ALTOONA, Pa. -- These are hard conversations. At least, they should be hard, with people seeking to find some middle ground and trying to see both sides of the story. But let's face it, in America these days, we have an extremely difficult time finding middle ground on just about anything.
I'm right. You're wrong.
You're right. I'm wrong.
You're an idiot if you disagree.
I'm an idiot if I disagree.
We talk a lot about how we want to hear both sides of the story. But then even if we do hear the other side, many people don't want to listen to or acknowledge it. They've already formed an opinion, and they're married to it, come hell or high water.
That's when, in the seemingly rare cases, we actually do get the other side of the story. Because most of the time we don't get the other side, for all sorts of reasons, and people are left to form opinions based only on one side or scattered details that cannot really be corroborated.
All of this leads me to the situation that unfolded over the weekend -- and the aftermarth -- involving Penn State football player Bryce Mostella. He posted more than a dozen tweets detailing accusations of neglect with regards to his mental health against the Penn State football program and James Franklin.
I wrote this story on it Sunday evening, quoting all of Mostella's tweets. I have reposted all of what he wrote at the bottom of this story.
A lot of things happened after Mostella wrote what he wrote, and I've gone back and forth on a lot of thoughts since then. I have read all of the comments from DKPS readers in the original story and comments on some other message boards. It is fascinating how differently people seem to view all of this.
Here are my thoughts on this situation, and since they're sort of all over the place, I'll ask that you bear with me and try to absorb all of it.
* What Mostella wrote on Twitter was newsworthy. Period. You can't even debate it. Even if some readers don't think so and posted as much here at DKPS, because it was just his side of the story.
Look, I've been in the news business for 30 years. I know what is newsworthy. A lot of times, uncomfortable stuff is newsworthy. And to be honest -- and I'm sure this will offend some of you -- many people really have no idea what journalists have to consider to be newsworthy. You might think you know if something should or should not be a story, but in a lot of situations, many people who claim something isn't newsworthy are just flat out wrong.
A lot of it comes back to that "don't shoot the messenger" thing, because it's our job to discern and tell you what's important, whether you like the information or not.
If it had been an actor or musician or politician who had detailed his or her mental health struggles and made certain allegations the way Mostella did, then mentioned they were hospitalized with suicidal thoughts, I can guarantee you there would have been dozens or hundreds of stories written about that person from all kinds of news outlets.
A Penn State football player is in the public eye, for better or worse, and if he posts detailed information alleging mistreatment by the head coach, it ABSOLUTELY is newsworthy.
But ...
There also is the side of whether even having this discussion is in the young man's best interests. He's 19 years old and going through tough times, and as some readers pointed out, it may not do him good to have his name written about and discussed even further.
Those are valid points when it comes to the young man's privacy and mental health well being. At the same time, we have to weigh the importance of being able to have these discussions in a larger sense.
* With all of that out of the way, some people complained that we only had one side of the story and that we should get Franklin's side before making it a news story.
That's not how this works, folks. In any aspect of our public society.
Most news stories begin with only one person's side of the story. It becomes news, reporters try to get the other side, don't and then write the story they have. In many situations, we never hear the other side of the story.
I didn't reach out to Franklin on Sunday, because I knew he wouldn't respond. Maybe I should have at least tried, and one reader in particular called me out for it. That's fair. But I've done this a long time, and I know there was no chance Franklin would give any pertinent details about his side of the story.
Franklin met with the media on Wednesday, and he was asked by Audrey Snyder of The Athletic about the Mostella situation. And what do you think happened? Did he give a lot of details? No.
Because he can't.
Here's what Audrey asked: "Bryce Mostella had made some allegations against you and against the program. What is your response to that? And is he still part of the team?"
Here's what Franklin said:
"Yeah, as you can imagine, when things like this happen, we're not really going to have a response. We can't have a response. It's not the appropriate setting to do that. And I obviously, in this setting, I don't want to get into a whole lot of specifics. The one thing I would say is he's not currently enrolled. So you can't really be a part of a team unless you're enrolled in classes. But obviously, our focus is on all of our student athletes in the entire athletic department and specifically football, is to make sure that our guys are healthy and safe. But that's really what I can say at this point."
And that's probably all we're ever going to hear Franklin say publicly on the matter. Because of health reasons, privacy reasons, perhaps even legal reasons.
* There have been two pretty distinct sides on the Mostella story from readers.
1. People showing the young man a lot of sympathy and understanding and hoping he gets better.
2. People saying, hey, football is tough, he couldn't cut it, deal with it. Stop making accusations blaming other people.
While I will say that No. 2 is really sad, I'll also say it's not all that surprising. Because we are conditioned as sports fans to understand that football is really tough, it's a grind, guys have to do some crazy things to get ready to play such a physical game, and the ones who can't do all of that will not last in the sport.
It's a Neanderthal mentality, in a lot of ways, but that's just how it is with football.
The second aspect -- and the one that makes this such a difficult topic to discuss -- is that mental health concerns are a very, very real part of all aspects of life, no matter what you do, what sport you play or don't play, or anything else you do in life.
Throughout our history, we've never really been open and understanding as a society when it comes to allowing people to fully discuss their mental health issues. It's always been sort of taboo, even embarrassing, so people struggling with these types of things have always been forced to internalize all of it or to seek help individually without ever making their struggle public.
