Let's Talk UNLV

Phillip Haynes III, Director of Student Athlete Development at UNLV, shared his journey from playing football at UNLV to working in student athlete development. He highlighted the Empower Her program funded by the Diana Bennett family foundation, aimed at women student athletes and allies. Haynes emphasized the importance of balancing academics, athletics, and personal development, and discussed challenges like scheduling conflicts. He also mentioned collaborating with various campus departments and engaging alumni. Haynes stressed the need for financial literacy and mental health support, noting upcoming events to address these issues. He advised students to make connections early and to fail early to learn and grow.

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Rebels, tune in to 'Let's Talk UNLV' with Dr. Sammie Scales. Your express pass to everything UNLV — campus highlights, programs, and the latest buzz. Join us weekly as we chat with student leaders, administrators, and faculty, diving into the core of what makes us Rebels.

The program brings guests from different areas of UNLV every week to discuss campus highlights, programs and services, research interests that are essential to being a Rebel. Let’s Talk UNLV places its emphasis on connecting with student leaders who represent the voice of students on our campus. Guests also include administrators, faculty and staff responsible for upholding the mission of the university, which is teaching, research and scholarship.

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Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a kunv Studios original program.

Unknown Speaker 0:03
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:19
Hello and welcome to another episode of Public Radio. K u n v 91.5 Hello, UNLV students. And today I have a very special guest with me. I have Mr. Philip Haynes, he is here in the studio, and we're happy to have you. Thank you so much for joining us. Ms Haynes, hey, thank

Unknown Speaker 0:37
you for having me. Blessing to be here, blessing to be back,

Unknown Speaker 0:40
absolutely, absolutely. The way that we start the show is, normally, I ask the guest to give us your origin story. How did you end up here at UNLV? Are you alumni here? Tell us how you end up here.

Unknown Speaker 0:50
All right, so that's actually a loaded question for me. I'm actually coming back to UNLV, so I kind of start about, talk about the first time, the original time I actually went to the same high school as Larry Johnson. UNLV, great. So I've known about UNLV a very long time, from Dallas, Texas, originally, but coming up I played football, I had the blessing to get a few scholarship offers, I won't say the number, but a few. It was a blessing, for sure. And one of my high school teammates, David Green Jr, he ended up he was already a rebel, so he gave me the call. He's like, hey, the coach is interested in you. What do you think? And I'm like, yeah, if they offer, I think I might do that. Because everything you've been telling me I've been knowing about the school for so long, I'll do that. And so it worked out to where I ended up getting a scholarship offer for UNLV, came up here, played ball, ended up getting injured, so my career ended a lot sooner than I thought it would be. It was one of the funny stories. My surgeon actually asked me, How are you still playing? And I was like, football hurts. I didn't realize that I was that hurt, but after school, and so because of that injury, I was actually lucky enough to be able to start working on my career outside of sports, because most athletes kind of feel guilty for working on that life after sports, while they're still supposed to be focused on sports. So even though that was the worst time of my life, it actually ended up being one of the best times. One of the best times in my life, because it made me start focusing on focusing on life after sport. So after school, I ended up moving out to Illinois. Had a job. I was doing real estate, but then I ended up starting at the Douglas County Health Department. While I was there, I kept one foot inside of sports. I was volunteered in Eastern Illinois University, and also coaching high school football out in Mattoon. So Go Green Wave. Shout out to you guys. So we were coaching out there, and then covid hit. So covid became my main job at the health department as the Emergency Response Coordinator. Because of that, I had to take a foot out of sports, because no more sports, no more games. Kids aren't even in school. So there's no coaching, there's no working at EIU. There's none of that. And it made me realize what my real passion was, something in athletics. And so then I had to take a deep dive and kind of think, what do I want to do? And that was student athlete development, and which is helping students be as competitive once they take that jersey off as they were when they had it on. And so from there, once I figured out what I wanted to do, I was blessed to find out about the McClendon Foundation, which was the it's a program to get minorities into leadership positions. Lucky for me, I was able to get to that while I was there, I was at Clemson University, learned a lot about not only leadership, but how to run student athlete development programs. They have one of the top programs in the nation, because they have two different programs there for student athlete development. So it was a blessing, an honor, to be able to work there under that program. And then I was actually the Coordinator of Student Athlete development at Rice University, where I worked with the flight plan program. We'll probably get into that a little later. Worked there about a year, worked with students great, created great programs. I got young people that are going to be astronauts coming out of there. It's a big stuff going on. And then from there, I was able to get the chance to come back to UNLV, Alma Mater, the reason, and it's also the reason I love what I do, my experience at UNLV, so it's a blessing to be back, and that is how I ended up here at UNLV.

