Former NFL defensive end Devon Still has never played lacrosse. He watched a few games live from 2008-11 while attending Penn State, where he was a consensus All-American as a senior, but his lacrosse knowledge is admittedly limited.
Prior to a Zoom call last week with over 240 boys’ and girls’ lacrosse players with True Lacrosse, Still did his research. He learned about the number of NCAA programs, the scholarships opportunities out there and the roster sizes in each division — all to help relate to the youth athletes who sat transfixed on their monitors as Still detailed the hardships he’s faced in his life.
Still grew up in a single-parent home after his parents divorced. Drug abuse was a problem where he was raised in Delaware. Injury after injury created setbacks in his college and professional football careers.
Even those hurdles didn’t prepare Still for having to watch his daughter, Leah, battle cancer. In June 2014, she was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. In September 2015, she underwent surgery to remove the tumor. The Stills’ story swept through the NFL.
This past March, Leah, now 10, was deemed five years cancer-free. Watching his daughter fight cancer — and putting his NFL career on hold to be with her — helped Still understand the importance of mental health.
And that’s a conversation that transcends all sports. No research needed.
“I was a professional athlete. I was definitely in shape physically, but I never had to deal with something as tough as watching your child battle cancer,” Still said on a Zoom call this week with US Lacrosse Magazine. “Just the lessons that I learned along that journey, just staying positive when you feel like the world is coming down on you, I use that now to really help people when they’re battling life’s toughest obstacles.”
True Lacrosse, which serves thousands of youth lacrosse players in the Midwest, was co-founded by Jake Deane, who starred at UMass and played eight years in Major League Lacrosse. While focusing so much effort on his athletes’ on-field progression, Deane also realized that the pandemic offered the opportunity to help them grow mentally.
Still, who accepted the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the 2015 ESPY Awards, seemed like the right person for the job.
'For every child battling cancer, y'all are the real heroes.' Devon Still accepts the Jimmy V Perseverance Award. pic.twitter.com/3ulkcHS4qs
— The V Foundation (@TheVFoundation) July 16, 2015
“When you get an NFL player on the line talking to kids, they’re mesmerized,” Deane said. “His story about how he came up and how he deals with adversity really struck with a lot of our kids. Devon’s background is a lot different than a lot of our kids’ backgrounds.”
Still had to learn how to be #LeahStrong to help him and his daughter overcome the mental struggle of battling childhood cancer. His book, “Still in the Game,” details how people can overcome life’s biggest challenges.
During his call with True Lacrosse, Still broke down his seven steps to success. Setting goals and choosing the right people around you are just a few of the ways Still encourages youth athletes to get on the right path. These are pillars of his Playmaker University, a program in which Still helps coach people to “experience new levels of success spiritually, mentally, physically emotionally and financially.”
“The biggest message that I give people during this time in general is to control the controllables, which is something I really had to learn when Leah was battling cancer, when my world was flipped upside down in the blink of an eye,” Still said. “I had to be able to focus on the things I had control over, which was basically our emotions and how we were going to attack that battle with cancer.”
He thinks that message rings true now during the COVID-19 pandemic. Athletes around the world want to get back on to the field, but social distancing and quarantine have made that impossible, at least for the time being.
Instead, Still thinks it’s the perfect time to get ahead of the competition.
“Right now, it’s just teaching those young athletes how they can take advantage of this time being stuck in the house,” he said.
“Focusing on the mental aspect of it so that when you come back and you’re able to practice on the physical aspect, you’re light-years ahead of people who just chose to use this time to play video games or just play around and not do anything to benefit themselves and their future.”
While at home since stay-at-home orders in March, both Still and Deane said it’s easy to feel stressed or worried. Still detailed how he tried to stay strong for his daughter while she was in the hospital in Philadelphia and he was still playing professionally in Cincinnati. He said he wanted to cry with her on the phone but instead held it in as an attempt to stay strong.
In hindsight, he wishes he would have let himself be more vulnerable — and he encourages everyone to do the same.
“A lot of times, we revert to bottling up those emotions and fighting it by ourselves, and that can eventually hurt us in the long run or hurt the people around us,” Still said.
“As men, as athletes, we’re taught to be warriors. We can’t show any signs of weakness. But I think true strength is being able to say, ‘Hey, something’s wrong with me, and I’m seeking help to fix it.’”