DC: Explain how mental wellness and physical wellness interact and support each other.
KH: The body reflects the state of the mind. There is no such thing as being physically well, while being mentally ill. I believe that not everyone is able to sit and work on the mental before moving on to physical, and I have seen in my career how moving physically gives space and opportunity to heal mentally.
The mind was created to tell the body what to do, it becomes a very perverted downward path when the body begins to tell the mind what to do. And in my opinion, those who are not well, their body is driving their life. I feel _________ so I am. How dangerous a belief that the body could convince the mind of who we are.
DC: Describe how your life and relationship with sports changed when you moved on from pursuing a professional football career.
KH: I believed I was better than everyone on the street, on my team, my coaches, etc. because of my performance on the football field. I believed I was more valuable than you, more special than you, that because of what I can do in a “game” that makes me higher than you in life. (I’m being very honest and transparent, this was not my outward posture, but this was the posture of the deepest parts of my heart.)
When I moved on from the NFL, how does one live, when life was only found in sport? Everything had to change, I had to unlearn and renew my mind.
Sports are great, the game of football made a lot of who I am, but I am not a football player, I never was. I am Kofi Hughes, and there is so much more to me than being an athlete.
I wish one coach was bold enough to tell me a lot earlier than 23 years old. But quite possibly everyone I was around in my upbringing also identified with their role, their position, so how could they? This is why it’s my calling to educate and teach the next generation of athletes that their sport is a vehicle, it is not who they are.
DC: Share how have your own struggles influenced your work with Chicago youth in your non-profit organization Athletes They Fear?
KH: Those who have suffered adversity and trials, can discern the authenticity of another who has also suffered and overcame adversity and trials.
My struggles as an athlete are the inspiration behind the real work of Athletes They Fear. Identity, Education, Belonging. Teaching young men who they are, loving these young men not for their performance but for who they are, and teaching them that football is simply the tutor for life, how we show up in this sport is preparing us for how we will show up as fathers, employees, business owners, etc. They have to see what’s possible; they have to see there’s another way, they need an example of what to strive for. That is why I bring the many successful men around me, around my athletes, so they can start to envision and see who they can become, and that they are not alone in that striving, that we will walk together to get there.