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Alex Cora: Jarren Duran ‘will save lives’ by talking about suicide attempt
"Nobody knows with a professional athlete has to go through.”
Alex Cora praised Red Sox outfield Jarren Duran for openly discussing his past suicide attempt in a Netflix documentary set to be released on Tuesday.
“Obviously, I was aware of it,” Cora said Tuesday of Duran’s comments ahead of Boston’s home game against the Blue Jays. “Since I learned about it, me as a person, I’ve given him support and love, just somebody he can talk to. That door was always open. The relationship has grown throughout the years.
“Obviously, there were a lot of private conversations about the subject. I truly believe that him opening up is going to help a lot of people. It takes a person with courage and being transparent and genuine to do that and I hope that’s how we see it — that he will impact others and he’s going to save lives with what he did [on] Netflix.”
Durran acknowledged during an episode of the upcoming Netflix documentary “The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox” that he attempted to take his own life in the midst of struggles during Boston’s 2022 season.
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According toThe Boston Globe’s Pete Abraham — who received an advance copy of the production — Duran shared while discussing that turbulent 2022 season with series director Greg Whiteley that he attempted to shoot himself with a rifle.
“I would think every day, ‘I can’t [expletive] do this,’ ” Duran told Whiteley. “I couldn’t deal with telling myself how much I sucked every [expletive] day. Like I was already hearing it from fans and, like, what they say to me. It’s like, I haven’t told myself 10 times worse than that in the mirror. That was, like, a really tough time for me.
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“It was a pretty low time for me. Like, I didn’t even wanna be here any more.”
Whiteley then asked Duran to clarify his comments about not wanting to “be here any more.”
“I got to the point where I was sitting in my room; I had my rifle and I had a bullet and I pulled the trigger and the gun clicked but nothing happened,” Duran said. “To this day, like, I think God just didn’t let me take my own life because I seriously don’t know, like, why it didn’t go off.
“But I took it as a sign of, like, all right, I might have to be here for a reason. So that’s when I started to look myself in the mirror. After the gun didn’t go off, I was, like, ‘All right, well like, do I wanna be here or do I not wanna be here?”
Cora acknowledged that prioritizing mental health has become an area of emphasis across pro sports over the past decade — with the resources invested in taking care of athlete’s internal struggles night and day from where it used to be.
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“It’s a lot different than when I first got [to Boston as a player]” Cora acknowledged. “Although, we had support. But it’s grown throughout the organization and throughout the league and the leagues around the world. One of the things that we talked about this offseason, it wasn’t about Jarren’s situation.
“Sometimes players feel like the mental-skills coaches and that structure that we have — [they think] they work for the organization. No, they actually work for you. They’re here for you. And I lived it in the past with players. I use them whenever I need to.”
Given the added pressures put on athletes by stressors like social media, Cora believes that mental-health professionals are a necessity in today’s game.
“It’s something that is a tool and a department that is needed for every professional team and company,” Cora said. “It’s needed. We know that. We live in a tough world and the pressure to perform at this level is unique. Nobody knows with a professional athlete has to go through.”
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