Reaction to Death of Rondale Moore and Workplace Mental Health
If you haven’t seen the news, Vikings Wide Receiver Rondale Moore died over the weekend. I won’t get into the details of that; you can read about it elsewhere. What I want to talk about is the reaction from a former player:
Former Minnesota Vikings nose tackle Breiden Fehoko took to X early Sunday to voice his concerns.
“These NFL teams come out here and post these mental health awareness posts talking about they care about players, ‘don’t be afraid to reach out’ etc.,” Fehoko said. “All they care about is what you bring to the table when it’s game day.”
“Most players don’t want to get help inside the building of an NFL organization because they know you’ll get looked at differently,” Fehoko continued. “You go to a staff member tell them you’re struggling watch how different they start treating and looking at you.”
This is not just an issue for the NFL or other sports leagues. This is the reality in EVERY workplace. People ask all the time why no one talks about mental health at work, even when you have programs designed to support your employees. This is why. It’s the way everyone else in the workplace looks at them, talks to them, avoids them, and treats them differently than they did before they said anything.
Until this changes, there will always be a tremendous fear and hesitation to seek out mental health support at work. No one wants to be looked at or treated differently at work. It’s uncomfortable at best, damaging and career-ending at worst. It’s also not just a management issue. It’s a cultural issue that extends beyond the immediate workplace in to sociaty at large.
I hope you think about this the next time you hear about someone seeking help, or someone who didn’t reach out for help. They didn’t change just because they needed support. The only thing that changed was your view. That’s on all of us.
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