Unknown Speaker 3:59
Wow, it sounds like you've always had a passion, a passion for sports.

Unknown Speaker 4:04
Yes, sir. I started playing, I started playing sports originally at four years old out in Dallas, Texas. So I don't know if any of y'all have seen Friday night tykes, but I was one of those little kids with the with the little bobble head running around thinking he was in Miss Smith.

Unknown Speaker 4:16
Oh, wow. So anyone in your family plays sport that gave you that passion?

Unknown Speaker 4:19
No, actually. So I was the first one, and my dad did box, but I was the first one to play team sports.

Unknown Speaker 4:24
Wow, that's amazing. So you're part of your job is making sure that students are ready for the afterlife of sports, making sure that they're ready. Well rounded. Wow, that's amazing. So what inspired you to pursue a career in athletic development, specifically? Okay,

Unknown Speaker 4:41
so actually, what got me into this? One of my guys, one of my mentors, actually wrote a book. It's called Thrive, after sports Taj Deshawn and what in it. It had a portion. It had some blank pages with lines on it, and it says, Call people you trust and respect and ask them the things you're good at. And. And I called the people in my circles. A lot of the things they told me, you love sports, sports, sports, a lot of that you're good at sports. You like being around sports. And then another person who's very dear to me told me, you are really good at helping people, and you always try to help people. And so I thought and to myself and my life, what was one of the hardest things? What was one of the points where I needed help the most? And that was my transition Outside of athletics, so I started looking for opportunities, calling people, doing those informational interviews. Hey, what is student athlete development? How do you do it? How can I do it? And that's what led me into student athlete development. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 5:32
You know, so many students go go into sports thinking, you know, I'm the absolute best that ever played this sport. Even I did in high school, when I ran track, I was thinking, Okay, I'm gonna be on an Olympic team, but there's a life after that. And you know so many students, you know they're good, you know, in high school or in college, but that next step to become professionals is a tough step, so you have to be prepared for that. You know, where that possibility of not being able to transition to the NFL or NBA or whatever it is. WNBA, so you making sure that those students are ready for that. That's excellent, man. So how does your experience as a former football player at UNLV influence your approach to supporting student athletes? Oh, man, I

Unknown Speaker 6:13
love it. It actually, it helps me be who I needed. So like I would, I was in their shoes. I wasn't in the same seats. They got a little nicer seats now, I've seen that, a little better seats now, but in the same shoes, and so I love it, because I can kind of really just remember back what was my experience like when I was here, when I was an athlete, and I can go, Okay, we had, we had a lot lack of connection with the main students on campus. And that's one of the things I try to make my programs to do, is build that connection. I love to run events, but I'm gonna send them to events on campus as well. You need to know who your classmates are, so these are gonna be the people that you're gonna be hiring, or they're gonna be hiring you in the future. Anyway, when they see that UNLV on their resume, they're gonna get excited. So hopefully they already know you. And then, as well as that, it's just that it makes it a lot easier to care about them as well, because they are who I was. And so they I just, I love the fact that I'm back at the school. I was one stoking around,

Unknown Speaker 7:03
yeah, you know, even at my oldest old institution over at San Diego State, it seemed like there was a separation of athletics, athletic students and just regular comedy. Yeah, I think it's good to make sure that that relationship is built. And yes, programming here on campus, uh, Student Diversity Programs always having something. They had something last night. They had something tonight. There's tons of program coming up, just like the men of color alliances coming up on the 17th and 18th so hopefully you'll get to see some of your male athletes there at that event as well. But yeah, definitely a good idea to build that bridge with the students. Can you describe any initiatives that you're spearheading right now here at UNLV?

