Royce White’s Call For Accountability And Acknowledgement

In our interview with Royce White, we talk about mental health, making change in the NBA and a systemic corporate culture of exploitation that is as prevalent as ever.

The NBA and much of corporate America largely turn a blind eye to mental health issues. Our veterans are committing suicide at an alarming rate, 50 percent of those who eventually get diagnosed with a mental illness show signs by age 14 and a staggering 51 percent of those with bipolar disorder go untreated.

Royce White knows the unacceptable, inhumane and ignorant approach that major corporations can take towards mental health. He’s lived it, continues to navigate through it and has made it his mission to advocate for those without the voice or platform to be heard.

White knows it doesn’t have to be that way, saying “there’s a better version of the league (NBA) out there, a better version of business, a better version of other professional sports, capitalism, but we have to work towards that.”

THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM

In his four years since being drafted No. 16 overall by the Houston Rockets in the 2012 NBA Draft, Royce has delivered the same message to anyone that will listen — there needs to be policy reform in how we handle mental health at all levels.

Whether it’s misinformation, a deliberate attempt to avoid confrontation or bureaucratic red tape, there are far too many organizations dragging their feet in their attempt to acknowledge and take responsibility for providing a healthy working atmosphere for their employees.

How in the hell is me traveling on a bus a bonus?

When White was having his well-publicized but inaccurately reported issues with the Rockets back in 2012, he was seeking the safest possible way for him to cope with the rigors of the NBA lifestyle. One of White’s anxiety triggers is his fear of flying, which is a way of life in professional sports — but even though that’s the issue many latched onto, it wasn’t an issue at all.

Royce has flown many times and was willing to fly when necessary for the Rockets. The issue was much deeper, rooted in a policy so flimsy and loose that it would raise a red flag for anyone paying attention:

“When me and the Rockets were discussing traveling by bus, the league was the first one to come back with the answer that it would be a salary cap infringement, a bonus. How in the hell is me traveling on a bus a bonus?

It’s a clear avoidance of accountability. I dig my heels in deeper and 24 hours later, guess what they say – we will let you take a bus. But, you guys just told me that you can’t addendum things. I don’t understand what’s going on here anymore. There’s a lot of the story that people don’t know.

They flew Dr. Taylor out to Houston — he was in charge of the league’s medical program. When I explained to him why it would be a good idea for me to have a bus, he agreed. Then, they changed their vibe on it.

My whole point after that going forward was if you guys are that unsure and your policy is that loose, you need to revise the whole thing. We need to make sure people are not winging it in making these decisions. The league should never have told the Rockets the bus was a bonus.

I let people make jokes about me flying and making it seem like it was about a fear of airplanes. I let that happen because that’s an unwinnable battle. I let the league show everybody who they really are and we’re at this point now where I can talk confidently about all these things and not worry about the repercussions.”

The truth of the matter is, if there’s no policy foundation, all the power lies with the governing body. That might be the status quo, but it’s not right — and it creates a scary situation where inconsistency and manipulation put too much power into one person’s hands.

White chose (and continues to this day) to not go after those on Twitter who are misinformed. It’s not a gag order or a directive from a PR firm, but his choice. What’s interesting is that it hasn’t always been this way. Support from around the league has varied, as White told me:

“The Rockets never had a chance to discourage me from talking. Not one time did the Houston Rockets ever say I was wrong about mental health as a policy. That’s interesting. That’s ironic because if it wasn’t wrong, then that means there was a bureaucratic obstacle, why the change I suggested wasn’t possible. It’s never the change that’s disingenuous, it’s the red tape.

He (David Stern) told me basically I talked to your agent, stay off of Twitter. No. 1, that’s disrespectful and undermining, but No. 2, it showed that what was important was the face value of the brand and not the mental health problem.

There’s some good people in the union. Their suggestion for me to change my tone wasn’t out of the sense of a position they wanted to maintain. They were more worried about my personal career. That I can honestly say. I had to reiterate to them that it wasn’t about me. They’re still in contact with me, they’re encouraging. They want to get a policy in place. They believe in it. Michele Roberts said something about it on her first day of the job as one of the priorities.

The league is the only one who discouraged me. When everything first broke out with the Rockets, I emailed David Stern personally and said that the policies in place as they are were a direct hindrance of me and the Rockets solving our issue. The Rockets said because we’re part of a collective bargained industry, we can’t just make these addendums without checking with the league – they’re the governing body.

So we were having all these checks and balances that were stopping us from making movement on the candid conversations we were having – again, bureaucratic red tape.

