When I started my college coaching career six years ago, I went into it ready to work by one quote. A quote I heard my college strength and conditioning coach use once that really resonated with me, “No one cares how much you know, unless they know how much you care.” I wanted every player I coached to feel like I cared about who they were as a person. If they were struggling in school, I’d be helping them with their resources. And if they were struggling on the field, being clear and direct with where I felt they were at, what they did well, and what they needed to work on. I feel extremely lucky in my first coaching job to have been hired by a head coach that had the exact same outlook. Someone who valued the student athlete as a whole.

How many lives does it take? How many of your student-athletes have to take their own life before you make a difference in the culture surrounding mental health in collegiate athletics? This month alone we have lost four collegiate athletes from suicide. As NCAA student-athletes, we have been doing our part to combat the stigma surrounding mental health in athletics through organizations like Morgan’s Message, the Hidden Opponent, and various other mental health initiatives at our respective institutions. However, we can see that despite our work across the country, mental illness remains a pressing issue in collegiate athletics.

As a former Division 1 student-athlete at the University of Louisville, my well-being and sense of belongingness were explicitly tied to my success in the pool. I was a proud All-American swimmer for our nationally ranked program, which provided my fondest memories, and is the root of my appreciation for what a group of driven and like-minded teammates can accomplish together. While I always rose to the occasion when the pressure was on, there also loomed a dark cloud of self-doubt that my successes were still not enough. Put simply: I needed help. The athletic department did a good job of setting up student-athletes with the resources they need to be successful in athletics, however, I still felt a disconnect from achieving any sort of balance as an individual out of the pool.

As an athlete for as long as I can remember, I have learned to be resilient. I have learned to never settle, there is always more to do and you can always be getting better. I also learned that when I want something, I don’t stop until I get it. These traits have been my biggest attributes to teams I've been on and have refined my personal development. As great as these qualities are in athletes, they also are our hardest opponents that we battle each and every day. I don't exactly remember the season, day, or moment that my sport became a little less fun and a lot more like a job. I began to beat myself down when things weren’t “perfect” and had trouble celebrating little victories.

When I wanted to go to college 3,000 miles across the country, my mom had only one condition — visit it first. For someone who grew up in 70-degree suburbia, it seemed fair enough to experience the bone-chilling cold and isolation of upstate New York firsthand before committing to living there for the next 4 years. But I was 17 and knew everything, so naturally, I refused. I told her I was going to college to run and get a good education and that was all I cared about.

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.