ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 Launch Mental Health Initiative; to Air PSA with Coach K, More

Part of the alliance between the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 will include an initiative that stresses the importance of mental health.

The Associated Press (h/t ESPN) reported that the Teammates for Mental Health initiative launched Monday and will include a public service announcement that will air on ESPN, the ACC Network, Big Ten Network and Pac-12 Network during basketball games featuring the three conferences this week.

Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski is included in the PSA, as is Maryland women's basketball coach Brenda Frese and Oregon State men's basketball coach Wayne Tinkle.

The conferences will feature in-arena signage and lapel pins for coaches. The initiative will aid people in looking for signs that those close to them are struggling with their mental health.

Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren discussed the campaign's goals:

"The one thing that came up over and over and over again was the importance of making sure that an environment is created, where athletes should feel comfortable, even more comfortable than to seek help for an issue involving their mental health and wellness as they do if they had an injury with a knee or a shoulder or an ankle or whatever the case may be."

The three conferences announced the alliance in August, and many of the headlines focused on the eventual scheduling of interconference games in football, men's basketball and women's basketball.

After all, that meant marquee programs such as Ohio State football, Clemson football, Michigan football, USC football, Oregon football, Duke basketball, North Carolina basketball, UCLA basketball and Michigan State basketball, among others, could be facing one another in highly anticipated games.

However, the alliance also meant a renewed commitment to address the following areas: 

• Mental and physical health
• Student-athlete safety, wellness and support
• Academic support
• Social justice
• Diversity, equity and inclusion
• Gender equity

Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff discussed the benefits of working together:

"But the alliance is all about kind of sharing best practices across the 41 institutions, and across the three conferences, and specifically as it relates to student-athlete health and well-being, we have the experts for each of the conferences, each of the institutions, meeting on a regular basis, recommending and suggesting things that we can do through the alliance to elevate what they do for their student-athletes."

This initiative is the first public collaboration between the three leagues, but there will surely be more in the future.