Taylor Rooks On Her Mental Health Journey And Giving Student-Athletes The Support That They Need

Sports journalist Taylor Rooks has become one of the biggest advocates for mental health in the sports industry by leveraging her platform, and she continues to do so in her podcast that tackles the same subject matter.

In November 2022, LG debuted the first season of its mobile mental health and wellness podcast series, Transparent Conversations . The live show visits college campuses nationwide to discuss a range of topics concerning the mental wellness of competitors. The open forum invites some of the nation’s top student-athletes, coaches, psychologists and retired professional players to talk about their experiences and what they’ve learned from them.

Rooks revealed she was selected to be a moderator for the second season of LG’s initiative last November. It was such a great dynamic that she was asked to join them again for their third season, which kicked off earlier this year in April. The TV host sat down with Blavity to share what she enjoys most about this alliance and why she’s passionate about creating comfortable spaces that allow people to share their journey with mental health, including herself.

As someone who champions having raw dialogues about what it means to have a sound mind, the Bleacher Report correspondent has grown to be one of the faces of mental health awareness within the world of sports. Although she’s proud of this accomplishment, it wasn’t something she initially set out to do in her career.

“The person I was when I first started is much different than the person I am now. I have learned more about myself, I have learned more about ways to better myself, I have become more open about my mental health journey — and I’m able to have real conversations with people about their struggles and their triumphs and how they try to navigate life,” she told Blavity. “I think something really important for me as well was when you started to hear people like DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love discuss their mental health journeys, I remember I started to become much more comfortable after that.”

She added, “So now when I’m doing interviews, whether it’s on my interview show or if it’s with my partnership with LG, I talk a lot about how therapy has changed me as well. I talk a lot about how having honest conversations with others is beneficial to my mental health as well. I think that the thing about interviewing is, that while it is all about listening, I think you have to be willing to give parts of yourself as well. And the more that I have become aware of that, the mental health advocacy aspect of it has become more prominent.”

In an interview with Essence earlier this year, Rooks mentioned the collab was something she was “genuinely called to do.” Despite her having dynamic social interaction skills, part of what enhanced her interview style was breaking down the barrier that blocked her ability to be vulnerable when talking to others.

“You almost think that you have to play the role of journalist. As my career went on, I realized that your power comes when you just show up as you and not how people expect you to show up or what you think being in media looks like,” she said. “The power comes from being who you are when you are in front of the camera. And when it comes to revealing things about myself, talking about things that I deal with…when I realized that you can sort of take that mask off and just live as yourself, I genuinely believe that my career opened up.”

She went on to say more aligned opportunities were extended to her when she became more candid in conversations with talent, ultimately elevating the work she pushed out.

“My career got better because I was able to connect to interview subjects more. I was able to come from a place of understanding much easier and it made people also feel more comfortable sharing themselves because they felt like I was comfortable doing it as well,” Rooks explained. “I think there is a real difference in the content and stuff I was putting out before I had that realization and the stuff that comes out now that I have had it. And it’s cool when I think about the partnership with LG because I don’t think that it could have existed until I had that realization.”

What excites her during these conversations with prominent sports figures is that a holistic light is shined on the factors that benefit everyone involved in a sports organization, not just the athlete.

“It’s always stressed that mental health is just as important as physical health. I don’t think that when people discuss mental health that’s always a language that they use. It is really important that LG does that because I feel like it sets the standard for how this should be discussed on college campuses,” she said. “It’s also really great that when we go to the campuses, we aren’t solely talking to the athlete, right? The student-athlete is a part of it, but we understand that for them to feel supported, we should also be speaking to coaches, we should be speaking to staff, we should be speaking to trainers. So, it gives such a well-rounded view of how you can have healthy mental health.”

Through their union, LG’s team and Rooks have brainstormed the best ways to collectively expand. The goal for them is to be more inclusive and reach as many diverse audiences as possible.

“I get to be very hands-on. We will talk about what the topic is and then I dive into how I can write questions that will best illustrate sort of the ethos of the discussion that we want to have,” she said. “I will dive into the individual subjects as well, so none of the conversation is surface-level. A lot of the conversations, or a lot of the questions, are tailored exactly to the individual who is going to be on the show because I think that the key to genuinely having good conversations is also asking good questions. It’s allowing people to reflect but also making them feel like they are heard, right?”

One of the main reasons being a part of the series makes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign alumna proud is that it shows much advancement has been made since her time on a college campus.

“It brings a smile to my face to see, I think how far college campuses have gone in the mental health space, right? Like how, how normalized it is, how willing the guests are to come on the show and talk about themselves,” she said. “Like when I was in school, I don’t know if something like this would’ve existed. I’m 32 and I’m like, ‘Wow! This is genuine progress.’ It is cool that LG is spearheading a project that goes on to these campuses and continues to encourage people to again be transparent about their journeys, their mental health, their communities and their connectedness. And one thing I love about every show is how much we talk about positivity.”

Rooks has been strategizing ways to continue the advocacy work she’s begun. A new venture she’s in the beginning stages of is making therapy sessions accessible to those who can’t include mental healthcare in their budgets. And oddly enough, a potential partner she may work with was a doctor she met during her latest stop for Transparent Conversations .

“Something that I was just talking to my friend about is I want to be able to do something to provide therapy for people who can’t afford it. I’m in the very early stages of figuring out what that could look like,” she said. “A woman that I met doing Transparent Conversations , her name is Dr. Brett Haskell, we were just talking about what I could do with her because she has an organization and she’s looking for board members and I’m interested in learning more about how I can help her expand that. So, I’m always looking to do more. I think it’s incredibly vital and the only reason I know it’s vital is because, for a lot of my life, I didn’t think it was.”

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