that Rockets general manager
Daryl Morey wrote to White leaked
to the public. It read in part: “We
have bent over backwards to
accommodate your requests and
help you meet these goals....The
bottom line is that we remain
willing to work with you on issues
that arise from legitimate medical
need, but you have to come to
games, practice and everything else
that you are able to do, just like any
other player.”
That November, White declined
to attend the Rockets’ games
and soon after refused a
reassignment to their G League
team, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers,
prompting Houston to suspend himmy sibling has or my boyfriend or
girlfriend has—and he’s doing great
on the basketball team.’ ”
Meanwhile, the Cyclones’ coach
at the time, Fred Hoiberg, went
to great lengths to accommodate
White. A particular manifestation
of his anxiety was a fear of
f lying. When possible, the team
permitted him to travel by car.
One of the better college players
in the country, White averaged
13.4 points and 9.3 rebounds in
2011–12, his first season in Ames.
With Hoiberg, a 10-year NBA
veteran, openly touting his star as
a lottery pick, White declared for
the NBA draft.
Before draft night, White quickly
got a sense that college and pro
basketball held different attitudes
about mental health. In a series of
predraft interviews, multiple teams
warned White that he would have
to confront his fear of f lying and he
shouldn’t expect special treatment.
A Sports Illustr ated story
from the time with the headline
the mystery pick is royce
white asked in its subhed: “[A]
top prospect’s mental disorder
raises the question, how much risk
are teams willing to accept?” White
grew disgusted when he read media
reports predicting the answer
would be not much.
“I was like, ‘Are you kidding
me?’ ” he recalls. “Then I realized
the media was right.”
For draft night, White agreed to
be featured in a video documentary
for the website Grantland. In one
scene as he prepares to address an
Iowa State practice gym filled with
children who have come to meet
him, he stops short of entering.
“I can’t go in there, I can’t do it,”
White says, as he paces in a weight
room, looking at the camera. “I
can’t show my face right now.
There’s love in that room, but the
way my brain feels, that’s fear.I’m working myself to get in there
though.” It finally passes, and he
meets the kids.
White ended up going to the
Houston Rockets, midway through
the first round, ahead of players
like Draymond Green, Jae Crowder
and Mike Scott, who are still going
strong in the league.
White says that when he arrived
in Houston, the team was initially
accommodating and engaged
him in discussions about how to
handle his anxiety. Then the tenor
changed. The NBA sent word that
if the Rockets provided private
transportation for White, it might
violate the league’s salary cap.
White being White, he confrontedthis with a combination of logic,
outspokenness and media savvy.
He asked why player mental health
issues were handled so differently
from physical issues. Why the
National Basketball Players
Association, so willing to devote
time and resources to negotiating
matters like a pregame dress code,
was “silent” (his word) about
crafting mental health policy. Again
and again he made a larger point:
Mental illness in America is an
epidemic, and the NBA isn’t paying
proper attention to it.
After the draft but before the
season, White demanded he be
able to travel by bus. If the team
wouldn’t pay for it, he’d put down
the money himself. Later, he asked
the Rockets to hire a physician to
monitor his mental health daily
and determine whether he could be
cleared to play. A five-page letter28 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
SCORECARDSCRUBBED MISSION
K_\IfZb\kj[iX]k\[N_`k\DžNJk_
`edž DŽ Dž dž #Ylk_ \e\m\igcXp\[X
i\^lcXi$j\Xjfe^Xd\]fik_\d%“I had everything to gain by not even saying anything
about mental health,” White says. “But I said, ‘Hey,
mental health is a conversation we need to [have].’ ”
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