Student-Athlete Advising Committee represents suicide prevention with T-shirts

Suicide and suicide ideation often are issues avoided in conversations, and they’re difficult to overcome for those who struggle with it. According to a joint study done by the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Missouri Institute of Mental Health, suicide was the second highest cause of death for ages 15 to 24 in Missouri in 2013, accounting for 17 percent of deaths within the age group.

On Sept. 30, the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee addressed suicide by laying out T-shirts across the lawn of Academic Hall at Southeast Missouri State University to represent students who lost their lives to suicide in Missouri. Members of the committee sat by the lawn from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to speak with students about the representation of the shirts and offered information to those struggling with suicide or those who know someone who is.

According to Ashley Angerer-Blunt, assistant athletic trainer at Southeast, the goal of the event was to serve as a platform to open conversation about suicide.

“It is a difficult conversation to talk about mental health,” Angerer-Blunt said. “No one wants to talk about suicide, depression or substance abuse. It affects college-aged students significantly. If they know there are resources on campus, we can get them there. Part of the point of this was to get them to those resources on campus.”

According to the joint study, 15 percent of Missouri college students had suicidal thoughts within a year leading up to a 2014 Missouri College Health Behavior survey.

Rachel Blunt, assistant director of athletics for compliance, said to make the study more impactful, the T-shirts served as a representation of 15 percent of Southeast students, 1,840.

“If I see T-shirts that represent that small number, it makes it more real to me,” Blunt said. “By using those, it made it more practical and easier to understand.”

The initiative to address the issue was at the top of the to-do list for the student committee entering the fall semester, according to Blunt.

“From the national standpoint, it’s something the NCAA and the conference have been discussing a lot,” Blunt said. “We also had a couple of SAAC members who knew someone who committed suicide. They’d seen something another institution had done and said they’d really like to do it.”

One of the students, Megan Parks, president of SAAC, had a personal connection to the event having known someone who committed suicide after finishing their athletic career.

“It was a shock for me to know they committed suicide and felt that way,” Parks said. “It means a lot to me to be able to inform other students about suicide and the things that can come with it.”

According to the joint study, ages 20 to 24 had the highest suicide rate among young adults in Missouri, with males comprising 79 percent of the suicides within the age group.

Since 2003, 38 student-athletes have committed suicide nationally, according to Blunt.

“It’s perceived as a weakness if student-athletes come forward and say they have some type of mental health concerns,” Blunt said. “We’re trying to raise awareness that it’s not a bad thing and there shouldn’t be a negative stigma with it.”

According to Parks, removing the negative stigma is important to open the eyes of students regarding the prevalence of suicide at Southeast.

“It’s almost staggering to think about the amount of students that consider or complete suicide,” Parks said. “I think once you put that in perspective, it really means a lot to be able to help someone struggling with that.”

Students struggling with mental health issues and those who know someone struggling can contact Counseling and Disability Services, located on the first floor of the northeast side of Dearmont Hall. Free specialized treatment and individual counseling are available to students for their individual needs. Students may contact Counseling and Disability Services at (573) 986-6191 to make an appointment or for more information.