All of that is changing. And it is changing rapidly.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka got the ball rolling with all of this discussing her mental health struggles, and superstar gymnast Simone Biles pulled out of the Olympics because of her struggles with it.
Some people might -- and have -- dismissed those two by saying, "They just couldn't cut it." Which is callous and mean, but again, because we've never been a society that's been comfortable discussing this stuff publicly, having some people deny it as an issue was really inevitable.
* Which brings us to football. And this big question:
Can big, tough football players be allowed to have mental health struggles, or will they be viewed as weak or simply unable to cut it?
Football players, again, are asked to do extremely difficult things and put their bodies through hell in a lot of ways. Isn't it feasible and even very likely that a good number of them -- perhaps even a majority percentage -- do indeed struggle with their mental health?
And if so, what can they do about it? Who do they talk to? Can they confide in others while playing a sport that is basically 100 percent about machismo and strength and never showing any kind of weakness?
Also, do coaches understand that all of this really could be happening? And are they fully equipped to deal with it?
Most football coaches are older -- Franklin turned 50 on Wednesday -- and came up playing the sport during a time when there probably was no way they would risk doing what Mostella did and going public with his mental health struggles.
But these younger players now -- and players in future generations -- will grow up in a much different social environment. They will have heard about Osaka and Biles and what others in the future will do when it comes to publicly discussing this stuff. So they probably will be more inclined to want to talk about it, as well.
Will anyone listen to them if they're football players?
Or will the attitude remain, You can't cut it, we don't have time to keep working with you, so you're done.
* I don't have any answers here. I'm just asking the questions. Because the questions need to be asked -- both now and in the future.
It was appalling to me, to be honest, to read some of the mean-spirited messages some people have written about Mostella just not being able to hack it in football. But once again, that's really been the mentality of football participants and fans since, well, basically forever. So it's easier to attack one individual and say he can't cut it than to actually have the difficult discussion of, how will these guys be able to mentally handle all of this extremely difficult stuff we're essentially requiring them to do?
* Lastly, I am very interested in what everyone has to say on this matter, so feel free to post in the comments section or shoot me an email to cgsports12@gmail.com if you'd like to share your thoughts.
Here, as mentioned previously, is the full text of what Mostella wrote on Twitter:
Since I have arrived at penn state the entire staff had been fixated on my weight. I came in light for my position and understandably they wanted me to increase my weight. So that became my goal, gaining had always been difficult for me but I was going to try my hardest so I could compete at the highest level possible. Fast forward a bit, to put it bluntly, I’m struggling with my on Field performance, strength, as well as putting on the weight they wanted me to.
As soon as I thought I put on consistent gains I would lose, as many people who have tried to or are trying to gain can relate to. These struggles had a negative impact on my mental health. Contributing to my diagnosed anxiety and depression. I made James Franklin and John Scott aware of this, however after that I only mentioned it when they asked.
Reason being to avoid sounding like I was making excuses. In the coming months CJF made it clear to me he wasn’t satisfied with my progress. The narrative went from me being “a hardworker who’s going to figure it out” to someone who “doesn’t care about football or the team." Every encounter he insisted that I didn’t want to be at penn state and didn’t want to play football, contrary to what I continuously told him.
Around august I had a meeting where he told me if I didn’t gain an unspecified amount of weight by December, That I would be kicked off the team and lose my scholarship, that moment began the darkest phase of my life. A phase I still am not out of. 11/3/21 I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation I had lost 30 lbs from august and weighed the lowest i had been since my freshman year of High school.
My mother had attempted to contact both James Franklin and John Scott multiple times since august to discuss my mental health and my status with the team. Neither returned her calls or texts. John Scott told her in November that he had changed his number which is not true. I ended up being diagnosed with an eating disorder as well as a heart condition (most likely caused by the eating disorder) I have not been contacted by CJF or any other of the coaching staff since being admitted For any reason.
With the exception of coach Scott who had removed me from the defensive line group chat unprompted, replied back to me when I texted him first asking why he did so. After leaving the hospital I was contacted by non-coaching members of the staff to discuss what I was going to do going forward.
I was given 2 options, transfer or medically retire. The option of returning to the team wasn’t shared with me however upon asking it was stated that I was within my rights to do so. However I was told that as of now they won’t medically clear me to work out with the team. I was then told by said staff members that I should just focus on getting better and they would take care of everything else. I missed so much school being in the hospital I was told my only real option was to medically withdrawal from the semester which I did.
I was NOT made aware that doing so cancelled my enrollment for the spring semester. After coming back from break (sat) I checked my class schedule and saw I had no classes scheduled, I saw there was a hold on my account and figured that was why. I gave the school a $1,000 check to remove this hold but after the hold was resolved I still had no classes, I contacted one of my academic advisors who told me I had to re-enroll.
I filled out the form and am currently waiting to hear back. The sentiment of the staff and I is that my enrollment will be delayed until summer. I was told 1/24/22 that I now have to find a way to pay the school $3,000+ because I’ve been staying at my on campus apartment, And I have nowhere else to go. So I need to find a new apt, pay rent as well as pay for the storage of my things.
I can’t go home, Since there is no room for me to stay there. That is all. The only goal of this was to make people aware of the situations, and types of people you may be dealing with if you or a loved one engage with particular systems. #WeAre @pennstatefball.
