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Wednesday, September 1, 2021 — 9

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I’m sitting in a car, the win-

dows down. A nice lake breeze 
and the beach a few feet away 
remind me of home. When 
the phone rings, I take a deep 
breath. My high school physics 
teacher is calling.

Almost a year ago her son, 

Ian Miskelley, passed away. Ian 
swam at Michigan for two years 
and won four state champion-
ships in high school.

Ian struggled his whole life 

with anxiety and depression, 
familiarizing the family with 
the mental health system of 
both West Michigan and the 
University of Michigan. At the 
University, Ian had the help of 
the athletic department and his 
family to make sure he got the 
care he needed, but the same 
can’t be said for his time in West 
Michigan.

So, soon after he passed, Jill 

and Steve Miskelley founded 

Be Better;, a nonprofit based in 
Holland, Mich., that focuses on 
two different aspects of mental 
health.

“We wanted to do something 

in Ian’s name, we just weren’t 
sure what it was gonna be,” Jill 
Miskelley told The Daily. “Then 
the more I thought about it, talk-
ed about it, we wanted to focus 
on the treatment side of mental 
health, not so much the aware-
ness.”

The first area of focus is based 

around building communities 
for teenagers, young adults and 
grieving parents via a network 
of support groups.

“We want this to be a place for 

kids to hang out because a lot of 

kids we talk to — I know for Ian 
it was the same — was he had 
his friends, his team, but it was 
also really good to have a group 
of friends that knew what he 
was talking about,” Jill Miskel-
ley said. “That could understand 
what it’s like to have real bad 
anxiety, 
depression, 
border-

line personality. Somebody else 
that he didn’t feel like he was 
constantly burdening his room-
mates or his best friends. We’re 
trying to make a community like 
that and a safe place for every-
body to be.”

These support groups are 

going to be led by counselors 
from Mosaic counseling, an 
outpatient therapy group based 
out of Grand Haven, Mich. For 
now, the groups will be confined 
to 15 people due to space con-
straints, but as the foundation’s 
ultimate goal means having its 
own building, those sizes seem 
bound to grow.

While the support groups will 

be a way for people to discuss 
their problems, they also offer 

an avenue for counselors to lend 
their support. Should they see 
someone struggling with their 
problems, the counselors may 
work with the individual to find 
more care.

The second area of mental 

health treatment that Be Better; 
is focusing on is to connect the 
aspects of treatment. Rather than 
being a game of telephone where 
a prospective patient is passed 
from one service to another, Be 
Better; aims to put one in touch 
with the help they need.

“Steve (Miskelley) calls it 

‘one-stop shopping.’ You walk 
in and we got you, we can get 
you through the whole system,” 
Jill Miskelley said. “Even if 
that means we call the Ottawa 
County Crisis Line, because 
we’re also in contact with them, 
and then they come and get you 
or we bring you to the hospital. 
Or we get ahold of an inpatient 
or outpatient service, or we get 
ahold of a different counselor or 
therapist because maybe yours 
isn’t working. You know what 

I mean? We want to pull all the 
resources.”

This area of service offers a 

glimpse of what they want Be Bet-
ter; to be, a place where therapy, 
support and navigation can all 
occur as one cohesive unit. The 
Miskelley’s envision a service 
where a student can take an after-
noon off class and get walk-in 
therapy or family members can 
show up and ask questions about 
how to support their children.

West Michigan is a very 

reserved place, particularly in 
Holland — mental healthcare 
there is hard to figure out and 
even if you get a referral from 
a hospital, it can be difficult to 
get an appointment. And while 

more focus than ever is on men-
tal health, the familiarity and 
maneuverability of the system 
lags behind. 

At the University, it can be 

difficult to find help, too. Even 
with CAPS and a network of 
resources, navigating them 
can be difficult. A nonprofit 
like Be Better; is attempting to 
take the stress out of a stressful 
process.

When a student has to ask 

for help, they’ll be greeted with 
open arms and a single point of 
contact. In a community as large 
as Michigan’s, a service like 
that can prove the difference 
between a positive and negative 
experience.

