The stats say that 63% of student athletes indicate they’ve experienced a mental health concern that has impacted their ability to perform. But only 11% seek help.*  That number alone says a lot about how under-served the athlete population is when it comes to mental health. But when you dig into the stories of that 63%, that’s where our fire for action ignites.

The University of Regina student newspaper, The Carillon, recently published a piece that highlighted a series of devastating outcomes for Saskatchewan student athletes.

Samwel Uko.
Matthew Baraniuk. 
Those are their names. They are not numbers.

The need for action on athlete mental health has been pouring forth at an especially high rate since 2020. Everyone has seen the stories of the elite athletes like Simone Biles, Michael Phelps and Naomi Osaka. But these individuals are so far away from our ordinary, everyday lives that these stories can feel more like Hollywood entertainment than real life. It's easy to feel like this is stuff that happens to THEM; the fancy elite athletes that no one really knows in person. That doesn't happen to us.

Except that the two young men named above prove that it does happen to us. The struggle is real and it is local, no matter where you live.

The next time you see a game of any kind, realize that the stats prove there are people on that field or ice or court that are handling heavy things. It’s happening in our communities, right under our nose but we don’t always know what is going on for our athletes. They’ve been taught resilience and focus, both of which are excellent traits in life, but they can occasionally be used as band aids to suppress bigger issues that would be better off let out than kept in.

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