You just hit your brother!
You can’t do that.
Go say you’re sorry. Say you’re sorry.
If you close your eyes, you might imagine this is what Ickey Ekwonu would sound like as a father. Loving but firm. Direct. Caring and protective, yes, but also giggling through a sibling tiff.
It’s as if he’s the father of two boys bickering, then wrestling, then strangling, before Dad steps in and pulls the older brother off the younger one and straightens the whole mess out.
But on Monday afternoon, on the South Lawn Pavilion grass just outside Bank of America Stadium, you wouldn’t close your eyes. Because you’d see the 6-foot-4, 311-pound, 24-year-old offensive tackle giving a fatherly sermon in the middle of a yoga lesson.
Oh yeah, and he’d be preaching to goats.
Yes, goats.
Not exactly baby goats — or “kids,” as they’re for some reason called. More like “teenage goats,” which I’m blindly trusting is a thing. Ekwonu told it to one bleater who was bullying another as the two fought for some spare food around Ekwonu’s feet while the offensive lineman was trying to run through Cat-Cow stretches.
“They looked like siblings, same coat and everything,” Ekwonu later said of the experience. “I had to get in there a little bit, had to discipline the goat a little bit, make sure they were playing nice with each other. Nah, I tried. I tried my best.”
Such was the wonderfully strange scene Monday in Uptown Charlotte. The Carolina Panthers had a handful of their players participate in goat yoga after a training session as part of the team’s programming during Mental Health Awareness Month.
The goat yoga featured 30-something goats in total, provided by Zen Hooves Yoga. There were six players who attended the event: Ekwonu, his fellow offensive lineman Chandler Zavala, running back Chuba Hubbard, defensive tackle Turk Wharton and linebacker Trevin Wallace, who actually owns two goats personally.
And, admittedly, even though some were locked in with the instructor, most were focused on the goats. Focused on feeding them, on providing steady backs for the goats to balance on ... and ... avoiding their feces.
A snapshot of the discourse on Monday afternoon:
Hubbard: “They’re assassins with the poop! Drop-drop, take off!”
Tremble to Wallace: “Aye bro, you got dookie on your back.”
Instructor: “Everything is machine washable!”
Ekwonu: “Don’t move Trev. He’s peeing right next to you.”
Zavala: “Still going.”
Hubbard, when presented with a large goat to climb on his back: “Nah, bring a lil mama to me. That one looks like he just ate.”
Wharton, while posing for a wholesome photo with a goat: “We’re going to name him Bryce. Like No. 9.”
Tremble admittedly didn’t know how much the goats defecate during sessions. He joked that he “didn’t watch enough film” prior to the experience and that he was going to hoof it (get it?) to his car with just his socks on so his bright yellow Kanes wouldn’t get any smear on them.
Even still, Tremble undeniably had a bunch of fun, he said. Pairing that with a good cause for mental health awareness made Monday sweeter.
“In our game, we say it’s 10% physical, 90% mental,” Tremble said. “And I think having a healthy mindset is what helps us on gamedays. Come prepared. Know we gotta do our job. And having teammates who care about that, a team who cares about that, is great. It’s something you can speak about and not be afraid to say, ‘Hey, I need a little more help.’ And I think that’s the best part. We can ask for help and get better mentally.”
Denny Kellington, the Panthers’ vice president of player health and performance, couldn’t agree more. The newly hired supervisor of the team’s training, nutrition, sports science and strength and conditioning said that just like the team devotes a lot of resources to the physical side of performance, the Panthers are committed to the mental side as well. The organization, just like every other NFL team, has an in-house mental health clinician; the Panthers were among the first to hire an in-house director of player wellness when they did so in 2018. The Panthers also partner with Blue Cross NC to provide mental health resources to their employees and other North Carolinians.
“Any way that we can shed light on mental health, that it’s OK to talk about, it’s OK to ask for help, we’ll do it,” said Kellington, who previously worked for the Buffalo Bills. “Throughout the country we just try to destigmatize anybody who has mental health concerns and allow them that freedom to openly talk about it, or seek help or assistance if necessary.”
At the end of the Monday afternoon, when all the goats streamed back into the trailer and the yoga instruction was done, Ekwonu shared more paternal wisdom.
“I feel like as an athlete, there’s so much focus on what goes on physically. Physical strength. Physical fitness. All that sort of stuff. And some of the mental aspects of it, it is such a big part of the game,” Ekwonu said. “To me, it’s the biggest differentiator between college football and professional football. ... Also in mental health, you need to make sure you still have that positive energy about yourself. That’s also important in every day life, not just football.”
The Charlotte Observer
Alex Zietlow writes about the Carolina Panthers and the ways in which sports intersect with life for The Charlotte Observer, where he has been a reporter since August 2022. Zietlow’s work has been honored by the N.C. and S.C. Press Associations, as well as the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) group. He’s earned five APSE Top 10 distinctions, most recently in the Long Features category in 2024. Zietlow previously wrote for The Herald in Rock Hill (S.C.) from 2019-22. Support my work with a digital subscription