SportsMonday: After passing of son, Be Better; foun-

dation strives to fill gap in care

KENT SCHWARTZ

Managing Sports Editor

Ian Miskelley’s family is hoping to raise awareness for mental health through Be 
Better;. Photo courtesy of Jill Miskelley.

Be Better; graphic courtesy of Miskel-
ley family. 

There’s not much new to 

say about Michigan’s 2020 
defense. 

The numbers tell the story: 

12th in the Big Ten and 89th 
in the country in total defense; 
13th and 96th in passing 
defense. Put simply, the Wol-
verines weren’t good enough, 
especially defending the pass. 

For new defensive backs 

coach 
Steve 
Clinkscale, 

though, what’s past is past. 

“It wasn’t that (the players) 

didn’t want to talk about it,” 
Clinkscale said to reporters 
Thursday. “I didn’t want to talk 
about it. I just really feel like, if 
coach (Jim Harbaugh) is going 

to hire all these coaches, let’s 
be real, he wants a different 
mindset. He wants a different 
attitude, a different approach.”

It seems he got what he 

wanted. 

When the dust settled from 

all the offseason reshuffling, 
his staff consisted of six new 
coaches, and the average age 
plummeted from 46 to 37. One 
presumed goal of that shift 
was to reinvigorate Michi-
gan’s recruiting department, 
and it’s already partially paid 
off with the continued com-
mitment of Will Johnson, a 
five-star cornerback from the 
class of 2022. 

But on the defensive side of 

the ball, the youthful coaching 
staff is targeted at the existing 
players, too. The Wolverines’ 

defensive struggles in 2020 
were just as much schematic 
as they were personnel issues. 
The hope is that the young 
coaches will bring more cre-
ative schemes that play to the 
strengths of the current team 
and don’t leave first-year start-
ing corners without help. More 
specifically, that means pass-
ing downs should feature less 
one-deep man-to-man packag-
es and more zone and pattern-
matching looks. 

“As a defense, you can’t show 

the same things,” fifth-year 
senior safety Brad Hawkins 
said. “You can’t show the same 
pressures and things like that, 
so you gotta disguise, you gotta 
rotate. That’s what we’ve been 
doing, working on in camp, 
just showing different looks. If 

we’re in Cover 2, show Cover 4, 
or things like that.”

Still, those changes take 

time. A team that’s been play-
ing defense one way for five 
years can’t just flip a switch 
and start playing another way. 
Defensive coordinator Mike 
Macdonald, for his part, joined 
the program in January, so 
he had some opportunity to 
introduce the team to his ideas 
during spring ball. Clinkscale, 
though, wasn’t hired until 
May. Even with an entire sum-
mer of studying, a team can’t 
truly learn a new system with-
out reps, so any concepts he 
wanted to bring in have had to 
wait until fall camp. 

Even so, it helps to return 

some experience to the sec-
ondary. Seniors Gemon Green 

and Vincent Gray — who 
struggled in one-on-one cover-
age last season — seem likely 
to spend significant time at 
corner again in 2021. However, 
junior DJ Turner could also 
challenge for snaps on the out-
side. 

Clinkscale also said that 

junior safety Daxton Hill has 
rotated between secondary 
positions in practice. If he 
takes more snaps as a nickel 
corner instead of as a deep 
safety, he should be in a bet-
ter position to leverage the 
athleticism that earned him 
five stars coming out of high 
school. 

“I think the guys are excit-

ed about it, because they see 
how it’s all coming together,” 
Clinkscale said. “I think in 

the spring, they just wanted 
to create a foundation. … And 
now that we have that baseline 
understanding, we’re starting 
to be more creative, and the 
players are really excited about 
it.”

Nobody can be sure what 

that translates to in the imme-
diate term. After last season, it 
was clear that things needed 
to change on defense, and 
obviously, doubts over Har-
baugh’s longevity at Michigan 
have crept in. His gamble with 
assistant coaches this offsea-
son could determine which 
way that question goes. 

“I don’t think he gets the 

credit he deserves,” Clink-
scale said. “So we’re gonna 
go out there and prove people 
wrong.”

For Michigan’s defense, it’s a summer of progress

BRENDAN ROOSE
Daily Sports Editor

