This story contains language describing mental health and suicide that may be disturbing to some readers.
The apparent suicide of Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland on Nov. 6 renewed attention to the mental health of athletes nationwide. At Oberlin, the Athletics department integrates student-athlete mental healthcare into the athletics training programs. Specific procedures are in place if the Athletics professional staff become concerned a student may be at risk for suicide.
In recent years, Athletics has expanded their team directly concerned with student-athlete mental health, enlisting counseling psychologist Dr. John Harshbarger as director of student-athlete wellness.
In a statement to the Review, Harshbarger outlined the Athletics department procedures for treating a student who has expressed suicidal ideation.
“I regularly assess students for suicidal risk,” Harshbarger wrote. “If a student shares with me that they are having suicidal thoughts, I will asses their level of intent to complete suicide; if they have a plan to complete suicide; if they have the means to follow through on the plan; and if they have any history of suicide attempts.”
He outlined a lower-risk/higher -risk system similar to that used in general mental healthcare outside of sports and academic environments. In this system, lower-risk students work with Harshbarger and others on staff to create a safety plan, outlining resources in the healthcare system, at the College, and in their own lives. Students may also be referred to local care providers. A student who appears to be at higher risk for suicide will be referred to a local hospital.
Harshbarger expressed that the Athletics staff would be continually involved in that process.
“I will contact Campus Safety in order to facilitate transport to the hospital,” he wrote. “Once the student is discharged from the hospital, I will meet with them to make certain that they have the support they need.”
Director of Sports Medicine Jill Rondini said the rest of the sports medicine department, which treats athletes for injuries resulting from their sports, is also proactively involved in monitoring and treating mental health concerns.
“Athletic Trainers are in a good position to notice when something isn’t right with the athletes under their care. When an athlete sustains an injury, their AT is not only trained to manage the injury from beginning to end, but also to be on the lookout for signs of deteriorating mental health,” she wrote in a statement to the Review. “Sometimes, an athlete just needs to talk through what they are feeling and move on toward healing.”
Coaches in several sports also weighed in on mental healthcare in their teams’ culture and training regimes.
Women’s Volleyball Head Coach Jasmine Brown described relationships between players and staff.
“Our program has established different systems of check-ins to monitor each student-athlete’s wellbeing and see what care they need to help their experience on or off the court,” she wrote. “We’ve built that trust and rapport where any player can come to our staff and know they’ll receive appropriate support to help with any experience they’re navigating.”
Men’s Soccer Head Coach Blake New explained the centrality of mental health to the team culture.
“We try to prioritize mental health in our program and that starts by making sure that all our players understand that it is okay to not be okay,” he wrote. “There should never be a stigma around mental health, and we all know someone who has experienced mental health issues or have experienced them ourselves.”
While mental health concerns for athletes can arise in any sport, the most high-profile cases of athlete suicide in the past decades have all arisen from football, whether NFL or high school players.
Among these losses are Shane Tamura, who shot and killed four people in July 2025, and Phillip Adams, who killed six people before taking his own life in 2021. Another highly publicized death was that of Wyatt Bramwell, a player who was only 18 years old. All were diagnosed with an advanced form of CTE, a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated injuries to the head, which arose from contact football. Whether CTE played a role in Kneeland’s death remains to be seen.
The Oberlin football staff was not able to offer a comment on mental health and neurological health advocacy for student football players.
Ultimately, Athletics also emphasized that while sports can provide enormous stress to the brain and body — training, team culture, and the physical experience of playing sports can also be hugely beneficial for the mental health of athletes.
Head Cross Country Coach and Assistant Track and Field Coach Izzy Alexander explained some of the benefits.
“Student-athlete mental health is very important to us as coaches, and we believe that one of the great things about our sport is it provides a wonderful platform where the student-athletes can establish, work on, and strengthen their mental health habits. We are there to support them in that work,” she wrote. “We want the student-athletes to come to us with any concerns, including if they are struggling with their mental health, and we want to work with them and help them get the support that they want and need.”