Speaking about the importance of health to an audience of 40 people in Dartmouth Hall yesterday, Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winslow used his experiences as a profesional football player to emphasize that college students should focus on exercise and wellness as they prepare to enter the professional world. Winslow travels the country to speak with college students about how their personal health and wellness will affect their ability to thrive in and out of college. He stressed that lack of exercise and sleep deprivation hurt academic performance and happiness.
Throughout his nine-year professional football career, Winslow was an All-Pro three times and a five-time Pro Bowler. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1995 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2002. A consensus All-American during his senior year at the University of Missouri, he set the NFL single season record for receiving yards for a tight end with 1,290 yards in 1980, which remained unbroken until 2011.
Winslow proposed that colleges implement wellness programs to provide structure for incoming students and ensure someone is accountable for the health of each individual student.
"My vision is that this would be a wellness class for college credit where we teach you about your health," he said. "This would stress preventive care, which is obviously preferable and less expensive than care to help and cure people who are already sick from being unhealthy. Not only would it include this class to teach students about how to be healthy through exercise, but it would also show students how to eat more healthily and make changes to the dining services."
Winslow said applications to colleges and universities that adopt this model would increase as prospective students see the benefits of the program, in addition to the overall productivity of program participants.
"As a part of our culture, we don't think of people in college as people who need help," said Ernest Evans '16, a football player who attended the lecture. "A lot of the times in less competitive universities as he mentioned in his speech, I find that the students are affected detrimentally because of a lack of leadership or mentorship."
Winslow said Dartmouth is among the best schools for stressing health amongst students, and pointed out that most students exercise and take care of their bodies.
"As I listened to him, I thought of our peak performance program," Evans said. "We have an academic advisor, a person to help out with finances and many other people that are able to hold us accountable and responsible to be as well as possible. I think we are way ahead of the curve compared to other schools and I think this pays dividends to the athletes who graduate from this school."
Other attendees appreciated Winslow's perspective.
"I think this sends a very good message, but I think the audience needs to be broader because it is a message that needs to be communicated to schools who do not focus on wellness as much as Dartmouth," community director Momo Wolapaye said.
Winslow discussed athletics' positive impact on society, and more specifically to some higher education institutions like Butler University or Gonzaga University that derive their identities from well-known basketball programs.
Winslow said a healthy and fit generation would not only improve the lives of that generation, but enrich society as a whole. He said a structured system for incoming freshmen that is mandatory for graduation and focuses on individual accountability, would improve participating colleges and students.
