In the NIH statistics page, it says that 18.1% of Americans have a non-serious mental illness, and that 4.2% have a serious mental illness. This puts Royce White's situation in a new light. If one in every 24 people (1/24 ≈ .042) has a serious mental illness, it seems fairly reasonable that the basketball coaches or at least the team doctor would have experience and be alright with helping basketball players with mental illnesses. However, this is obviously not the case. White didn't feel comfortable with the coach, and was not okay with the team doctor treating him. After we watched the video on Royce White, there was a lot of discussion in the class that Royce White had overstepped and was at fault, and this was reflected in the blog posts. However, after looking at the statistics for serious mental illnesses (which is defined as substantially interfering in major life activities), I can see that Royce White's situation is a lot more common than I had previously thought, making me much more open to his point of view. What do you guys think; given the statistics on mental illnesses, should the coach of the Rockets been more forgiving, or was Royce White being too demanding regardless?
I think that even though it is more common than most people might believe, it is extremely rare to see a serious mental illness in a business like the NBA, which takes immense commitment and can cause a lot of stress. I think that this is why the coaches reacted the way they did. Regardless of whether or not mental illnesses are common in the NBA, I think that he did ask too much of the team.
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