Washington State University quarterback Tyler Hilinski took his life Jan. 16, 2018, in his Pullman apartment.
Across the border, University of Idaho officials sprang into action.
Anna Rose Wiencek, a senior on the University of Idaho Women’s Soccer team and former mental health and wellness chair on the Idaho Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), said the response to the suicide was immediate.
“Barrie (Steele, a UI athletic trainer) contacted me right away after it happened, (and) he said, ‘We need to put something in right away, like some educational thing, because we need to get people educated,’” Wiencek said. “Now, instead of talking about it, we are going to do something about it.”
The suicide prevention training QPR — Question, Persuade, Refer — rolled out in the UI Kibbie Dome throughout spring 2018, with a handful of in-person trainings and online courses for coaches, staff and student-athletes.
The QPR program is a research-based training course aimed at teaching participants how to recognize and spot behaviors of people at risk for suicide and how to appropriately intervene.
QPR is currently implemented at universities and colleges across the country, but only a small handful of universities utilize the program within athletic departments, said QPR CEO and founder Paul Quinnett.
The university is among the few.
Starting in the spring, all coaches and athletic staff were required to take the QPR training, said Sharon Fritz, UI psychologist and coordinator of consultation, outreach and substance use services. They have all completed the training.
Fritz said mental health is a topic UI has pursued for a number of years, receiving a $300,300 grant from the Suicide Prevention Resource Center in 2014, which allowed for the hiring of health educator focused specifically on mental health and suicide prevention.
In January 2016, the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) released a “Mental Health Best Practices” report, outlining resources and recommendations for student-athletes facing mental health challenges. While UI had already been looking into mental health awareness on campus, Fritz said the report increased the urgency of expanding awareness into the athletic department.
“I feel very fortunate here at the UI because the athletic department has always felt that mental health is important,” Fritz said. “We’ve always had a relationship with them in terms of providing support for their students.”
Fritz also offers a mental health first aid course and “Let’s talk,” a program where she goes into the Kibbie Dome and allows athletes and coaches to approach her without the stigma of attending the counseling session.
Fritz said the UI Athletic Department has really shifted its focus on issues of mental health, especially as more athletes come forward with their struggles nationwide.
“We see more coaches understand mental health, they have consulted more with me,” Fritz said. “I have seen an increase in the consultation with coaches that have come to seek me out and say, ‘Well how can I help my student best?’”
A different kind of practice
Dorian Clark, a senior on the football team, was one of hundreds of UI student-athletes who filled the large lecture room in the Kibbie Dome during the QPR training sessions — not once, but twice.
“Once (the trainings) put it in words, and they show you what it looks like, it is really easy to see the hints from teammates or guys, because we are together every day,” the redshirt defensive back said. “Going through the QPR trainings, it made it everything real for me, actually looking for the signs and being there for your teammates.”
Clark said the side-effects that can come with the demands of being a student-athlete never occurred to him before completing the QPR training, as well as the number of factors that could impact him and the rest of his peers within the athletic department.
“As a student-athlete, there are a lot of things that can get you down and it is hard to get back up,” Clark said. “It is just so many things it is easy to get down from as a student athlete. Once they put it in that kind of way it made it real for me to see how easily you can be affected by depression.”
Dealing with the pressure
Student-athletes are featured on UI social media pages and plastered on posters across campus, wearing the Vandal logo. Many feel the pressure to perform well on and off the field.
“It is not like you can just show up to practice,” Wiencek said. “You always have to show up to practice 110 percent because the moment you take a practice off, someone is coming for your spot and we all came here to play.”
When an athlete is unable to participate — due to injury or other concerns — the challenges are only heightened.
After injuring his shoulder shortly before his junior season, Clark was forced to the sideline. As the rest of the team practiced, he spent time in recovery, completing adjusted workouts.
“I felt so alone in that moment,” Clark said. “Even though I knew my teammates were with me, I still felt kind of standoffish because I was missing a season. I had so much hope into the season and now it got cut short right before the season started and in that moment, I just felt so down on myself.”
Most students know the pressure that comes with watching a to-do list grow longer and longer — constantly balancing classes, work, extracurricular activities and a social life. It is a balancing act student-athletes are constantly working to achieve, while still performing at the highest physical level.
“(Athletes) are always in the limelight,” Fritz said. “They have some demands and pressures from at least three major areas in their life, and then knowing that they’re under scrutiny in terms of how they behave and what happens. And then the need to perform at a high level in all those areas puts a lot of pressure on athletes.”
“Push through the pain” may be a mantra to motivate athletes through a workout, but Fritz said the same mentality cannot always be applied to mental health struggles.
Instead of encouraging athletes to push through it, Fritz said the solution can be simple — let the athlete talk about it.
From an hour of ‘Let’s talk’ in the Kibbie Dome to one-on-one counseling sessions to simply talking with an athletic trainer, student-athletes have a variety of options to address their mental health concerns.
Fritz said the athletic department has been flexible and receptive to allowing students the necessary time to take care of their mental well-being.
Pushing the boundaries
All coaches, staff and student-athletes within the UI Athletic Department have completed the QPR trainings and more trainings will continue to take place.
But Fritz said mental health wellness is not a new topic on UI’s campus.
“(It) had been in the background and now it’s pushed it into the foreground,” Fritz said. “That is why we are on the top — we didn’t just start doing it, we had been doing it, and now we just directed more effort toward the athletic department.”
Claire Johnson, SAAC president and senior soccer defender, said these programs need to be continually emphasized and implemented beyond the department to the entire campus.
“We are on the right path for sure,” Johnson said. “I think once we implement a little bit more, it will just be a regular conversation … something you are informed on and something you know about.”