Aces’ Cambage Shines Light On Mental Health Issues In WNBA
By Cassandra Cousineau
LVSportsBiz.com
On paper, Cambage leads a charmed life — one that many can only dream to have. Except the 27-year-old star player has been consumed by her own personal nightmare struggling with mental wellness on and off for half of her life.
Cambage recently penned a powerful article on The Player’s Tribune chronicling her battle with alcoholism, anxiety, and depression going back to when she was a 15-years-old. She began a spiral of “blackout” drunkenness around freshman year of high school. Cambage confessed there were times she had “woken up with an IV in (her) arm, after a weekend of partying, not being able to remember a thing” and that her “first attempt at sobriety was at 18.”
When the 2018 WNBA scoring leader was scratched from the lineup as a DNP last week there were questions. Fans were curious about Cambage because she looked to be in game shape and there were no injuries reported by the team. This isn’t the NBA’s 82-game season, where star players take games off for rest. She recently missed back-to-back starts against the Chicago Sky, and her former team, the Dallas Wings — which is a big hole to fill when you consider Aces scoring leader A’ja Wilson was also out due to an ankle injury.
But Cambage revealed the reason in her story in the Players Tribune.
After the Aces lost to the Sparks in Los Angeles, Cambage wrote, “I found an empty hallway outside the locker room, still in my uniform and started to panic.”
She continued: “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stop crying. I was having the most uncontrollable anxiety attack – a full-on breakdown. I had to call for help.” Cambage was listed as “Did Not Play-Rest” but she said the accurate description was “DNP-Mental Health.”
Considering the fact that most traditional jobs offer coverage for both physical and mental health, LVSportsBiz.com asked Cambage what the WNBA could do to better support its athletes and employees across the organization in similar need.
“I think what the NBA is doing is what every sports organization needs to have,” Cambage said in response to LVSportsBiz.com. That policy requires every team to have at least one mental health professional on retainer as well as mandating that each organization identifies a licensed psychiatrist available to help manage any mental health concerns for players. She also added, “I’m already speaking with a sports psych which was provided by the Aces, but it was probably a bit too late. That’s on me as well. Since being back on my medication I’m back to playing in my old way.”
In her article, Cambage more directly called out the W.
“But at the same time, I won’t lie — it’s disappointing to me that we’re praising anyone for “progress,” when so many women are being excluded from it,” Cambage wrote. “I mean….. doesn’t the WNBA deserve this same program?”
Going back to the day she first arrived in Las Vegas, there were signs all was not well. LVSportsBiz.com even wrote Cambage felt she was dealt a bad hand in Tulsa after she was introduced as a newly acquired Aces player to the Las Vegas media in May.
