The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, September 1, 2021 — 9
Insured by NCUA.
*
Must be a UM student to be eligible
to receive a free sweatshirt. Offer
valid until 12/31/21 or while supplies
last. Checking account must be open
and in good standing at the time
sweatshirt is mailed out. Sweatshirt
will be mailed out within 4-6 weeks of
account opening.
START TODAY AT
OPEN AN
ACCOUNT
WITH UMCU
TO RECEIVE A
SWEATSHIRT*
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