“I just couldn\u2019t get out of bed,\u201d Bobby Melley \u201916 (CLAS)says about that Sunday morning in his senior year when he\u2019d logged 225 consecutive games as a starter on the UConn baseball team and sought to make it 226.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so anxiety-riddled and isolated,\u201d he says. \u201cI ended up telling my coach that I had a stomach virus, that I must have eaten something wrong the night before. I ended the streak there, but I still didn\u2019t tell anyone why and held up this strong exterior for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years later, in his second season with the Tampa Bay Rays, on a bus ride through the Appalachian Mountains to a game in West Virginia, Melley says he just stared out the window, wondering what he was doing with his life and thinking about how miserable he was on the field every day.<\/p>\n
Baseball \u2014 the very thing that had brought him so much joy as a child, the dream of playing professionally that became a reality \u2014 was now sucking the life from him. He didn\u2019t pursue a second pro contract, and two years \u00adlater, his long-stifled emotions erupted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started having thoughts that I never imagined I\u2019d entertain,\u201d he says. \u201cI did attempt to take my life. Luckily, I\u2019m still here, and even though I\u2019m not fully comfortable telling my story, it helps to vocalize it, to get it out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Melley believes that six years prior, as a young collegiate player, just talking to someone who understood the rigors of life as a student-athlete would have helped. If he\u2019d just let down that tough competitive exterior and answered truthfully when someone asked how he was doing, it could have saved him so much heartache.<\/p>\n