This past year marked highlight after highlight for student-athlete Hampton Sanders. He earned All-University Athletic Association honors as part of the most successful NYU men’s basketball season in history, helped his team advance to the title game of the 2025 NCAA Division III Men’s Basketball Championship, and earned all-tournament honors. Throughout it all, he never lost sight of how fragile life can be.
Mental Health Matters
Sanders is the owner of his own “Mental Health Matters” brand that he started before he got to NYU. “I grew up with anxiety, which I still have, and I never knew how to express what I was dealing with. As a high school junior, I began advocating for mental health, specifically for athletes. It is important to let people know that anxiety is not a detriment and that all people have their own issues to deal with,” he described.
He attended high school at The Lawrenceville School, a prestigious private school in New Jersey where students in back-to-back years took their own lives. “This immediately influenced me to create community where people could see that they are not alone or without options when they are struggling. My goal as a person is to be socially aware of others and make sure that they feel seen,” he remarked. “I try to be a reassuring presence in how I speak to people. I love to bring up the fact that I have anxiety because it is not common for people to talk about things they struggle with. People feel things in different ways and are going through things they may think are unique to them, but talking about our struggles helps others see they are not alone.”
Mental Health as an Athlete
Sanders points to basketball stars LeBron James and Kevin Love, who have spoken freely about mental health and how they have sought counseling. Love established the Kevin Love Fund to inspire people to live their healthiest lives by creating equity between mental and physical health with a focus on research, education, and narrative change to break the stigma around mental health.
As part of changing the narrative, James has referred to mental health as “mental fitness” to emphasize the importance of addressing not just your physical health even as an elite athlete, but also mental health. “LeBron speaks about how we are all humans with the same 24 hours, that we all laugh and cry, but often we are putting on a persona instead of showing all of ourselves,” Sanders stated.
Sanders noted that the pressure to be seen as strong is especially prevalent for athletes. “Systematically what is built into our culture, particularly for Black athletes, is not to show a lot of emotion, to endure hard things but stay positive without letting the media see that you are upset,” he commented. “This is also attributable to growing up in Black families where emotion is often not talked about or there is a lot of division about how emotions are expressed or conveyed. That makes it hard to be vulnerable when we are supposed to be the epitome of strength. Emotion is not weakness. People who embrace their emotions are the strongest.”
Mental Health in NYU Athletics
In October 2024, NYU hired Ari Miller, the founder of ASM Performance, as a mental performance coach. That hire would prove to be critical to the success of the NYU men’s basketball team according to Sanders. “He was so valuable to us. Ari was one of the center points of our team,” Sanders expressed. “I had been to therapy before but working with him was my best connection. I had never seen that many people being vulnerable. We all felt the pressure of making it as far as we did but even when we lost in the final, we were still taking away how wonderful the experience was.”
Working with a basketball team was nothing new for Miller, who worked with the University of Vermont men’s basketball team for six years, including during his four years as an Assistant Athletic Director for Sport Psychology. “We started team sessions in the fall and the (men’s basketball) coaching staff was very welcoming and talking openly about the dynamic with transfers, seniors, and incoming players. We worked together from the standpoint of each player’s role on the team and as a person in the program,” he explained. “The impact of these sessions compounds over time as you integrate your mind. It is important to verbalize what is going on and understanding different perspectives. The group was amazing in team sessions. I was floored by them, by their character, and their willingness to grow.”
The strong connection between Sanders and Miller occurred almost instantaneously. “Hampton was incredible from the first session on, understanding and vocalizing his thoughts and ideas, and buying into the importance of training your mind like your body,” Miller communicated. “As the team’s success on the court continued to grow, I shifted some of my sessions into talking about pressure and using mental skills to cope. The entire team adopted it, and Hampton was vocal about how much it meant to him and his game. His leadership spoke for him. He made big plays and big shots in big moments. He prepared himself.”
Sanders, who will be making the leap to NCAA Division I next season at Columbia University, will take the lessons he learned at NYU to enhance his work around mental health. He sells “Mental Health Matters” t-shirts and wears them to promote further conversations. “I like to wear the shirt during warm-ups when I can. I have sold close to 250 shirts so far and I want to continue selling them though it is difficult because I am not a manufacturer. We (he and a friend of his father’s) take orders through Google Sheet and ship them out ourselves,” he explained. “I will keep a positive platform and maintain advocacy. If I got a deal with a clothing company, that would be ideal!”