In the last decade or so sports have been working to tackle mental health by raising awareness of the issues that can affect everyone, including the stars of the sport, and this applies to esports as much as anywhere.
League of Legends coach Brandon 'Saintvicious' DiMarco, however, has faced heavy criticism for remarks he made on stream recently. As reported by Dbltap he said conditions like anxiety were "made up bulls***" as well as other demeaning remarks about mental health issues.
"I have been in points of my life where I'm like 'depressed' or down," he allegedly said. "But then I just woke up one day and I'm like 'I'm going to fight my way out of this shit because I'm being a little weak b****."
Since these remarks were made his team FlyQuest has issued a statement saying that he has resigned from the team, although there was no mention of his comments. Saintvicious himself, however, took to Facebook to provide the following message:
"As you may or may not have heard, I said some seriously inconsiderate things on my stream yesterday. I said that mental issues such as depression, anxiety, and ADHD were exaggerated and that people suffering from those issues should be able to overcome it on their own. Admittedly, this was an ignorant statement stemming from my severe lack of subject matter knowledge."
"I want to apologize for my mistakes, for both my words and my general attitude towards mental health issues. This is a very humbling experience for me; I was surprised to realize just how uninformed I was regarding mental health, especially because it is an important part of my responsibilities as a coach. I hope, through this reality check, that I can grow to become an advocate for mental health issues and a better pillar for the people I care about."
What do you want to see from Saintvicious in the future?