How do we talk about this?

There is no universal way to bring up the importance of mental health.

The past few months have been filled with sorrow and pain in the lacrosse community. I say that knowing full well that the words don’t describe the actual impact of the loss of a young person, a son - a teammate.

So far this season, Binghamton goalie Robert Martin and a high school player both took their own lives. To their teams and families, it is an unbearable and crushing weight. It’s also an impactful and consequential weight to those that fear the same loss. To you reading this, even if you don’t know it, their loss should affect you - because it needs to.

It’s not something we think about much. I cannot speak for being a parent, but as a coach, a player, a teammate - it’s not at the forefront of the mind. Losing someone never is. Losing them to themselves…it’s not something easily fathomable.

When I was growing up, the town next to my high school, had a series of suicides. They were allegedly brought on by the “Romeo and Juliet” film by Baz Luhrmann. The movie featured a gun emblazoned with “Sword” on the barrel to make sure that you knew the touchpoint from the source material.

It was something we cruelly laughed about. That crazy town. With those crazy people. Goffstown became “Suicide High”. Who says that? Like most kids (especially at the time), we were insensitive idiots. It didn’t help that the media covered it like a circus; not the catastrophe that it was.

I’ve since run into people from Goffstown of a similar age and asked them what it was like going to school back then. Their eyes don’t well up right away, but they always shift their sitting position and look away. Saying things like “It was tough.” or “I don’t know.” “It sucked.” Seeing the visceral reaction decades later…it’s powerful. The pain of my own shame from what we all gossiped about as kids, reverberates and pounds in my head as an adult.

So…now I’m in the media. The lacrosse media, but…still with a voice. Lacrosse connects us. It binds us. Even when we’re screaming at each other on the internet about what is wrong with the game, we’re doing it from the same place of wanting this thing we love to be better.

I don’t know how to make any of this better.

The only thing I can think to do is shine a light on it and work out how to talk to my players about this. My kids. My boys.

I have lost players before. You don’t play and coach for over two decades never having to reach for the black suitcoat in the back of your closet. But suicide is a different loss. I cannot imagine what the coaching staffs of the schools are going through. If I’m honest - I never want to imagine it.

You can play out scenarios in your head about what you would say or do in this instance, but the reality is that there is nothing you can correct. You can only hope to affect change with your discussion and affirmation that you’re going to be there for your teammates and for each other.

Today I’m going to talk to my team about suicide. I'm going to tell them about the loss of these young men. After I’m done, I’m going to tell them that I love them. Then I’m going to get in my car and drive home.

Whether you’re a coach or a parent - It would be great if you did the same.