The Green Bay Packers on Thursday officially announced the hiring of Dr. Chris Carr as the team’s Director of Performance Psychology and Team Behavioral Health Clinician, and Aaron Rodgers has heartily endorsed the move.
Carr has been working with the Packers in a consultant role since 2018, but the organization clearly saw the value in bringing him on in a full-time, official capacity.
Rodgers took to Twitter to applaud the announcement with a series of hand-clapping emojis.
As noted in a report from Rob Demovsky of ESPN, Rodgers has previously expressed admiration for Carr and his work with the team.
“We also have a sports psychologist on staff now who’s a great resource,” Rodgers said of Carr last December. “That is finally across all sports becoming a more ‘accepted’ position, maybe? I don’t know if that’s the right word. But there’s less of a stigma, I think, really countrywide about how getting help is not a weakness; it’s actually a sign of strength that you’re able to get help and ask for help and set your pride and ego aside. But I’ve done a lot of research on that stuff.”
The notion that professional athletes suffer from and have to deal with mental health issues — like everyone else — has received much more attention in recent years, thanks in no small part to the passionate advocacy by the NBA’s Kevin Love.
The Cleveland Cavaliers superstar has been on the forefront of efforts to destigmatize mental-health issues that many individuals, including athletes, confront alone in silence.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic only adds another problematic layer to the matter of mental health awareness in professional sports. It’s now an issue that is receiving deserved attention amid the global health crisis spawned by the COVID-19 outbreak.
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