One of the most alarming parts of that was the email back, where he basically told me to stay off Twitter. He basically disregarded my notion that we should meet face to face and have a real understanding about what it was I was talking about. He told me basically I talked to your agent, stay off of Twitter. No. 1, that’s disrespectful and undermining, but No. 2, it showed that what was important was the face value of the brand and not the mental health policy.”

While the idea that Commissioner Stern would be interested in the brand first isn’t shocking, it is a problem. So is the idea that pacifying an athlete and essentially shushing them is the right way to handle an individual with a legitimate claim and a right to an appropriate and safe standard of care.

What White talked about next is something altogether, when I asked about the NBA’s unwritten rules and the NBA culture of keeping things “in-house” and how it’s a way to keep a proverbial hand over the athlete’s mouths.

“That systemic corporate culture of exploitation will have endless ripple effects that we don’t even acknowledge yet. The reason why they are hush-hush about things is because of the media. Why? It’s because they can’t piss the media off because they’re the ones that pay the TV contracts.

The millennial generation is all over it. I talk to people from my generation every day and they’re all over it. We’re fiery, we’re vicious, we see it, we can’t be fooled, we can’t be bought, we can’t be finessed.

They told me in multiple conversations, hey if you just go out there and play you could do great things for mental health, but you’ve got to play first. You gotta get people to love you first.

I’m sitting there going, you’re the people I need to be talking to to change the policy. Why are the fans deciding the policy based on medicine? Why am I going out there to prove I’m a great entertainer for the fans in order for you to make a change in policy for your players, for your employees? It’s ridiculous! It was insulting to me. It really just upset me to see a corporation that had every opportunity to do the right thing just turn their nose and keep operating.”

WHEN DOCTORS AREN’T MAKING THE MEDICAL DECISIONS

Imagine a scenario where you go to your family doctor — approved by your employer — and they approve a course of action for you. Just as you’re ready to enact the plan, your boss (decidedly not a medical expert) walks in and changes the plan. It’s irrational, it’s illogical and it’s what happened to Royce.

They told me the league would allow the Rockets to manipulate their own doctors. That’s a big (expletive) problem.

One of the more circulated stories was that of White demanding his own doctor. Royce explained the situation:

“Another piece that got caught up in the whirlwind of the story that wasn’t told correctly, it seemed like I just popped out of nowhere saying I needed my own doctor.

The Rockets demonstrated to me first hand that they could influence their own doctor. Daryl Morey came into a doctor’s office with his own team psychiatrist, their own team physician, saying I didn’t have an anxiety disorder before the draft.

Their own doctor stepped out of the room and apologized. They got my medical records from Iowa State. You can’t tell me that they went through an entire draft process where everyone was talking about my anxiety disorder and you can’t tell me that McHale and Hoiberg (who worked together for 10 years) didn’t have a call and there wasn’t a talk about my anxiety.

It showed me they would go that far to lie in front of their own doctor so at that point I said I need my own guy, because you guys have too much influence on this group of people here. That showed me the league would allow the Rockets to manipulate their own doctors. That’s a big (expletive) problem.”

White has received an increasing amount of support from the medical community, to the extent that four doctors signed their name to an open letter from White to the NBA and NBPA, urging them to take part in “an initiative that is supportive, efficient, enhances the longevity of performance and even profitable. An initiative that exemplifies the integration of mental health at all levels, within all benefits, and for all athletes.”

The letter has drawn praise, from some very interesting areas — including Houston Rockets doctor Jim Muntz. White told me a story in which he sent the letter to Muntz, which he then praised. White lamented that he wished Muntz’ signature could have been on it, and mentioned that maybe they could work together in the future. Muntz’ response was “sure, but the league has been sticky about too much input from us regarding health issues while we are acting as team doctors.” (editor’s note — this story and Muntz’ quote came from White’s records)

Here we are again, in a situation where doctors are being put in a position where they have a conflict of interest. If their opinion doesn’t mesh with what the organization thinks or wants to see, the possibility of substandard care is a real issue. White elaborated on the story, tying it back into the inconsistency seen around the league:

“The fact that he doesn’t feel like he can say what he truly thinks isn’t just going to reflect in the media, it’s going to reflect in his work with the team. And it did that while I was there – he knows that. He knows that while I was there, Daryl was calling him saying look we don’t want you to have input on this, the protocol he wants you to sign, we don’t want you to sign that.

Jim Muntz is a good guy – a great guy – but there’s a systemic culture there. Look at what happened with Derrick Rose. I thought that was interesting. In my situation, the league’s biggest gripe was that guys were going to use mental health in order to get out of playing.

