MU’s partnership with The Zone officially began in September. GOJASPERS.COM/ COURTESY
Grace Cardinal, Editor-in-Chief
Manhattan University Athletics has announced a partnership with “The Zone”, an app focused on the mental health of student-athletes. The partnership between the university and the app began in September, but was officially announced via press release this week.
“The Zone” is now the “leading mental health and performance platform designed specifically for athletes, empowering them with on-demand tools, data-driven insights, and access to professional support,” according to a press release. The release also stated that the app currently serves over 200 collegiate teams nationwide.
Raven James, advisor for MU’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and the associate director of athletics for marketing and external operations, explained that the university’s adoption of the app came from Athletic Director Irma Garcias’s previous experience with the program.
“It came about from our athletic director, actually, [in] her prior experience, she used The Zone app,” James said. “It was really impactful in having on-demand mental health support for the student-athletes. So when she came, one of her goals was to bring that same resource here. The Zone kind of follows the same NCAA model for mental health, and that’s become a big thing…it encourages our athletic departments to be more proactive and bring more integrative approaches to the student-athletes’ well-being.”
The app, on which users remain anonymous, has many features, from providing athletes with “hype” videos to giving them the opportunity to connect directly with mental health professionals. The app also offers athletes with breathing techniques and other smaller regulation tools to help them navigate whatever they may be feeling.
Jonathan Carsen, senior on the men’s swimming & diving team and president of SAAC, explained how the app plays into SAAC’s mission of helping shape the whole student-athlete.
“We [SAAC] are just simply promoting these things as much as possible,” Carsen said. “We think it’s great, therefore we’re going to promote it. Ultimately, SAAC is there for the welfare of our student-athletes. This very much fits that goal. So we are very much in support of it…again, I think that having something else, that isn’t necessarily somebody at the school talking to you face to face, allows people to open up and be vulnerable in the way that they need to be. Even if you have a great relationship with them, it can be hard to have conversations with your coaches, with your training staff, with your teammates, your roommates. Having something else is always good. There’s a reason why if you’re going to therapy, the therapist shouldn’t be your best friend.”
Senior track and field team member and Vice President of SAAC Bella Cannizzo spoke further about how she has personally been utilizing the app.
“For me, for runners, at least, the mind and body is very connected,” Cannizzo said. “We’re always in our head. It’s 90% what we tell ourselves, and then 10% of us running. So I’ve always been a big advocate for things that can help my performance and how I feel about myself, in terms of race day and my progression, things like that. So I will definitely be using this app. I have my MAAC championship this Saturday, and literally tonight, I was thinking after this call that I was gonna log on and do some of the breathing techniques and see what it has to say. Because I think it’s just helpful. When you’re working on your mental health, it’s like another muscle you’re working on to be a better runner.”
One of the biggest goals of the app is to promote the normalization of mental health among athletes.
“I think giving them this platform and then the tools to communicate opens up and brings everybody together on the same page,” James said. “It promotes normalization of mental health. We want it to be a part of every conversation we have every day, whether it’s coming from us or our students. So just kind of leveling the playing field and understanding, whether it’s coming from us or SAAC, we’re all saying the same thing here.”
Cannizzo added on, mentioning that the app is something that was created for DI athletes nationwide, making it a relevant issue for athletes far beyond the Manhattan University campus.
“It’s not just here at Manhattan, it’s not just here at your team,” Cannizzo said. “It’s nationwide, all Division One school athletes, and mental health is a huge thing that’s going on. It’s happening, it’s relevant, and it can only help us. I think just having us partner with organizations like this, we can see that it’s something that’s going on with every student-athlete, and something that’s helping a lot of people too and we want to be a part of that.”
James, a former student-athlete herself, said that if she had this resource when she was on campus, she would’ve been more open to conversations and actively taking care of her mental health.
“If I had this in school, I think I would be more open to it,” James said. “Some of the issues, it’s not that they didn’t have those resources, it’s that our schedules are jam packed… So I do think if I had this when we were back in school, it would have helped me and a bunch of other student-athletes that struggle with day to day things, whether it’s being overwhelmed, anxiety, even if it’s not something that’s diagnosed, it’s more of that consistency of how I’m feeling, or what to do when I am feeling that way. In the basketball world, you’ve always got to show a great face, and put those things outside of the gym. But definitely, if I had this app, it would have helped me a lot.”
Carsen also spoke about the benefits of the app, particularly among younger student-athletes who are dealing with major changes to their living situation they’ve never had to navigate before. He also spoke to how the app can help student-athletes compartmentalize their stressors and look at what’s going on from a big-picture perspective.
“You often see a lot of people kind of get caught up and it’s like, everything’s not going my way and everything’s being affected, when, in reality, it’s like, maybe you’re just not doing well in your classes,” Carsen said. “That’s one thing I’m very much a fan of, of this app, is that it does reinforce that not every aspect of your life is athletics. There’s a life outside of it [too].”
James concluded with how MU’s Athletics program is not focused solely on performance, but on understanding how to make student-athletes the best they can be in all aspects.
“I think Manhattan athletics is different in a way,” James said. It’s not all about performance. We always want to win, but I think that from when I played to now, mental health and performance go together, and if you don’t have that, then we can’t win those games…In general, that’s what we’re trying to push with this app and and I hope even this interview is going to push student-athletes to use it even more, because I don’t want it to be another app you download on your phone, use it for a few days and forget about it. We’re still learning to provide that other layer for our student-athletes, [which] is a huge step.”