Unknown Speaker 7:40
Definitely. So our newest program that were just launched last month, brought to us by the Diana Bennett family foundation. So the Bennett family foundation, it's our empower her program, and what it is, it's for women student athletes and allies of those women student athletes. So all the student athletes, but just with an emphasis on helping those women gain leadership skills, networking skills, and also connect them with professionals in our community who are currently rocking it. Wow, that

Unknown Speaker 8:09
sounds similar to something that Imani Patterson does over in our student diversity programs, there's a thing called thriving authentically, okay, and that's where we go out. They go outside of UNLV and get professionals, let's say, from MGM or Luxor or Nevada gas and just all these huge companies. And they bring them in and for the specific person, like they had, they had an event for thriving authentically, for African American student, LGBT men, women, just all these different groups. And they're able to ask people that are on the panel, what was, what is it like being, let's say, for instance, a female working for enterprise, in corporate enterprise, with that company. So they're able to get honest feedback from the these young ladies that actually work there. You know, they'll talk about some of their trials and tribulation, some of the Passover promotions that they they've encountered. So just the different things you know that happens in the professional world when it comes to certain students, so they're able to get that honest feedback. So your that program sounds something similar to that, yes, sir. What are some of the key challenges that student athletes face right now here on campus? In your opinion,

Unknown Speaker 9:18
I would say the key challenges, and it's something that's similar to when I was here. It's that the skill the scheduling aspect of trying to be great as well, because they don't have the time to go and get that internship that's going to take more time out of their week when they're supposed to be in class or in practice, or even make a certain event, because it's during a time of competition. A lot of events happen on campus here Fridays, because most students don't have Fridays, but student athletes are traveling on Fridays for competition, so it's a lot of things like that, but we just try to meet them where they are. It's like, okay, well, we'll host an event that starts at 7pm that does this, or we'll find you people who are willing to give externships, which are short internships, maybe last a day or a week, to kind of get you that boost to your resume, but also that boost to your tool belt give you those skills. So. So there we're working on it, but there are a few, few things that are just going to be common with athletics, no matter

Unknown Speaker 10:04
where you are. Yeah. Okay, cool, cool. So how did your work at Rice University, in particular, with the flight program, shape your philosophy on student athletic development? Okay?

Unknown Speaker 10:15
My time at Rice it actually it gave me It strengthened my meet them where they are. Mindset. We did about 130 programs for just for our student athletes last year when I was at Rice University. And the beauty of that, it was able to not only just get butts in seats, but kind of get kids excited about what they were coming to see. So it's like, yeah, we're not talking about just building a resume. We're talking about building a resume when you want to be an engineer. And we got people who work in HR engineering companies coming to talk about what they look for. So it was just, it was awesome being able to get because rice is just a school. It's such a special school. It was recently announced as an Ivy League as well. So those kids have such different aspirations for what they want to do. And it was awesome working there, because the kids were really a lot of them had the date on the calendar already marked. They're like, No, I know sports is gonna it's gonna end here. Then I'm gonna start. I wanna do this, this, that and the third and so it was awesome, because it was less of saying, hey, sports is gonna end one day, and it was more, all right, this is what we're gonna do. Here's the plan for it. Let's work on this plan. This is who you need to meet and things like that. So my time at Rice was awesome. It definitely added value to me and my skills, and I hope I was able to add that same value to the university.

