Hilinski’s Hope and Alabama continue raising mental health awareness
AL.com
About 25 rows behind the visitor’s sidelines in South Carolina’s Williams-Brice Stadium, Mark Hilinski knew it was coming. Before the first play of the third quarter, the entire stadium would lift three fingers into the air. They’d honor his son. They’d remember Tyler.
It was the inaugural College Football Mental Health Week. Mark and his wife, Kym Hilinski, started it through Hilinski’s Hope, their passion project since losing their son to suicide in Jan. 2018. Tyler was a starting quarterback at Washington State. He seemed fine. He wasn’t. Mark and Kym faced unanswerable questions and grief head-on.
So while a public service announcement played to nearly 80,000 on Sept. 14 as Alabama played the Gamecocks, where Mark and Kym’s youngest, Ryan Hilinski, was the starting quarterback (No. 3 just like Tyler), Mark was familiarly overtaken with emotion. What Mark didn’t expect, though, was to find Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide’s head coach, raising three digits like everyone else.
“Coach Saban, by doing that, immediately says, ‘You can win and you can take care of your kids.’ There’s no in-between,” Mark said.
Hilinski’s Hope had partnered with 16 teams initially. By 2022, nearly 100 more have joined. Mark and Kym completed over 140 ‘Tyler Talks,’ speaking appearances in front of athletic departments nationwide informing coaches and players of their son’s story.
Their work is gutwrenching and crucial. About a quarter of male athletes considered themselves “mentally exhausted” almost daily, per an NCAA survey released in May. Forty-six percent would feel comfortable seeking support from a mental health provider on campus. Kym said the tears still always flow, but they want to normalize the conversation because, always, there are other Tylers out there.
To have a program like Alabama not just listen to the message, but further the issue is one of the goals of Mark, Kym and Hilinski’s Hope. In addition to wearing stickers on their helmets against Arkansas or having infographics shared in training rooms, the Tide has placed itself at the forefront of athlete mental health this season. Saban appeared on NBC’s TODAY Show in September. Bryce Young and Ginger Gilmore, Alabama’s director of behavioral medicine, spoke in a CBS Sports Network featurette last week.
“We’ve always tried to have a really good mental health program. We’ve had one for 25 years that I think has been beneficial for players. But I think this group, Hilinski’s Hope, has created an awareness that has helped more and more people do more and more things to help players, and I think that is a very good thing and we’re very supportive of it,” Saban said.
Mark and Kym have recognized the “unbelievable job” schools are doing at promoting wellness within their department, specifically noting the growth in the last five years. In addition to Hilinski’s Hope, pro athletes, from Simone Biles to Kevin Love and others, have worked to destigmatize depression. But there could always be more, Mark and Kym argue.
They’ve seen pain accumulate and spill over before. When Ryan threw his first touchdown pass at South Carolina, Mark and Kym noticed he slumped his shoulders. Later that night, he told his parents it was the first time he had cried since Tyer’s death.
They’ve seen how important it is to players when they speak and phones stay in their pockets. After meeting with a couple of hundred student-athletes from Hawaii, a few came down for a more intimate dialogue with Mark, Kym and some counselors. On a western campus, Kym said, they had to pause because a player broke down and his teammates converged on him for a hug. Both are normal occurrences for a Tyler Talk.
“There is hope because they can see the pendulum is swinging,” Kym said. " ... Our student-athletes are incredible, they have a lot on their plates and I think they’re just so much deeper than the fandom out there gives them credit for.”
Mark and Kym communicate weekly with Gilmore in Tuscaloosa. Alabama has maximized its behavioral health department with players having access to privacy and specialists just as they would be treated for a physical injury. In the CBS special, Gilmore spoke about providing coping mechanisms to deal with struggle. Young, for example, mentioned the lack of playing time as a freshman and how he clashed with the adjustment.
The tour Mark and Kym are on is a partial coping technique for themselves. Mark said he can’t review the slides from their 50-minute presentation. Kym can only talk for about 10 before she breaks down. Their progress, like the entire movement’s, is incremental.
“We know it’s coming. We kinda know the stories we’re gonna tell. We’ve told them a lot of times. It might be you catch a kid’s eye out in the audience or a coach that’s really intently listening, it creates more emotions. The goal is not to be emotional. We want to give a proper talk. ...We try really hard, if that counts.”
