Mental Health in Athletics Focus of UA Guest Lecturer

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Syracuse University’s Timothy Neal will address mental health in athletics during a Oct. 25 lecture at The University of Alabama.

Neal, the assistant director of athletics for sports medicine at Syracuse, will present as part of the Distinguished Lecture in Sport Management series at 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25, in 247 Bryant Hall. The lecture, titled “Considerations in Mental Health Issues in Athletes,” and geared toward students in the College of Human Environmental Sciences’ sport management program, is open to the public.

Neal provides leadership and supervision of seven full-time athletic trainers and 10 graduate assistant athletic trainers at Syracuse University. He is also a member of the New York State Board of Athletic Training and a recipient of the NATA Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award in 2010.

Neal has experience in policy development in various aspects of sports medicine. Areas of contribution have included authoring the “Catastrophic Incident in Athletics” chapter and writing major revisions in the “Mental Health: Interventions for Intercollegiate Athletics” chapter in the NCAA Sports Medicine Handbook.

He has also served as NATA Liaison to the NCAA Football Rules Committee and, during his tenure, wrote language for the helmet contact penalty, defenseless opponent penalty and established the horse collar tackle penalty in college football. Neal also wrote passages in the points of emphasis section of the NCAA Football Rules Book on concussions, hydration and MRSA.

He served on the panel for the NCAA Concussion in Sport Medical Management Summit in 2010, and he has been selected to serve on the NCAA Task Force on Student-Athlete Mental Health Issues.

Neal served on the writing group for the “NATA Pre-Participation Physical Examinations and Medically Disqualifying Conditions” position statement, and he was named chair of the “NATA Recommendations in Developing a Plan for Recognition and Referral of Student-Athletes with Psychological Concerns at the Collegiate Level” consensus statement.

He also served on NATA panels regarding spearing in college football and the preparedness and management of sudden cardiac arrest in high school and college athletic programs.

Neal has spoken at numerous sports medicine conferences nationwide and has authored numerous articles on athletic training, catastrophic incident preparedness, student-athlete well-being issues and psychological concerns in student-athletes for national publications.

He is a graduate of Ohio University and earned his master’s degree from Syracuse University.