Being the signal caller at Alabama, Jalen Milroe is no stranger to overcoming pressure in adverse situations. But it wasn’t until recently Milroe had to learn how to deal with dark times off the field and the status of his mental health.
Milroe calls this ‘Being ok with being vulnerable.’ This is a trait the quarterback says he didn’t learn about until he got to college due to his military background growing up.
Milroe sat down with Baller Tribe Sports Media to express the importance of talking through mental health problems.
“It was a moment in college where I went through some real dark times, true adversity that I never had before,” Milroe said. “And I told my dad, like, I’m not okay. And he stayed a whole week in Tuscaloosa because he never heard me say that. And so that changed his perspective into how he talked to me, and how we got through adversity…I think that’s something that is a social norm in our society, is that as men, we are not allowed to express how we feel. And that we are soft, we get the idea that we are soft because we express how we feel. We are just supposed to be mute to everything and not express how we feel. And I feel like that’s false.”
Milroe went on to compare human emotions to a water bottle.
“At the end of the day, if you fill up a water bottle to the top, it’s gonna spill,” said Milroe. “That’s how our emotions are. We have to talk about it.”
This maturity and level of self awareness is something the quarterback said he had to learn within himself.
GET THE BEST ALABAMA FOOTBALL INSIDER INFORMATION, MESSAGE BOARD ACCESS, AND RECRUITING COVERAGE TODAY! SIGN UP HERE TO UNLOCK OUR SUBSCRIBER ONLY CONTENT!*
