Since I was a little kid, I have been the biggest worrier my parents have ever met. Little did we know I was suffering from severe anxiety. In middle school, I started to see a therapist, which helped for the time being, but then I told my parents I didn’t want to continue therapy. I couldn’t find a therapist I connected with after trying a few before giving up. I started freshman year and began experiencing severe anxiety again, which led to depression. Being the kid I was, I just brushed it off and told myself to be fine. In my head, at the time it was just like when you’re trying to play through an injury on the field. In my typical fashion, the whole year I put on a fake smile and tried to ignore and distract myself from the sadness and worry I was experiencing.

I recently reposted a trending quote that read “we have to put the person before the student and the athlete otherwise we are at risk of losing all three.” The post was written in the wake of the passing of Katie Meyer, a standout goalie for the women’s soccer team at Stanford.

My name is Harrison Lionberger. I'm from Roanoke, Virginia and I have Asperger's Syndrome. I was a student manager for the women's soccer, women's basketball, and men's lacrosse teams at Roanoke College, a Division III school in Salem, Virginia. In high school, I was also a student manager, working with the football, volleyball, and girls' basketball and soccer teams.

As an athlete, your sport feels like your identity. It IS your identity. And that’s certainly how I had felt for most of my upbringing. When being introduced to friends or adults, I was referred to as ‘the swimmer,’ with good intentioned adults asking ‘you’re the swimmer, right?’ It always delighted me, as it felt as though I had this larger than life reputation as an athlete with great expectations. When you live, eat and breathe chlorine, it is very easy to feel this way and it certainly played a role in how I saw myself and the things I expected from myself. It wasn’t until I let these strangers expectations of me get to me that I realized how detrimental my sport-oriented view of myself was.

Dear Morgan’s Message,

My name is Morgan Gott and over the last few months I have felt moved to reach out to you and your foundation. I have been a student athlete since I was 5 years old. But instead of lacrosse it was always basketball growing up for me. I luckily found lacrosse in high school and got to make a career out of it. I was recruited to play Division I lacrosse by Coastal Carolina University back in 2012. I was a part of the inaugural class that started the program there. This was a whole journey in and of itself. Mostly it was being 16 hours away from home and second, it was 28 freshmen working together to start a Division 1 program.