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Head coach Justin Fuente, offensive line coach Vance Vice and team chaplain Dave Gittings visited
him, and Danielle Bartelstein, the senior director for football operations, stopped by every day.
Today, Cannon meets regularly with Bennett as part of his ongoing recovery. He is one of an ever-
growing number of Tech student-athletes using the resources available within the little known, but
extremely important Tech sport psychology office.
In the mid-1990s, the Tech athletics department became one of the first in the country to bring a sport
psychologist onboard to work with student-athletes. To review incidents involving poor student-athlete
behavior at the time, then-university president Dr. Paul Torgersen formed a committee, and one of the
recommendations was to have a psychologist available. Thus, Bennett, who was working at the Cook
Counseling Center then, became the liaison between the center and the athletics department.
Bennett later moved into a part-time role, splitting time between Cook and the athletics department,
and then in 2007, he became the first full-time sport psychologist within an athletics department in the
ACC, with an office inside the Merryman Athletics Center.
Today, numerous schools are trying to emulate Tech’s model, wanting to protect student-athletes in
light of the epidemic of mental health issues occurring within the United States.
“The numbers increase every year, and there is a huge push by the NCAA to have resources available
for student-athletes who are having mental health issues,” Bennett said. “We were one of the first schools
to have a position in house, but I think now about 10 of the ACC schools have similar positions, and
nationwide, the number continues to increase.”
In 2016, Brian Hainline, the NCAA’s chief medical officer, outlined nine strategic health-related
priorities for the NCAA, and mental health was one of those. He put forth a series of guidelines,
including the calling for financial support for sport psychologists, a physical location for their
offices within athletics departments, and updated screenings and procedures for at-risk student-athletes, among others.
Fortunately, the Virginia Tech Athletics Department has been ahead of the game. Way ahead.
Bennett, Knackstedt and the sports medicine staff members have taken a team approach, implementing programs and
educating Tech’s student-athletes. More importantly, though, Bennett and Knackstedt serve as counselors, inviting student-
athletes to come to their offices at the Merryman Athletics Center—havens for student-athletes in dark places.
Their own backgrounds give them additional credibility, as both Bennett and Knackstedt were student-athletes at
their respective colleges. Both played baseball, with Bennett at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky and Knackstedt
at William&Mary. They help Tech’s student-athletes cope with any number of issues over the course of a given year,
including those ranging from ADD/ADHD (attention deficit disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder)
to anxiety and stress to severe depression to simply wanting to perform better in their respective sports.
Student-athletes, more than any other constituency on a campus, are at risk of mental health problems.
Their daily schedules include combinations of classes, weight-lifting sessions, film sessions,
practices, study halls and homework, leaving them little time to decompress or to take care of
all their responsibilities.
“The biggest thing that I see is anxiety or stress,” Bennett said. “They say that their
lives are so stressful, and I don’t know that people outside of here would appreciate
what they have to go through, but to me, it’s [being a student-athlete] like having
two full-time jobs.
“Depression is probably the second. Every year, we have a handful of
student-athletes that we have to hospitalize because they’re so depressed
that they’re having thoughts of hurting themselves. You don’t know
what would have happened if we didn’t have this resource available,
but we’ve seen what would have happened at other schools that
don’t have a psychologist available. I think too often that’s the
impetus for an athletics department to start a program—after
something tragic has happened.”
Preventing those tragedies from occurring, or at
least reducing the risk, requires student-athletes
to seek help, and therein lays the biggest
challenge for Bennett, Knackstedt and the
entire athletics department. Student-
athletes fear being seen as weak,
or soft, especially among
their teammates
and coaches.
I
don’t want to be
remembered as Austin
Cannon, the football player.
I want to be remembered as
Austin Cannon, the guy who
helped me prevent my taking
my own life, the guy who
cares about others … the
guy who wants to change
the world one life at a time.
—
Austin Cannon
”
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