Joanne McCallie on Mental Health and Coaching Basketball

Joanne McCallie is a legendary basketball coach. She was named the ACC Coach of the Year twice (2010, 2012), and the Big Ten Coach of the Year once (2005). Additionally, she was a 3x America East Coach of the Year (1995, 1996, 1999). She has a basketball resume that is incredible, including in 2005 winning the AP Coach of the Year. She won 646 games and only lost 255 games in her coaching career. Joanne decided to retire from basketball, and she has been an advocate, and really been courageous in sharing her story around mental health and being bipolar. We get into a deep, enriching conversation, and it’s a conversation I truly feel we have to have. The reality is that mental health, suicide, depression, anxiety, they don’t discriminate. It can hit any of us; it can hit all of us. I love how open Joanne is about sharing her story, and also how could she have so much success while dealing with some of these challenges.

 

Joanne had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“If you take the pain and the hurt and think of it as this blanket around a person, they can’t see through that blanket” (8:35).

“If you hear the question ‘How could they [attempt to commit suicide],’ the answer is ‘With enough pain and enough suffering and the inability to see through the blanket, it happens’” (8:50).

“In our society today, almost 1 out of every 2 people are struggling with some element on the [mental health] continuum” (11:05).

“[My disorder] is just a part of me. There are many parts of me” (11:20).

“Whatever you’re going through, whether it’s a diagnosis or not, this too shall pass, and it is not all of you” (12:00).

“There’s lots of places where we can lose our identities relative to sport, or anything else for that matter” (13:50).

“Productivity makes for happiness” (22:00).

“If anyone is feeling nonproductive and non-loved, then that can really affect your feelings about life” (22:20).

“I’ve made the transfer into my new life, but more importantly, the grief that I’d been holding and the anxiety of those losses, I’m getting over it. It’s finally turning” (24:05).

“Never go alone with pain” (25:30).

“Grieving is a process, and you can’t get around it” (25:45).

“Grief is personal, but the smallest things can connote progress” (26:30).

“I complement everybody for carving their path” (27:50).

“I think the transfer portal is a nightmare, I think it’s going to ruin the game if it’s not handled more properly” (29:10).

“[Mental health professionals] need to be elevated in our society” (35:45).

“What I wish I had was a radio show where people could call in anonymously and I could answer questions [about mental health]. Those are kinds of things I think we need” (40:35).

“Mental health awareness is so incredibly difficult, that I’m in a tough spot. Because I don’t want to self-promote” (44:30).

“I feel I should be at every campus” (49:40).

“How could I ever go back to coaching?” (50:10).

“Mental health should be celebrated. Mental health impairment should be respected. It does not discriminate” (52:45).

“This whole mental health thing is going to go on for a long time” (56:15).

“I swim 5-6 times a week, the pool is a great escape for me” (59:50).

“There’s so much we don’t know about people, and that’s why we can’t make judgments on them” (1:03:40).

“Faith is in your own journey. There’s no judgment on anything that you believe as you work through it” (1:06:05).

“Aspiring, dreaming, being courageous, and peace [are the opposite of fear]” (1:07:25).

 

Additionally, make sure to check out Joanne’s book Secret Warrior and her website!

Thank you so much to Coach P for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.