Former Giants minor leaguer gives mental health advocacy a familiar face

A former San Francisco Giants minor leaguer is working alongside mental health experts and other professionals to ensure that his ex-teammates’ minds are as strong as their bodies.

Drew Robinson has been paramount in the organization’s push to prioritize the mental health of its players, his colleagues said Monday at a panel prior to the Giants’ 6-4 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers at Oracle Park.

A former outfielder who played 100 games in Major League Baseball with the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals, Robinson lost his right eye in a suicide attempt at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He returned to the field with the Sacramento River Cats — the Giants’ top minor-league affiliate — in 2021 before retiring that summer and joining the Giants as a mental-health advocate.

“I kind of act as a bridge between players and our providers within our organization,” Robinson said Monday. “It’s something that seems to be pretty efficient, coming from someone who’s in their shoes.”

Robinson flew down to The City in September 2020 to share his story with the players and staff. Following his talk, several players and staff expressed interest in addressing their own mental-health needs, providing the Giants a catalyst to further prioritize players’ mental health.

As conversations and coverage centering collegiate and professional athletes’ mental health become increasingly common, a growing number of teams and schools have hired mental performance coaches to help players deal with the mental rigors of their sport by developing techniques keeping them grounded in high-stress situations.

The Giants are among many that have sought to foster environments where players and staff are encouraged to talk about their bad days so that they can be matched with the right help.

“If you’re not balanced off the field, you’re not going to be balanced on the field,” said Shana Alexander, the director of mental health and wellness for the Giants. As a clinical psychologist specializing in sport and health psychology, Alexander works alongside fellow psychologist Emily Payette and Robinson to offer mental-health support and services to players and staff.

Alexander said the Giants have grown to value mental health due to the reality that it can affect anyone at any time. Research suggests that athletes might have an increased risk of developing mentalhealth conditions.

Though he works in the Giants front office, Robinson’s colleagues said he stays close to the players. Alexander said he’s often on the field throwing for hitters during batting practice.

“When he’s out there, he is kind of grinding with the players, and they naturally just open up to him,” Alexander said. “He’s done such a good job. It’s awesome to see his transition over the past couple of years here.”

The Giants use other opportunities to highlight mental health, including devoting a spring training game to the issue. Robinson assists the organization in coming up with a slogan that appears on the shirts worn before the game.

All of the organization’s community-based initiatives, such as Monday’s Mental Health Awareness Night and the pregame panels that preceded first pitch, are handled by Tess Oliphant, the Giants’ director of community relations.

In a statement, she said that the Giants “are passionate about lifting our community and take pride in driving awareness for mental health.”

“We know that we can make a giant impact on ending the mental health stigma, and bringing experts and community leaders together for Mental Health Awareness Night at Oracle Park is one of the many ways that we will achieve this common goal,” she said in an email to The Examiner.

Additional organizational support involved embedding clinical psychologists within the Giants, meaning that players and staff don’t have to go outside of work to make their appointments. Alexander and Payette said they work together to match organization members with the providers most suited to their needs.

Mental-health experts and professionals have been working to give athletes skills that can apply to their personal lives. Areas of work include goal setting, practicing mindfulness, building self-awareness, managing emotions and reinforcing positive self-talk.

Alexander said that mental-health concerns have historically not been addressed in sports. Conversations that did happen revolved were performance-based and focused solely on mental skills, but they are now branching out toward holistic approaches.

Last season, the Sacramento Kings contacted Alexander and asked if she would help out with the team’s mental health and wellness during this offseason.

“I think that was a huge shift as well because before, they had only had just performance coaches,” she said. “So it seems like other sports are really looking into mental health, too.”

Robinson said that the work around mental health should be based on understanding that everyone needs to have the resources and the ability to admit they need help, regardless of one’s sporting prowess.

“Whether we’re elite athletes or not, I think it’s a very universal approach,” Robinson said. “Because at the end of the day, we’re all feeling the same emotions, just from completely different external circumstances.”