By: Kaitlyn Zhou
Lanny Smith believes the power of mental health awareness is very important in the Black community.
Athletes like Olympic medalist Simon Biles, tennis champion Naomi Osaka, superstar Serena Williams, and NBA player Demar Derozan all have publicly discussed mental health.
Lanny Smith, a former NBA player launched “Actively Black” in November 2020, an athleisure and sports brand. Athleisure means a fashion trend that is both comfortable and appealing, characterized by athletic clothing.
Over 100 black people participated in activities like sound healing, yoga, and meditation in the second annual Mental Wellness Training Camp for Black Men at Sofi Stadium held by Actively Black during Mental Health Awareness Month.
As earlier mentioned, Lanny Smith is a former athlete. He grew up playing basketball and had a dream of making it to the NBA. When Lanny was in 6th grade, he was in the top 100-ranked players since the sixth grade.
Lanny was traveling across states and countries as he was on AAU, which is an Amateur Athletic Union team. He was playing against the best of the best: he played against LeBron James and Chris Paul!
After Lanny Smith finished college, he had an amazing opportunity to make his dream at 5 years old come true, but in thirty-three days it was done. Lanny had two microfracture surgeries because a big, 250-pound teammate whose height was 6 feet 10 crashed into my left knee. It tore the cartilage. It was horrible- for his NBA career hopes and dreams were over.
To reach where Lanny was now, he had to undergo depression. He didn’t see himself doing anything besides playing in the NBA. He had a strong fear of what he was going to do with the rest of his future. He always wanted to just stay home in his room, and people would say, “I thought you were playing basketball.” Lanny was struggling and started drinking heavily about the fact that his dream wasn’t there anymore.
Lanny Smith was hopeless. But what got him out of depression? Lanny’s mother made sure his faith was the most important part of his life. Lanny said that he understood this concept the most when he was depressed.
Lanny used all of his passion and worked hard to do everything to become the best basketball player he could hope for.
In 2011, Lanny Smith launched his first brand called “Active Faith,” a sports apparel brand faith-based. It has been built to have customers from 75 countries, and Lanny has made a great impact on the community.
“I want Black people to feel excellent seeing something that represents them, and I want them to know that we can compete at the highest level. Being Black is not a barrier to doing that.” Lanny said.