By Harry Minium
FRISCO, Texas – At first, A.J. Oliver II ignored the symptoms, the dark thoughts, the feelings of hopelessness. After all, he was an athlete, a college basketball player at Clemson University. He played in the ACC, for heaven's sake.
He would tough his way through it, he thought, just like you do when you have a bad bruise or a sore ankle. You fight through the pain. You'll get over it.
Only he didn't.
He kept it all inside and the depression and anxiety continued to fester until it began to boil over. Finally, when he began having suicidal thoughts, he confided to Clemson's director of basketball operations, and later to his family, who quickly got him help.
Oliver said he wasn't happy at Clemson. His mother had been the women's basketball coach there but was fired and then hired at South Carolina State. When the family left, he felt all alone. He didn't fit in with the Clemson coaches and players, he said.
Part of the reason for his depression, he says, was that he wanted to leave Clemson and didn't know how to tell his parents.
Finally, he spilled the beans, and the reaction was different than what he anticipated. His parents, Anthony and Audra, and sister, Adria, supported his decision.
"My family assured me if you don't want to be here, if things aren't good for you, you don't have to be there," he said.
"I felt like I was stuck there. To hear them say, you don't have to be there, that meant everything."
Oliver eventually transferred to Old Dominion, where he has played the last 2 ½ seasons.
He's now a senior for the Monarchs, who meet UTEP Wednesday night at 9 in the second round of the Conference USA Tournament at the Ford Center at the Star.
ODU has been a safe port in the storm for Oliver, whose father played for Monarch coach Jeff Jones and with assistant coach Bryant Stith at Virginia. Anthony Oliver was captain of the 1992 Virginia team that won the NIT.
The Oliver family
His son has an ODU degree and is almost finished with a second degree. And although his scoring average dropped his senior year, he was a part of ODU's C-USA championship team in 2019.
He also has nothing but great things to say about Jones.
"I give coach Jones so much credit," Oliver said. "He's always listened. He's always been there for me and all of my teammates."
Oliver decided to go public with his battle against depression in the hope that it might save others the pain he went through.
If enough people repeat his message, perhaps it could even save a life.
"People need to understand it happens to everyone, even the happy go lucky kid who plays basketball for your school," he said. "I'm hoping people will say, 'look at him, it happened to him. It's OK for me to get help.' "
Mental health has become a major issue in college athletics – ODU is in the process of hiring a full-time psychiatrist in athletics. It has become more accepted for athletes to talk about mental health issues.
But not accepted enough. Suicide is the leading cause of death among teenagers and the numbers have been growing ever since 2007. Experts fear the pandemic, and the isolation that caused so many young people, especially athletes denied the ability to perform in their sports, will cause those numbers to continue to rise.
In August, former NCAA track star Cameron Burrell shot himself in a Houston, Texas parking garage. The former University of Houston star was considered the fastest athlete in college. His family said he showed no signs of depression or mental illness before his suicide.
Neither did Oliver, said his father.
"Every time I would talk to him, he always the same," Anthony Oliver said. "It takes you back when you hear something like that with your kid.
"You wonder, 'what did I miss?' He just disguised it.
"I wish he had shared it with us sooner, that we had known it earlier. We could have gotten him help a lot sooner.
"After going through it, I think A.J. realized he could have done some things better. Had he not waited so long, it would have made a tremendous difference in is life."
Oliver said he's proud that his son is speaking out about his mental health.
"I think he's taking a very adult approach to this," he said. "Once you learn something, you learn how to get through something, you should want to share that with other people."
Jones said that A.J. Oliver is something of a model athlete.
"A.J. is as sweet and pleasant and nice as a kid as you're ever going to find," Jones said. "He lives to make those around him happy. He wants to please, whether it's me his family or his teammates.
"Despite not having as successful a senior campaign as he would have liked, he's still out here, and has a smile on his face, he works hard, he gives everything he can. He's such a great teammate."
Oliver is finishing his senior year off in style. In recent weeks, his playing time has increased. His shots are falling more frequently and in the regular-season finale last weekend against Middle Tennessee, he blocked a shot that led to the winning points in a 68-64 ODU victory.
"The thing with A.J. is he's going to work," Jones said. "He's going to succeed or he's going to die trying. He'll take charges, he'll dive on the floor, he'll give it up for the team."
But as hard as he works, and as good a teammate as he is, he will always have to be on guard against depression.
Oliver dealt with another bout of severe depression this fall. Shortly before the basketball season began, he was hospitalized for three days as doctors got his meds straight and got him into intense therapy.
Doctors then told him to take two weeks off, to go visit with family and get away from the rigors of school and practice. They wanted him to gradually work his way back into the basketball regimen.
Oliver wonders if it was fallout from the pandemic that brought on his depression. Most athletes spent last season in "bubbles," distanced from students and friends. They only associated with their teammates.
"I don't know what it was," he said. "Something seemed off. Everything just started falling apart.
"It wasn't anyone's fault. I would say this, imagine if you were in your house and it was pouring rain, thundering rain, coming down really bad, somebody picked you up and tied you to a chair and left you there.
"You couldn't move, couldn't get away from it. That's kind of how it felt. I can't explain it. It kind of just happened."
When he spoke with doctors, he told them about feeling like he was in that chair.
"It kind of started after last season ended, and then it just gradually happened," he said. "The pandemic, the lockdown, everything involved with that may have had something to do with it."
When he was in the hospital, his mother turned to him and said something that reaffirmed his commitment to going public with his story.
"My Mom told me in the hospital that my story wasn't done, that I'm supposed to tell it for kids like me who are going through the same thing and don't know where to turn," he said.
"If it helps just one person then it's worth it."
Minium: ODU's A.J. Oliver Speaks Out About His Struggles with Depression and Anxiety
