tragedy like this of course you look at how could we do it better, what else can we add. But we have a strong foundation here that we’re working on,” she said.



“A lot of folks locally and nationally are saying, ‘What are you doing, what are you going to do?’ and they’re looking for something flashy … when the experts say in this situation it’s not very flashy what needs to happen for the team and for the entire department – it’s ongoing counseling and providing hope, and reassessment. And that’s really the thing that you do right now. It’s nothing flashy.”



RELATED STORY: Hilinski family writes touching letter to Cougar Nation



