Webb talks candidly about mental health as love for football returns

Content warning: This article contains references to suicide and self-harm.

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The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a hotline for individuals in crisis or for those looking to help someone else. To speak with a certified listener, call 1-800-273-8255.

Crisis Text Line is a texting service for emotional crisis support. To speak with a trained listener, text HELLO to 741741. It is free, available 24/7, and confidential.

Football has always had a spot in Brendan Webb’s ample and generous heart over the years. Its role has changed at times, but it’s always been there.

It has been both a source of frustration and a means to vent it; a way to celebrate that he’s still a kid and a way to show he’s grown up. More than anything, football has been a sometimes wonderful, sometimes burdensome but always present companion for a 22-year-old who has persevered through difficulties in life that a lot of people would keep to themselves.

Staying tough and quiet on mental health issues might be the way a lot of college football players would handle it, but not Webb. Not the guy who lost his father when he was six months old, not the guy who survived a suicide attempt in high school, not the guy who, like so many others, had to navigate his way through the isolation and profound strangeness that came with being a student-athlete during the COVID-19 era.

“I believe the more that you’re honest about stuff and the more you decide to be upfront about everything, the better it is,” Webb said. “It’s going to be that way for the person listening and it will be that way for you, the person telling the story.”

Webb is an athletic 6-4, 250-pound defensive end for the Coyotes who reported to his first USD training camp at 198 pounds. He was also a track athlete at Buhler (Kan.) High School who was a state qualifier in the triple-jump, the 400-meter relay and the shot put.

Essentially, he was undefeated as an athlete, but even so he discovered relatively early in life that sports had its limits for what it could do to get him through his days and weeks.

By his junior year of high school, he was finding life increasingly difficult. He felt pressure to succeed at football and pressure to earn a football scholarship. Even the good stuff didn’t seem that great a lot of the time. As he described it: “I could be sitting in a room with a bunch of people who loved me and I’d still feel like I was all alone.”

The 22-year-old Missouri Valley Conference honor roll psychology major would have been able to tell the 16-year-old version of himself that he was dealing with mental health issues. The teenage Webb, however, just knew things weren’t right.

“There was a day I took a bunch of medicine,” he said. “It didn’t do anything other than make me puke. The next day, what I tried to do was worse. That’s when I knew I was dive-bombing downward.”

He sought therapy then, but found it underwhelming. The people counseling just didn’t seem to understand.

He continued to excel as an athlete, however, eventually earning a scholarship to USD. It represented a win for the family – affording college was going to be difficult without it – but he had not arrived at a level of peace that would permit him to move on and away from the depression that made high school at times so difficult.

Like lots of freshmen, especially those involved in sports, Webb found his first year of college very stressful. By the time he was a sophomore he was, in hindsight, extremely depressed.

“I’d stop eating sometimes,” Webb said. “I’d eat one meal a day. That was all I could do.”

He drove out to the Vermillion-Newcastle Bridge one afternoon, got out of his car and looked over the water.

“It was like a flip of a switch,” he said. “I was like, ‘I don’t have this sense of wanting to hurt myself anymore. I don’t want to commit suicide.’ I just wanted to get help. I had this overwhelming feeling of calm. It was like ‘I know I’m loved. I know people care about me.’ I just needed to get some help. I could never look at myself and tell myself I loved me. That’s what I realized when I went back to therapy.”

Webb contacted the Psychological Services Center at USD and eventually began speaking with a doctoral student working under the supervision of a licensed psychologist.

As someone who is now seeking a career in the field, Webb is fully capable of describing the kind of therapy that has turned things around for him.

“It’s called DBT – dialectical behavioral therapy,” Webb said. “It completely changed my whole outlook. I was able to understand my emotions.”

DBT is a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy that identifies and attempts to change negative thinking. In Webb’s case, it was part of a series of enlightenments that have allowed him to enjoy football again.

Conversations with strength and conditioning coach Clete McLeod helped. In Webb’s terms, he described their philosophy as “realizing you have the ability to work your butt off. So why not do it?”

Webb recently told portions of his story for Lost&Found, a non-profit advocacy organization in the region using September to tell 30 stories in 30 days of people overcoming mental health issues.

“Today, I am in a better place than I was previously,” Webb wrote in his entry for the organization website. “With medications and me trying to practice more mindfulness techniques, I am in a good place. I like football again.”

There was a time when Webb got through his practices at USD by being angry. For some, it’s a means of motivation that works fine, but for Webb it felt out of place. Football is never going to be a sport a defensive end should be playing with a smile for all 60 minutes. But then again, scowling toughness can be delivered simultaneously with appreciating the joy of playing the game at a high level.

That’s where Webb is now. That’s where he wants to stay.

“When you’re struggling with depression, your interest in your passions and your hobbies just sort of die,” Webb said. “I’m at the top of the world right now because I realize what I was feeling was not football’s fault. This is a sport I love – I get to be myself. I’m so glad I’ve rekindled my love of it. It’s a journey that has been incredibly important to me because I took the strides necessary to take care of my mental health.”

The Coyotes opened the season with an encouraging but nevertheless unsuccessful effort at the University of Kansas last week. The 17-14 loss could easily have been viewed as a noble effort against a Big 12 program, but as Webb described it, his team didn’t see it that way.

“Coach (Travis) Johanson told us it should sting,” Webb said. “From what I’ve seen in practice this week, that’s how the whole team is looking at it. We want to punch a wall out. We have something to prove.”