College Football Mental Health Week: A KWTX@4 Series
KWTX
WACO, Texas (KWTX) - From October 1 to October 8, more than 100 colleges and universities are participating in College Football Mental Health Week, put on by the Hilinski’s Hope Foundation including Baylor University.
Kym and Mark Hilinski started the foundation after their son Tyler, a quarterback at Washington State, died by suicide in 2018.
“Tyler was the happiest, most fun, funny, great to be around. Kym and I say we love all our boys but we really loved Tyler,” Mark told KWTX in a one-on-one interview.
“We never heard one conversation about what he was struggling with, we never got a note he never saw a physician, didn’t tell anybody, whether that was because of the stigma or worried about losing his spot on the team, we’re not sure,” he explained.
In his honor, the two started the foundation and College Football Mental Health week with the hope of raising awareness for mental health resources for student athletes like Tyler, who may be struggling in silence.
“We put these boxes together with helmet decals, lapel pins, patches, headbands, cheer ribbon and our wrist bands with the suicide hotline number on them. We ship these boxes of hope all around the country and to see universities step up and join our mission and partner with us, I just think it says so much about the universities and truly how much they care about their student athletes, not just how they perform on the field but they truly care about them mind body and soul,” Kym Hilinski told KWTX.
Every year, the foundation partners with more universities but say Baylor’s partnership is particularly special.
“We got an email from someone in Baylor Athletics our first year that said our head football coach *has to be part of College Football Mental Health Week,” Kym explained.
“We said “its Thursday night, FedEx is closed, you’re traveling to West Virginia, its impossible to get them there” but that turned out not to be true. We found a currier that came to our home in South Carolina picked up the helmet decals, brought them to West Virginia and not literally, but as the team was going onto the field they were slapping the helmet decals on,” Kym said.
“We love that Baylor and Baylor Athletics, the Athletic Director, Mack Rhoades, and Head Football Coach, Dave Aranda, is so behind taking care of the mental health of their student athletes that just says so much about how much they care about their student athletes and we love them for that and that will be one of our favorite stories as we move forward this is our third year, we’ll be doing it forever but Baylor is very big in our hearts for that,” Kym said.
Baylor Athletics and Mental Health
“We noticed that student athletes weren’t utilizing counseling services on campus,” Dr. Monique Marsh-Bell, the Associate Athletic Director for Mental Health Services at Baylor told KWTX.
In a 2021 study conducted by the NCAA, it found less than 50% of student athletes said they wouldn’t feel comfortable seeking support from a mental health provider on campus.She says she and athletic director Mack Rhoades worked together to address the issue at Baylor.
“We started a “Let’s Talk” program, it was drop in program and I was just sitting at a desk for half a day every week and it was so popular with student athletes and coaches coming for consultation on how to help their student athletes that Mack made it a full time position out of it,” Marsh-Bell explained.
Her role has now expanded in a three person team providing mental health services across the athletic department.
“I think student athletes are often forgotten in the mental health conversation because they’re sometimes seen as super human,” Marsh-Bell said.
“We see what they do on the field and on the court and so we’re amazed and wowed by that but we forget that they’re also college students. They’re 18-22 they’re dealing with all the things typical college students deal with from adjustment to academics, social things, and in addition to that they’re dealing with the pressures and time commitment of sport and those things together sometimes make things more difficult for student athletes and put more pressure on them but we tend to not think of them that way,” Marsh-Bell explained.
They have helped the university get involved in multiple national and regional mental health campaigns, including Big 12 Mental Health Week and College Football Mental Health week, which is going on now.
“Every competition this week will have a mental health focus. There will be in-venue information about mental health, we’ll be tabling giving out green ribbon and wrist bands for people to show support, in addition to our social media campaign,” Marsh-Bell said.
But beyond the major campaigns her office is busy every day working with student athletes.
“We provide counseling services to student athletes, we have them fill out mental health screeners regularly throughout the semester which we review and check on them as needed. We provide education not just to the students but to the coaches and to staff to make sure everyone is aware and knows how to identify mental health concerns and how to report those things and who to get the athlete connected with,” she said.
Just last week, Baylor announced the public launch of an effort to build philanthropic support focused on growing mental health services for Baylor’s student-athletes. The launch comes in tandem with a gift from Jarred and Kay Nan Sloan of Houston supporting Baylor Athletics and resourcing Athletics Mental Health Services (AMHS).
“We are grateful to Jarred and Kay Nan Sloan for their sincere interest in supporting Baylor’s student-athletes in transformative ways and for their thoughtfulness in challenging others to come alongside them in this effort,” said Mack B. Rhoades IV, Baylor Vice President and Director of Intercollegiate Athletics. “Baylor Athletics is committed to fostering a caring community, free of stigma, where our student-athletes’ mental health is given the same care as their physical wellbeing. We celebrate the generosity of the Sloans, and we hope other members of our Baylor Family will follow their lead in giving to the Baylor Student Athlete Mental Health Endowment.”
For their support of the Athletics Mental Health Services, the Sloans chose to give immediate-use funds, providing administrators significant resources for the current needs of the program, as well as an endowment that creates a permanent source of annual funding for the program, the first such resource supporting mental health initiatives within Baylor Athletics. The fund was named the Student Athlete Mental Health Endowment to encourage the Baylor Family to give of their resources to help the more than 500 students who participate in Baylor Athletics’ 19 intercollegiate athletics teams.
“This will help us afford to bring in speakers, I can talk to them all day but when they see someone who is in the space that they want to be like a professional athlete or a peer talking to them about mental health it really hits differently,” Marsh-Bell added.
“We also know that technology is big for our student athletes so we’re investing in mental health resources that are innovative, things like Calm and Head Space and other apps and technology that can help them because we can’t always be with them but making sure that they have access to mental health care in a variety of ways.