Unknown Speaker 11:26
Wow. It's not like these students are already prepared for okay. I know this is going to end here. This is what I'm going to do after 100% so can you talk to me? Talk to us about some of the mentors that you've come across that have you know, made a difference in your life, during your time of athletics, and during your time of actually being a mentor for some of these students in college, can you talk about some of those? Definitely,

Unknown Speaker 11:44
and then everyone out there is listening. Mentorship is very important, and you don't need to be a lot younger than someone for them to mentor you. They just have to know something you don't. So you can have multiple mentors, different age mentors. And to kind of start on that you mentioned earlier, how, like we all think we're one of the top guys coming out of high school. So I was actually blessed to go to one of the top high schools in the nation. It was Dallas skyline. We were ranked number three in the nation at the time. When I was there, me coming out, I was a three star recruit. So I had four stars, five star I had all these top athletes around me who already were able to humble me. I came into college already knowing, okay, I'm not the best. And that was best, and that was a blessing in its own, because I didn't have to go get humbled. So that was great. But a lot of those guys, they kind of mentored us in a sense of when they came, when they were getting recruited, they would come to the freshmen let us know, like, Hey, this is what it's going to look like. And I've given a little bit of the secret to the recruit game right now, but it's like the handwritten cards versus non hidden written cards. And did the coach really write that things like that? And just like guys mentoring us? And then, like I mentioned, my guy, David Green, he was one of the guys I really looked up to to help mentor me athletically, which is why I ended up coming to UNLV as well. But on my, my professional standpoint, like I say, Taj, the person who actually helped me find what I wanted to do and helped me find my purpose in life. He was one of my mentors. He also has a mentorship program that he helped athletes because he didn't want to be kind of tied to the University. He's like, what it's athletes everywhere that I could help. And so he does that. But then one of my mentors that I actually got through the McClinton Foundation, Roman oben, he's in the NFL right now. Oh, wow. He actually the first team he played for in the NFL. He grew up working in the concession stands at it. And so it's just awesome to have people around you who have come from similar places and have been where you're trying to go. And so it's awesome. Wow,

Unknown Speaker 13:35
that's amazing, man, from working the concession stand to actually being out there on the field, playing

Unknown Speaker 13:40
and now in the office for that same organization? Yeah, wow. That's,

Unknown Speaker 13:44
that's, that is amazing. So how do you plan to collaborate with the with the university here and the partners that are on campus? Have you built any connections with any other departments Outside of athletics?

Unknown Speaker 13:56
Yes, sir, I'm trying. I'm trying to build as many as I can. Because I one thing about me is, I know I'm not a professional at everything, but what I'm really good is is connecting people. So my goal at UNLV is to connect with every office and kind of have the professionals that are already here introduced to our students who are trying to become those professionals. An example of that, we have a mental health event tonight, actually, with some we have panelists, some work in sports psychology, some work in just psychology, and others are actually students who are going to be talking on this panel, and it's going to be at the lead Athletic Center, and it's a great opportunity, but we want to do more things like that, working with the colleges to kind of get those if I want a job in hospitality, what exactly should my resume look like? What should my cover letter look like? Because it's going to look a lot different than that kid that's that kid that's going to be a lawyer or going to be an engineer, and that's the kind of that's why I'm trying to build these cross campus connections. But it's as simple because the students don't understand it. All these people on campus love working here. They love helping them. And so it's as simple as, hey, can you come at this time to talk to our. Students in it, they always say, Yes, I love it. So thank you all. If y'all hearing this, thank you all so much for being so willing to come help.

Unknown Speaker 15:05
Yeah, that's one of the things that I found out about this campus as well. When you reach out to other departments to collaborate, it's always a yes, I've not, and I've been here since I think January 8 was my first day on campus. So since, from then until now, I've never gotten anyone from any department that have said no to collaborating together and working together to help with the students. So you got to call out that first. No, yeah, that's been amazing, man. So it's really been good. So you said that program is tonight. What time is that program?

Unknown Speaker 15:34
That program is at five, that ends at eight. There will be light refreshments. I want to say there's going to be canes there, and it's going to be good time. It'll be suicide prevention, but it'll also be talking about how to battle those daily stressors in the workplace as well.

Unknown Speaker 15:47
Okay, sounds good. What are some of the key NTA rules that you must consider and the role that you're in now, and how do you ensure that you're in compliance with those?

