Mental health isn’t pushed to the sideline in Coach Howard’s classroom
By Sophie Garza
​
Grayson Howard hears the school bell ring eight times before heading out to the baseball field for a two-hour practice.
“Sometimes I feel like that same kid from high school, waiting for the day to end to head out to the field,” said Howard.
Howard played on many baseball teams throughout his childhood. As a student of Johnson High School in San Antonio, he began to fall out of love with the game.
“When I graduated from high school, baseball was my sport, but it quickly felt like a job,” said Howard.
After high school, Howard went on to study English at the University of Texas at Austin. Shortly after graduating in 2013, he moved back to his hometown and became a high school English teacher. Eventually, he found himself coaching the school’s baseball team.
“The point I’m trying to make is that, when I graduated, I wanted nothing to do with baseball, but when I played intramural sports in college it made me fall back in love with the game,” said Howard.
Howard never won a championship intramural game. However, he attributed his victories to new friendships, a renewed passion for the game of baseball, and a deeper understanding of how mental health shapes your perspective.
“Playing intramural sports reminded me how important it is to just love playing,” said Howard. “Now, I try to understand that my players just love the game, and I don’t want to be the person who takes that away from them.”
Howard is open with his students, players and family about his own mental health struggles, and he encourages them to do the same.
“When I had my first mental breakdown, I had to have a medical withdrawal from UT, and go back home, and go to the hospital,” said Howard.
When Howard returned to UT, school officials allowed him to register with no consequences and see a doctor on campus whenever he needed.
“Having that mental break in college was probably the best place I could have had it,” said Howard. “Before that, I had always wanted to be a teacher and a coach, but that experience made me want it so much more because I saw how much of an impact I could make on a student’s life.”
As a coach and teacher, Howard has made an impact on many former students, like Alea Jones and Chad Vigen.
Vigen took Howard’s class during his junior year of high school. Often, Vigen and his classmates would stay after class to eat their lunch in Howard’s classroom.
“Coach Howard’s class always felt comfortable,” said Vigen. “The door was always open, and most days we didn’t even leave for lunch.”
Vigen said they typically would sit together, eat their food and talk about their lives.
“I never thought my favorite part of high school would be eating lunch with my teacher, but
it genuinely made me happy at the time,” said Vigen. “Part of me feels like I took it for granted in a way, like after you graduate, you realize that no one is really looking after you anymore.”
Jones agreed that Howard’s impact reached beyond the required course work.
“He had become so open about his struggles with mental health that the classroom began to feel like a safe space for me,” said Jones.
At a young age, Jones said she was diagnosed with clinical depression and borderline personality disorder.
“Once he had sort of opened that door for me, I used his class and assignments as a safe haven to relinquish my struggles through my own works of art, just as the authors he had taught us about and, of course, himself had done,” said Jones.
Jones ended up taking another one of Coach Howard’s classes the following year. Jones said having Howard as a teacher shaped her high school experience for the better and provided her with a safe space for her to open up about topics like mental health and depression.
According to an October 2024 report by the World Health Organization, “one in seven 10-19-year-olds experiences a mental disorder, accounting for 15% of the global burden of disease in this age group.” Additionally, for people between the ages of 15 and 29, suicide is the third leading cause of death.
Talking about mental health can have positive benefits, especially with adolescents. As specified by The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, “learning about mental illnesses can lead to improved recognition, earlier treatment, greater understanding and compassion, and decreased stigma, particularly if the child and their family is part of a culture where talking about mental illness is considered taboo.”
“I think talking about these things with students this young is so important,” said Howard. “This is a time in their lives where everything is changing, and that can be really hard in so many different ways for so many different students.”
Howard said his mental health experiences, especially those in college, altered how he teaches his students.
“I know school is stressful, and some people either thrive under it or break under the pressure,” said Howard. “So it gave me a source of inspiration in regards to talking to my students about their mental health.”