�ֲ���ý

By Samantha Cooper

July 2026

Tim Massaquoi, PhD, LPC, is one of about a dozen former National Football League (NFL) players who now work as mental health counselors. The former tight end works with a variety of clients, but his athletic career has led him to connect particularly with harder-to-reach demographics: young boys and single, middle-aged men of all races.

“Black male clinicians are a small percent of clinicians, and professional-athlete male clinicians are an even smaller percentage — so the combination of having played at that level and having the clinical skills is very rare. Some folks find it very valuable to bring someone like me to support their team with mental health conversations,” Massaquoi says.

Mental Health in Athletic Spaces

When Massaquoi played professionally in the 2000s, mental health wasn’t discussed unless the conversation was around suicide. Heavy stigma surrounded the topic, and many people didn’t talk about mental illness until it was too late.

“There’s this mindset in athletes that’s very warrior-driven. It’s about being tough and resilient and creating an atmosphere where you appear to be invincible,” he says. “And this mindset deters you from talking about mental health because, if you’re a warrior, nothing is more important than the mission.”

While mental health is more openly discussed in athletics these days, Massaquoi says the warrior mentality and other factors are holding back discussions.

He explains athletic environments don’t entirely allow athletes to be open or vulnerable because, despite being team-based, many sports include people with an individualized mindset, as opposed to a collective one. This means people don’t always recognize that their poor mental health can negatively affect others around them. Massaquoi wants to change that.

A New Mindset

Changing the culture surrounding professional athletics is complex, but Massaquoi thinks changing the way people speak about mental health issues is important.

“People usually talk about mental health from a deficit perspective, only when something is wrong. But for me, mental health is physical health, financial health, relational health. These are things you consistently have to work on — be they good or bad. People work on improving all these other types of health — why not also work on mental health?” he says.

In other words, he believes mental health cannot just be discussed when there is a problem; it needs to be discussed as part of a more holistic health approach, and that often does not happen in professional athletic spaces.

The Counsel: Whole Athlete Collective

To help combat these ideas, Massaquoi and 11 other former athletes turned counselors recently created The Counsel: Whole Athlete Collective, where they work with counselors, psychologists and other mental health professionals at pro-sport franchises and colleges to improve their mental health services.

“We’ve been in the shoes of the people in the locker room. We’ve had careers. So there’s nobody better to inform and work with them on their mental health than us, who are licensed and have the lived experience and technical expertise. The collective’s goal is to support those up-and-coming athletes so that they don’t have to have the same negative experiences we had,” he says.

Massaquoi also wants to support athletes throughout and after their career, something he wished he’d had when he retired from the NFL. After retirement, Massaquoi suffered from anxiety and depression from losing something he had considered a huge part of his identity.

He struggled with finding a counselor who would understand him — a Black male counselor with professional athletic experience. While he eventually found a counselor who had done a lot of work with professional athletes, he struggled to connect with her on some things.

“I just thought this could be my calling — to make sure that I’m in a position to help other athletes who look like me that folks in the counseling space might not be able to understand or connect with,” he says.

The Transition

Before going into counseling, Massaquoi was a behavioral health therapist in Philadelphia. While the children he worked with were naturally drawn to him, he lacked some skills and knowledge that would help him succeed. That led him to graduate school to earn his master’s degree.

He tackled the challenge with skills he had learned during his athletic career, such as a strong work ethic. Being used to having his day structured with a goal in mind, he could focus his time on obtaining his degree while also working full time and caring for his two-year-old.

That work ethic is still in place. He says he is constantly working and doing his best. He loves to see his clients improve, but the most rewarding aspect of his career comes when clients use what they’ve learned to help others.

“When they say, ‘I’m not a therapist, but here is something my therapist taught me that helps the work I’m doing,’ it is going further than where it started. That’s a good thing because now that individual is able to discuss mental health and help their community.”