Mike Katz looks on during Ryerson’s men’s basketball practice on Wednesday.Darren Calabrese/The Globe and Mail
In the moments when his mood was darkest, when he was alone in his office with nothing but his troubled thoughts, Mike Katz turned to a swimming pool.
He would find one and jump in and feel the soothing water surround his body. And he would swim lengths, back and forth, sometimes for as long as an hour. The exertion would exhaust him, refocus his mind. Until the next panic attack would hit, always unannounced and uninvited, and it was back to the pool for another mental cleanse.
"There was just something about the water," said Katz, one of Canada's most acclaimed men's basketball coaches, now a consultant to the Ryerson Rams, who began play Thursday night in the Final 8 national championship in Toronto. "It's always advocated with mental-health issues that exercise is important. The problem, when you're a depressed individual, it's hard to do that. I would be on the phone in my office, with the door closed, and my friend at the other end of the line would be saying, 'Mike, get in the pool, get the hell in the pool!' And I did."
Most important, he always got out. Katz admitted that suicidal thoughts, while not an overwhelming urge, often emerged as an appealing alternative to the hell he was living.
"Certainly not in terms of a plan, but [better] understanding how people can do it," is how Katz delicately put it.
For portions of five years when his depression set in, this was a fact of life for the long-time coach – at the college and university level and with the Canadian men's national team program. It was his secret, shared only with select friends and family who helped him over the hurdles. "I lost two years out of my life," Katz said.
These days, for the better part of three years, Katz has been free of the demons. He is not seeking to be a walking billboard on mental-health issues. But the 65-year-old Toronto native will openly discuss his struggles with an illness that one in five Canadian adults can expect to suffer over the course of their lives. He hopes what he shares might help break down some of the negative stereotypes that often plague those with mental-health conditions.
And Katz is back on the national stage – albeit in more of a background role, as a consultant to coach Roy Rana at Ryerson. "He helps our players, he helps me," Rana said. "He observes the areas that we could maybe improve. He has a different vantage point because he doesn't sit on the bench.
"He's got that wider lens … I think it's really, really important that we keep our elder statesmen, guys who have given so much to the game, been involved so much in the game. And his experience is phenomenal for our kids, for myself. There hasn't been anything he hasn't seen, and just to be able to have that resource is amazing."
Over a coffee Wednesday morning in the busy cafeteria at the Mattamy Athletic Centre – the former Maple Leaf Gardens that now serves as Ryerson's athletic centre – Katz appears calm and carefree, rejuvenated.
"I didn't laugh for a year," he said. "And that's a big part of who I am."
He has rediscovered a passion for music, is taking guitar lessons and has a voice coach. Every couple of weeks, he performs at an open-mic event at a local pub.
A former basketball player at the University of Toronto, Katz has coached for close to 40 years, starting at the high school level at George Harvey Collegiate Institute in the city's west end. During his six years there, George Harvey twice won the city championship and made two appearances in the Ontario playdowns.
Katz then assumed the head coaching job at Toronto's Humber College and, from 1984 to 2004, nobody did it better. He led the Hawks to five national championships and was twice selected as the top Canadian college coach, before moving on to U of T, his alma mater, where he resurrected a program that had won just 12 games in two previous seasons.
The Blues wouldn't miss the Ontario playoffs in his seven years there. His best season was in 2007-08, when they compiled a 17-5 record and Katz was recognized as the top coach in Canadian Interuniversity Sport.
He was also busy at the international level as an assistant coach of the Canadian senior men's national team from 1993 to 1994, and again from 1999 to 2002.
He was with the Canadian team, led by Steve Nash, that made a stirring run at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
While his professional life was booming, he took a personal hit toward the end of 2006, experiencing his first bout of depression.
"I became very anxious, extreme hyper-anxiety," said Katz, whose mother and grandmother also struggled with depression.
"If you've ever had that kind of hyper-anxiety, you're crippled. You can't do much. You're very much in a compromised state."
Katz said he had trouble concentrating and remembering things, and had difficulty making even the easiest decisions. He lost 30 pounds, mostly from worry.
"So when you don't have those elements, how do you coach basketball?" he asked. "You try to do the best you can. The thing is, you tend to isolate, you don't want to be around people."
Katz discovered that swimming helped and, working at U of T, was fortunate to have ready access to three pools. He would plan his swims so that he would emerge from the water just before a practice or a game, feeling just good enough to fulfill his coaching commitments.
"For me, the pool was a saviour at the U of T," Katz said. "Once I got out of the pool, I could probably feel pretty good for an hour or two or so … and I could be of some value to the players."
This went on for six months before Katz said his mind cleared. He said he was healthy for a year and a half before depression waylaid him again, and again he struggled through. When depression returned a third time in 2011, though, Katz said he could not lick the symptoms.
He took a leave of absence from U of T, which eventually became permanent, and sought professional help.
He was eventually admitted at Homewood Health Centre in Guelph, Ont., one of the country's largest mental-health and addiction facilities. It was an eight-week stay and Katz said he has felt fine ever since.
"It's an insidious illness," he said.
Katz said he felt burned out from coaching in 2011 and was not interested in continuing at U of T. But when Rana invited him to become a consultant with Ryerson three years ago, he jumped at the chance.
"I'll make notes on my iPhone during the first half of games, meet Roy briefly just before he addresses the team at halftime," Katz said of his job. "Sometimes I just tell him what I think, sometimes he'll say, 'Why don't you tell them that?'"
Away from the court, he volunteers once a week at the Toronto Distress Centre. "And occasionally I will get calls from people who are very low," Katz said. "It's why I do it. I just want to let people know there's a way out of here."