Nose to nose with mental illness
Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brandon Marshall talked to a Harvard audience about his struggles with mental illness in a forum at Emerson Hall on Monday night. Marshall, who said he has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), told about 250 students — including football players and volunteers for Harvard’s student mental health services — that when he first heard himself called Brandon “Beast” Marshall, he thought, “That sounds good.” Toughness is what makes a player great, Marshall believed. And toughness helped him to two Pro Bowl appearances and, in 2009, the NFL record for receptions in a single game (21). “They say football players are trained to be bipolar,” he said. “Because you’ve got to have a switch. You’ve got to be able to turn the switch on when you touch the field and play with a lot of passion, emotion, violence, be able to hit a man, hurt a man, get...