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Tech
athletics
ahead of game
when it
comes to
mental health care
B
illy Joel. Oprah Winfrey.
Martin Luther King Jr. Elton John. Ken Griffey Jr.
Given his relative youth, Austin Cannon would not
seem to have a lot in common with such a distinguished
group of immensely successful people. Yet like all these
celebrities, the backup right guard on Virginia Tech’s
football team squared off in a battle against depression and
anxiety—and attempted to take his own life to win.
Fortunately, Cannon survived,
and these days, he continues to take
steps toward prosperity, with trained
professionals in the sports medicine
and sport psychology areas of the Virginia
Tech Athletics Department helping and
guiding him along the way.
Cannon’s backstory resembles those of many others heard by
Dr. Gary Bennett, the department’s full-time sport psychologist,
and Dr. Paul Knackstedt, who splits his time between the athletics
department and the Cook Counseling Center on Tech’s campus.
Cannon struggled with a series of devastating events in his life
within a relatively short period of time—his grandmother’s passing,
his father’s cancer diagnosis, and a relationship breakup—and a
concussion suffered in a football practice on Aug. 9, 2016 put him over
the top.
While sitting in his dorm room later that evening, he grabbed a knife
out of a drawer, and the Mechanicsville, Virginia product stuck it in his
leg. Blood poured forth, as Cannon sat there. Fortunately, one of the
football team trainers already was on the way to the dorm room to check
on Cannon, and that probably led to the saving of his life.
“I think the concussion kind of topped it off,” Cannon said. “It was the
last straw. I immediately regretted doing it. I thought it was selfish of me
to do what I did.”
Tech’s sports medicine staff, along with rescue personnel on
campus, ultimately stabilized the leg, and Cannon then spent a week
at New Horizons Crisis Stabilization in Radford, Virginia for a
week of treatment to get to the root of his issues.
A collaborative approach by Tech’s sports medicine staff
and sport psychologists has the department meeting
student-athlete needs on mental health issues, handling
NCAA priority areas, and looking for ways to do more
by
Jimmy Robertson
28
Inside Hokie Sports