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When Rose was coming back from his injury, not that his knee wasn’t ready, not that the doctor’s thought his knee wasn’t ready, but saying he wasn’t mentally ready. And the Bulls, because of who Rose is as a player, allowed that. He said he’s not ready to go, and we’re ok with that.

There’s so much inconsistency. That’s why I said they need a (expletive) policy that a doctor can oversee. Inconsistency is the optimal situation for mistakes, like the ones the Rockets made with me. Whatever they were doing with Larry Sanders, that was a mistake. Whatever happened with Eddie Griffin, was a mistake. The inconsistency leads to that, and that’s what I was trying to point out. ”

MOVING FORWARD AND AFFECTING CHANGE

Anyone who has suffered from a serious mental illness can tell you that you’re never prepared for it when it hits, and the battle is never truly won — it’s often a lifelong journey filled with budding self-awareness and a growing foundation of knowledge with which to draw when the situation demands it.

Having to miss out on the NBA lifestyle as a young man in his 20’s couldn’t have been easy, but for Royce, it carried a lot of benefits:

“Mental health is one of those social issues that once you get that basic knowledge, everything is a build off of that. It’s a read. It’s funny because we just learned the triangle (offense) in New York City and I was liking it. Everything is a read.

Maybe I need to adjust when I’m going to bed, how much sugar I eat, how much caffeine I take in, etc. All of those things play a factor, which is why I stress so greatly to the league that you need a program, a policy, because mental health is dynamic. But once you have a basic understanding and knowledge of what it is, people get better results once they get in tune with that.

I’ve learned so much about myself, man. I’ve learned a lot through watching other people’s struggles and just understanding how little attention on a wide scale, we pay attention to ourselves. I’m fortunate to be able to see it from an advocate’s perspective. Be able to know different people’s struggles — all races, demographics, genders, sexes.

I plan on participating in every Summer League from now until the day I can’t walk.

Every couple of months I continue to grow tremendously in knowing myself and knowing what it’s like for people with anxiety, people with undiagnosed mental health struggles like common stress and anger management to navigate this thing. ”

Making change in the NBA will be difficult from the outside. White played for the Los Angeles Clippers Summer League team in 2015-16, and when I asked about his intentions for playing this year he said, “I plan on participating in every Summer League from now until the day I can’t walk.”

White will continue chasing his dream of playing in the NBA, and at age 25, he still has plenty of time left. Even though he’s willing to perform under the current agreement, he’s well aware that the CBA is up after next season, and hopes that mental health is a big part of the discussions, though he’s not banking on it:

“Over the last four years, there hasn’t been a rapid reaction. They are now starting to acknowledge at least publicly that they’re going to talk to the union to find a solution – that’s a win right there. It’s not a big enough priority yet from where I’m sitting.

They’re in discussions about it, but they don’t have any details yet. I know it because I’m on the inside. I have no problem sitting here saying it’s not a big enough priority. They’ve acknowledged it, but CBA negotiations started seven months ago and the sub-committee hasn’t even met yet. If they don’t have specifics, they probably haven’t even discussed it yet.

Any time social change is going to happen, it’s going to happen very organically and it’s going to take on it’s own timeline, based on the dynamics involved in the industry. When I started to realize that there was a lack of acknowledgement and understanding for mental health and speak up for myself, my only goal was to get them to acknowledge it.

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They were in total non-acknowledgement about it. There’s probably not a particular program for any of their employees. If they’re not protecting their million dollar assets mental health, you better believe they’re not protecting the guy making $10 an hour.”

The dream scenario for White would be a return to the NBA, to fulfill his destiny as a professional basketball player, while continuing to advocate for mental health issues.

“I’d still advocate for help, I’d just have less time to do it. I do want to get something clear, I never decided not to play because of the advocacy. It wasn’t like I walked away from the Rockets because they wouldn’t put a policy in place. I never walked away from the Rockets. I went to the D-League and I was supposed to come back to the team, but they felt it was too late in the season and they didn’t want me back on the team and they ended up trading me.

I’m always ready to play. I’ve always been ready to play. I did say it’s not safe for me to play without a policy in place, but that’s something I’m willing to deal with and help with it. If the Dallas Mavericks signed me tomorrow, would it still be unsafe for people with mental health issues? Yes. Would I deal with that hazard in order to try to help them build a policy? Yes.

I think that’s a compromise that we have to try to achieve for social issues moving forward. We shouldn’t hold our breath. That’s a magical story where everything falls into place and people do what they should do. ”

Follow Royce on Twitter @Highway_30. You can visit Royce’s foundation at AnxiousMinds.org. Parts of the interview were trimmed for clarity. All quotes and claims credited to Royce White.