Unknown Speaker 15:57
Okay, one of my favorite ones in this was taught to me when I was at Clemson University. Let's say you're helping us a freshman student athlete with a resume. And this is why we we talk, we talk through the work with our students. Because I'm not in academics. I don't often think about the academic rules and things like this. I'm just here to help you get a job. And so let's say we're helping a freshman get a resume done. They come in get it done. They're like, awesome. It looks great. And then three semester down the line, their spring semester as a as a sophomore, they have a class that say, Hey, if you have a resume, turn it in. They're like, Oh, yeah, I have a resume. And they just turn it in now, understanding now they could lose eligibility because that wasn't their resume. I did that resume, which means I did their homework. And so you always have to remind remember that anytime any career stuff you're doing, they're still students. And they're not only students, they're student athletes. So they have a whole different set of rules that they need to go along with. And that was one of my favorite ones, because it's a creative one, because it's all done in good spirit. No one the student, isn't turning that in thinking they're cheating. They're turning it in like, yeah, I got her. I'm proud of this resume. I got a resume. Here it is teacher. And so that was one of the biggest things that I think about with as far as NTA rules, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 17:08
yeah, that plagiarism on that academic side, and then you definitely have to be aware of that. So what are some of the things that students should student athletes should know when they're coming to a state college or university, just some of the secret stuff that they should know coming I

Unknown Speaker 17:23
would say you should know that there is a professional on campus who gets being paid well to handle any problem that you have. That's the biggest piece of advice I give before you get there. If you have a problem, your biggest problem is finding Who's that, who's getting paid to solve it, because someone is there for you, I promise you, and my other one would be just get somebody phone number in every single class you get in, so you can have you can build your network for starting from day one. Oh

Unknown Speaker 17:48
yeah, that's one of the things that I've always advised students to do when I was at my old institution, work in the classrooms, get their phone numbers or get their email address. That way you have someone to call if you miss a day of class, find out what you got to do something. Yeah. So especially with

Unknown Speaker 18:04
my student athletes, we're going to take you you have a game like, you need to see what you've missed. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 18:10
And with most, most professors, because, you know, like I said at my old institution, I had athletes in my class as well. Professors are usually more lenient, and definitely we understand what you're doing when you're a student athlete. So we're going to give you more time to get that homework in or whatever. You just need to let us know. Because me, I don't really follow athletics. When a student come to me and say, Oh, Dr, skills, I have a game, you know, Thursday or Friday or whatever, then I'm going to that student's going to get extra time to turn that work in, because they're there on an athletic scholarship, they have to fulfill their part of that scholarship. So professors usually understand and gonna give that extra time so, but you just gotta be able to communicate. So that communication is very important. Yeah, absolutely. So how do you ensure students, athlete, balance their academic, athletic and personal development goals?

Unknown Speaker 18:56
Just help them set up parallel plans. So there's no plan B. There's no plan A. It's ever you need to be working on everything at the same time, because it's all important. So you can go all right, well, I got to get stronger. I'm not going to really worry about studying. So now you're the strongest person on the bench because you didn't pass. So it's like you got to, I just try to instill in them that you got to work on these things parallel. They got to be at the same time. You got to be working on them and being great at them, and then also just that balance, like you said it yourself, balance. Know how to balance. Know how to step back when you're doing too much, when you know how to like, I always say, use them resources. Know how to lean on somebody when you need something. Stuff might be hard, but if it seems too hard, it might especially like with the prominence of learning disabilities, that might be that hard because you're supposed to get a special tutor, or you're supposed to have certain sort of accommodation, yeah, which goes back to that, communicate, yeah, if you've finding your life out of balance, communicate, because then we can figure out what's going

Unknown Speaker 19:53
on. Yeah, absolutely, you know. And again, I keep referring back to my old institution, because that's why I taught at students are able to go to. The Ability Center, you know, say, Hey, this is what's going on with me. This is from my doctor. Blah, blah, blah. They turn it into the professor, and they get that that extra time, you know, whether they need an extra hour to take a test or warning about a quiz that's coming up, or whatever it is, students are able to get that and be accommodated with that, that need that they have. So let's keep moving here in what ways do you plan to engage our alumni in supporting current athletic students here at UNLV? Do you have a plan where you like maybe send out an email or have a particular event, or how does that work when it comes to alumni and students? All

