{"id":642817,"date":"2026-10-11T03:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/642817\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T03:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T03:56:09","slug":"world-mental-health-day-karl-anthony-towns-opens-up-on-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/642817\/","title":{"rendered":"World Mental Health Day: Karl-Anthony Towns opens up on grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Karl-Anthony Towns has been traded from Minnesota, lost the conference finals and won the NBA title<\/a> for his childhood team \u2013 and still feels he is in the period of grief that began six years ago.<\/p>\n

Just 10 days before the New York Knicks\u2019 banner-raising celebration, the All-Star big man marked World Mental Health Day<\/a> by sharing his ongoing emotional journey following the death of his mother to complications from COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Entering the first game of this year\u2019s NBA Finals, he said he felt \u201cthis very big calm\u201d wash over him. He was taken back to amateur youth games with crowds so small he could spot his mom from anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like it was kinda just me, her and the game of basketball,\u201d he told the audience gathered Saturday by the nonprofit Project Healthy Minds. \u201cI was able to be like an artist out there. I was able to have my paint brush and have a canvas with the court. And I was able to just paint a beautiful picture for her about the love I have for the game. The love I have to show the world because of her.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a time when he had lost that love for the game. Towns, whose bright smile became a constant image of the Knicks\u2019 championship run, said basketball \u201cfelt hollow\u201d after his mother\u2019s death. \u201cI didn\u2019t know if I wanted to do it anymore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Towns found some solace in Arnie Kander, a well-known strength and wellness coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to be heard, to be able to talk to someone you can trust, be able to really unload all that pain onto it and allow them to understand your feelings and articulate your feelings the right way, it makes life much lighter,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I felt myself getting lighter every time we kept talking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project Healthy Minds hopes Towns\u2019 example will inspire others to seek mental health care. The tech nonprofit runs a free online marketplace for finding therapy, psychiatry, support groups and other services. Its annual World Mental Health Day festival in New York offers an all-day schedule of yoga, art therapy and speakers.<\/p>\n

Speaking Saturday with Towns was Boardroom CEO Rich Kleiman, the longtime manager for NBA superstar Kevin Durant and a new member of Project Healthy Minds\u2019 board.<\/p>\n

Kleiman told The Associated Press that these sorts of conversations are growing more prevalent among athletes. DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love kick-started the conversation eight years ago when DeRozan tweeted about depression and Love then published a first-person essay about anxiety. Kleiman recalled trading stories about anxiety attacks with Love for several hours one night shortly afterward.<\/p>\n

Most players won\u2019t feel that comfortable constantly telling their story, Kleiman said. Mental health isn\u2019t a topic of discussion in the locker room. But he said players are certainly more aware of its impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just carry so much weight and speak to so many people,\u201d Kleiman told The Associated Press before the panel. \u201cI think it says a lot that Karl Towns is feeling comfortable enough right before the season starts to be able to be so open about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another panel brought together former NFL wide receiver Brandon Marshall and Gotham FC forward Midge Purce for a conversation about finding purpose outside of performance. Marshall, a six-time Pro Bowl player who publicly shared his borderline personality disorder diagnosis in 2011, said therapy showed him how to \u201cconnect with his brain.\u201d He even started taking his therapy sessions in the cafeteria to normalize it for others.<\/p>\n

Purce discussed her evolving definition of \u201ctough.\u201d Raised by her dad, she said she grew up believing toughness meant \u201cno tears.\u201d But she credited her teammates with teaching her \u201cit\u2019s OK to feel sad and upset.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think tough is being able to feel all those things that are touching you and touching your heart, but still finding that resilience to go forward while living all of it,\u201d she told the crowd.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s sports focus offers a glimpse into Project Healthy Minds\u2019 future programming.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit relies on cultural figures to introduce its platform to their audiences. It partnered this summer with the Broadway play \u201cEvery Brilliant Thing,\u201d a one-person show whose narrator \u2013 originally played by Daniel Radcliffe, then Mariska Hargitay and, finally, Tracee Ellis Ross \u2013 presents his struggling mother with a list of reasons to live.<\/p>\n

Soon-to-be-announced initiatives will lean further into sports as the nonprofit tries to inspire more communities to seek mental health care. With interest in women\u2019s sports growing and live sports remaining a powerful convener in an otherwise fragmented media landscape, Project Healthy Minds CEO Phil Schermer finds that athletes are well suited to bring their message to the masses.<\/p>\n

Athletes, according to Schermer, also shape the American public\u2019s notions of strength. It makes sense to him that they could then model that \u201cit is strong to talk about your emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere need to be more men \u2013 and more men who are archetypes of strength \u2013 being vulnerable,\u201d Schermer told AP. \u201cBeing willing to talk about these things. And role modeling that it can serve as fuel for your greatest success.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Knicks championship run became a rare moment of monoculture, Schermer suggested. The title chase also offered the in-person socialization that young people are demanding, according to Rachel Janfaza, the founder of the Gen Z research firm The Up and Up.<\/p>\n

Speaking with \u201cThe Anxious Generation\u201d author Jonathan Haidt and The TAG Movement CEO Alexa Arnold, Janfaza said young people used the Knicks and the World Cup to create the in-real-life community they missed during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing this swing,\u201d she said, \u201cand it\u2019s really incumbent upon schools and employers and anyone who has a vested interest in helping this generation thrive to actually celebrate this.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP\u2019s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP\u2019s philanthropy coverage, visit https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/philanthropy<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Karl-Anthony Towns has been traded from Minnesota, lost the conference finals and won the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,289465,289464,105,47505],"class_list":["post-642817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-karl-anthony-towns-grief","tag-karl-anthony-towns-mental-health","tag-sports","tag-world-mental-health-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}