Now batting: Our mental health

After her sophomore year, Kaelene Walter ’23 decided she needed a change. 

At the end of her second season playing softball for Iona University in New York, she recognized that she was unhappy with the atmosphere of the team. She needed a better environment for her mental health.

She soon found that at the University of Dayton and decided to transfer.

“I was facing a lot of problems with the social environment because it felt really negative,” Walter said. “I didn’t appreciate how people treated each other, and then to realize I was becoming one of those people that I hated put me in a really negative headspace.”

What Walter found at Dayton was different.

“It was hard for me to value teammates that I had in the past,” Walter said. “Now I have such great humans that don’t pressure me into being something I’m not or trying to fit a mold. I can just be myself and be accepted.”

“I can just be myself and be accepted.”

The culture that UD’s softball team offers — one where the mental health of its players is highly valued — starts with head coach Cara Clark-LaPlaca.

“We want to create an environment to where players and individuals can be open about what they’re experiencing … so we can interact in a way that’s supportive of their experience,” Clark-LaPlaca said.

While Clark-LaPlaca has coached the Flyers for 16 seasons, reaching more than 500 career wins this season, her background is in mental health counseling. She holds a master’s degree in education with a focus on counseling, which she was drawn to because of the relationships she formed while helping the people who needed it most.

As a coach, Clark-LaPlaca didn’t feel differently about bringing those things that she had learned to the softball field, which, according to Walter, hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“I can tell that it brings comfort to people, especially the ones that need it,” Walter said. “It has also opened my mind to alternate ways of how my teammates might be thinking.”

Fellow teammate Quinn Pallardy ’23 is thankful for Clark-LaPlaca’s open-door policy, something she has for all her players.

“I have gone to her before with things going on in my personal life, and she has helped me talk through that,” Pallardy said. “The coaches have really listened to our feedback with wanting more mental health resources.”

While she seeks to support her students in any way she can, Clark-LaPlaca also encourages her players to advocate for themselves. This past season, she said her team was very vocal about the resources they needed. In response, she lined up new programming for the fall semester that included a nutrition professional and peak performance consultant. 

“I think Coach enabling healthy alternate ways of thinking through professionals was empowering for the team.”

“I think Coach enabling healthy alternate ways of thinking through professionals was empowering for the team,” Walter said. “You could see the difference with people feeling like they were understood.”

One innovation made by Clark-LaPlaca was the handing out of two mental health cards to each player; a card allowed a player to skip a practice — no questions asked.

UD’s sport psychologist Becky Cook also works to create a supportive mental health environment for student-athletes.

“My role is to ensure how our student-athletes can be as mentally healthy as possible,” said Cook, who is available to all athletes for one-on-one counseling and works with teams as a whole to provide supportive programming.

Cook shared that the biggest fear of a student-athlete is that if they share these issues with a coach, they’ll be benched, but she went on to say, “It’s OK to ask for help. You’re probably not as good of an athlete as you are if you hadn’t ever asked for help.”

Both Cook and Clark-LaPlaca agree that they have seen tremendous growth of support for the mental health of their student-athletes in the last several years.

While the program has come a long way, the challenge of addressing mental health issues is constantly evolving, meaning there is always room for continued growth. 

“I found Dayton, and I’m so happy I’m here.” 

While programs and resources may be the goal, issues of mental health often come down to individuals like Cook, Clark-LaPlaca, Pallardy and Walter who are working to make a difference, as evidenced in Walter’s decision to transfer.

“Making the decision to leave makes me feel so proud of myself because I stood up for how I felt,” said Walter. “I found Dayton, and I’m so happy I’m here.” 

Photograph by Erik Schelkun / Elsestar Images.

If you or someone you know is struggling and needs help, you can contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling 988 or visiting the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline website.