Unknown Speaker 20:35
right, so I've been First off, we have started engaging with the Diana Bennett program, with the empower her program, we have actually a lot of alumni who have reached out to try to be a part of that, and we're still looking for more who are. So if you are interested, please, first off, reach out to me at philip.haynes@unlv.edu We are always looking for alum, but so I guess this is one of the ways I'll be reaching out. But another way is we will be posting on our social medias when we start doing programs to kind of get fillers for who does what and who wants to do what, to help a biggest way that we're going to be going in the future as well is our development center, the rebel athletic fund, when they do the reunions for the teams, we're going to be a part of that as well, trying to see where alum are now, what they're doing now, to kind of get that data so we can connect our current student athletes with them.

Unknown Speaker 21:19
Yeah. Okay. Excellent, excellent. And I know there are departments here also that are willing to support, you know. Let's say, for instance, your department in sports, you know. So you just reach out to those departments, send them an email and tell them what's going on, what you you know, what your needs are, and they're able to actually help and accommodate in any way that they can. So what are some of the biggest differences that you've observed between student athletic programs here at UNLV and at Rice and Clemson, where you've been, what are some of the differences in its three schools?

Unknown Speaker 21:49
The major difference would be the age of the programs. So it was like, and I always, I keep saying blessing, because it's such a blessing for me to have seen those two programs before coming back here and revamping the program here. Clemson was a program that had two different student athlete development programs, so they had a huge staff for student athlete development, lots of money going to the program. But that's because it's it had worked for so many years that now you have all these alum giving back to the program. And so that's what rice is right now in their program, in the sense of it's more specific in what the students need and more events, but we're creating that alumni base as well. You can kind of see that with their program. Alexis is doing a great job over there with the alumni base, trying to build that up to kind of do programs. And so I'm just trying to understand how we can take what they're doing at Clemson, which is great with their athletic program, and because everyone wants to hire that Clemson kid versus because of what they did on the field versus that rice kid for what they can do in the classroom. But we're trying to see how we can elevate and celebrate our student athletes, who are doing both here and so I believe it's a mix between the celebrating what they're doing on the field to bring people in who to want to help them, and then also showing off what they can do with these great UNLV degrees.

Unknown Speaker 23:04
Yeah, you mentioned a little bit ago. You said, you know that there's a new building here on campus, and the students have better seats now. So what are some of the biggest changes that you've noticed since coming back here to UNLV? What are some of the biggest changes in regards to athletics, when it comes to you being back, what's I would say the

Unknown Speaker 23:24
biggest change is excitement. The campus seems more excited about what's going on in athletics. And I love that. And I think it might be because the stadium's a little closer now, that might be wise. People don't have to go all the way out to sound boy, but it's really with every sport, I'm seeing so much excitement about what's going on. I'm hearing students when I'm walking, because I love to walk the campus to kind of understand what's going on. But I'm hearing students talking about different sports of season hadn't started yet, talking out they're excited for this to start. And so I'm loving that, because we didn't hear that back in the day. And then another notice, another thing I've noticed is the culture. I'm not seeing a lot of sweatshirts of other universities. And I'm loving that. I only want to see red when I'm walking around, and so that's that's a big thing. And I don't know if that's coming from the fund. I don't know if that's coming from the change of Las Vegas, because it's been, it was not a sport city when I left, and it's a Sports City now, or it might just be a big combination of all of that. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 24:16
I know. We know what the Raiders come in here, and you know some of the other athletes, especially the WNBA, they have an excellent team. So yeah, the excitement is building around athletics here, especially here at UNLV as well. So let's go here. How have you how do you incorporate financial education into the programs that you're, that you're, you're you're looking over when it comes to student athletes,

Unknown Speaker 24:44
so we just try to make sure it's something that's practical. And then we also have things that they can do now, because a lot of times with financial literacy, especially with young people hearing about that IRA or their Roth, Ira is really cool. But if I don't have a job, it's it doesn't. Pain to me, like it's great to hear, but if it's not gonna affect me for another four or five years, I really don't even wanna be sitting here for another four or five years. Yeah. And so what we're doing, we're working with the lead business school right now, but we're having them come in and kind of make things and giving the students steps that they can take today to kind of build their path to financial freedom.

