Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Former MLB player John Buck says mental resilience is similar for baseball players and police officers.
- Buck's program, Level Up Performance, uses sports to enhance mental health awareness.
- Training includes managing pressure, mental focus, and recovery techniques for SWAT and firefighters.
SANDY — Is being at bat in a stadium in front of 40,000 people the same as being on a SWAT team at the scene of a potential life-and-death situation?
While the stakes and the pressures the batter and the officer are facing are different, former professional baseball player John Buck said their mindsets and how they deal with that pressure is the same.
"The zone is the zone — meaning flow is flow or Mamba Mentality is Mamba Mentality," Buck said.
Buck, who played for Taylorsville High School before playing 12 seasons in Major League Baseball, during which he was named to the All-Star Team, started a program about two years ago called Level Up Performance. On Wednesday, members of the Unified Police Department's SWAT team and members of the Unified Fire Authority attended a daylong training session at Buck's facility in Sandy that combines athletics with raising mental health awareness.
"The pressure is different for SWAT vs. baseball players. But they are very, very similar in that there's pressure and the mindset and the spiraling down that can happen after a performance," said Dr. Alley Dake, a co-founder of the program and Buck's cousin.
Dake, who conducts mental health coaching to, in part, teach mental resilience, says she works with athletes on how to stay focused, how to balance self-confidence and how to "keep their minds in the game" so athletes can perform at their peak level. The same can be done, she said, with first responders.
"If they are showing up to a situation not feeling self-confident, and they are already (raising) questions in their brain, then their brain is going to send a message to show up nonconfident and to be scared or to not be focused. If they are still focused on life and not right there in that moment, that could be a vital mistake for them," she said, noting that some officers she has talked to say they have sometimes responded to a scene still thinking about the last call they responded to.
"We have to teach them how to let it go. We say, 'So what? Now what?' because we're right here, right now," Dake said.
On Wednesday, officers and firefighters worked their way through several different "stations" or activities that ranged from batting cages to an interactive video screen with an actor playing the role of an officer going through a mental health crisis. Retired professional mixed martial artist Josh Burkman used basic grappling skills to teach first responders about keeping their minds calm, steady breathing and reducing thoughts.
Buck said the training is broken down into three parts: pre-game, in-game and post-game thinking, using baseball as a way to teach first responders the ups and downs of anxiety and adrenaline.
"So the tools and techniques that I would use to learn how to throw the ball and how to have confidence and get rid of the anxiety, it's the same tools. It's a dopamine game that we're playing with our brains. And I saw that if I give these to them on the SWAT team, they know how to deal with this stuff. And then, our self-talks and the little things that I'm doing in the (batter's) box, those same techniques are huge when they're doing a breach (of a door)," he said.
In the moment, he said ball players and SWAT team members need to reduce their thoughts to be "in the zone" — whether they're facing pitching ace Justin Verlander or on the scene of a hostage situation.
Buck recalled a time when New York Yankees legend and baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter was at the plate then "came out of the box on a 3-2 count, winked at me (and) said, 'John, are we having fun yet?'" In that moment, Jeter was able to reduce his thoughts and think only about the task at hand, he said.
Likewise, the training also teaches officers how to "come down" after an incident — the post game — and what to do with any positive or negative thoughts they're still having.
"They're being shot at. They're having these high elevated (situations). They need to regulate themselves before they enter the room back in with their family," he said, noting that having "routines and rituals to bring them down for mental recovery is super important."
At one of the training stations on Wednesday, officers interacted with an avatar on a video screen who played the role of a fellow officer who had recently been involved in a fatal shooting. The avatar was being played by a real actor stationed in North Carolina who was trained by the Emotional Intelligence Institute. The goal of the live interaction in this scenario was for officers to learn how to detect the red flags of a fellow officer who may be struggling with their mental health.
Dake said there is a long line of first responders in his and Buck's families.
"And we were drawn to parallels between what it took to be an athlete and what it took to be a first responder. And we were seeing that mental process, the resilience, that is required to do both. It's hard to stand in a stadium and have 40,000 people boo at you," she said. "The pressure is there and how we respond to the pressure is really important."