Unknown Speaker 25:16
So one of the things that my department has been paying special attention to and some of the other departments as well, is the mental health of our students. When students need a break, we definitely try to encourage them to take that even the employees, when we need a break, it's always advised just close your office door and take what you need for your own mental health. How are you working with students when it comes to mental health in the program.

Unknown Speaker 25:43
So we're trying to give them that sense of and give them, send them out with a mindset of work life integration versus work life balance. Because to me, work life balance is a myth. So we want to make sure they're getting those dream jobs, but also understanding how they can handle that stress. And I mentioned earlier, that event tonight is one of those events that kind of talks about that, talking about the facing burnout, looking at life when things aren't going right, facing uncertainty, things like that, we try to make sure they understand same way. When you just know you from the beat a team and you don't when things don't go the way you play and how you get back to the drawing board and change stuff you can't. You can be down, but you can't stay down. And so that's just some of the mindsets we're trying to instill in them. And we have great sports psychologists, but we're trying to also reach out to campus and get some of their psych experts to kind of develop these programs for our students as

Unknown Speaker 26:28
well. Okay, excellent. So with you looking over all about how many students do

Unknown Speaker 26:32
you look over? About 600 because we use our spirit squads as well. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 26:36
so 600 students that you're looking over personally Mr. Haynes. So how does Mr. Haynes handle his mental health? How are you making sure that you're okay? Because yeah, you're dealing with the problem. Let's just say, for today, instance, you may deal with, I don't know, 15 different students with issues that they have. So what do Mr. Haynes do outside of work to make sure that he's good when it comes to mental health,

Unknown Speaker 26:57
one of the main things I do, I love working out. I love with being around people. I love so one of my biggest things, and so I'm also a very social person. So if you aren't a social person, take this one with a grain of salt. I just I'll go hang out with some of my friends, because especially my teammates are still here. I've been gone for so long, so getting back out here and hanging out with my friends, like I can go and sit down in a quiet room with one of my best friends, and it's a party, like, we don't really need much, and that's one of the things that refills me people. But then also, I just encourage people to go and find that thing that helps refill their cup. Because one of the biggest things I've taken from this career is you can't fill in the others if your cup is empty, and so I just try to make sure my cup is filled. Wow,

Unknown Speaker 27:36
that's very good. What are some of your hobbies that you do you have any hobbies or anything like painting or drawing or any of that stuff,

Unknown Speaker 27:44
workout in game, that's pretty much it working out in gaming, yes, that's

Unknown Speaker 27:47
sure. That's your go to, yeah. Oh, wow. Gaming, yeah. Okay, cool. So again, if a student wanted to contact you, how would a student contact you?

Unknown Speaker 27:57
You can reach out to me at Phillips. So P, H, I, L, L, i, p, dot Haynes, H, A, y, N, E, s@unlv.edu,

Unknown Speaker 28:05
okay, and what's your best piece of advice for a student athlete?

Unknown Speaker 28:11
What's your best student athlete or students in general, fail early, fail while it's free. Make those mistakes now so they don't cost you in the future.

Unknown Speaker 28:17
Wow. Excellent, excellent. And give us your title, once again,

Unknown Speaker 28:21
I'm the director of student athlete development, director of student athlete development.

Unknown Speaker 28:26
Mr. Haynes, thank you so very much for coming here to the show today. Definitely appreciate it, and we're coming to an end to the show. So make sure that you join us next week here at K, U N, V public radio 91.5 that's a wrap.

Dr. Renee Watson 28:44
For more, let's talk UNLV. Be sure to follow us on social media, where you can get the latest updates on the show, plus great behind the scenes content. We're on Facebook at, let's talk UNLV podcast. Twitter at, let's talk UNLV and Instagram. At, let's talk UNLV pod. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai