How Lily McFarland is Working to Build
A new way for campus athletes to address mental health
In recent years, talks about the mental health of students on college campuses has increased in an effort to destigmatize the topic. That’s happening at an unequal rate across the country, though, and it takes a team to push for it. West Chester senior Lily McFarland is part of one of those teams pushing for a group on campus to help student-athletes deal with mental health.
McFarland is a campus captain with The Hidden Opponent, a non-profit organization founded by former USC indoor volleyball player Victoria Garrick Browne several years ago focused on spreading awareness of mental health in athletes and breaking the stigma by coordinating with groups on different campuses.
McFarland joined in December 2022 after hearing about the organization from a softball player she knew who was looking to start a chapter on campus. She looked into it and decided to join after realizing what they did was important to her.
“I think it’s super important to realize what mental health is because as a gymnast, everything is about being perfect. We do routines and get judged on them for not being perfect, so we have this mindset that every aspect of our lives has to be perfect, both in school and in our sport. Realizing that we’re real people is super important because we can’t be perfect all the time.”
McFarland went through some online training seminars to get fully certified, but now she’s working to get to the next step: an on-campus club. They’ve had some meetings both online and in person to learn what they should do, make connections and ask about next steps. Ursinus College is an hour away. It has a very well-established chapter of The Hidden Opponent and a women’s gymnastics program, so their club has helped out a lot and they’ve gone to each other’s campuses to support them at sporting events since they don’t compete against each other (West Chester is Division 2, Ursinus is Division 3).
In order to make this an on-campus club, McFarland and other members will need a faculty advisor, an executive board, a schedule of meetings and a community, something she enjoys the most.
“I enjoy the community it brings because so many people feel the same way about being a student-athlete in college and having something that you can relate to and talk to and help each other out is great.”
McFarland is a senior, so she understands she has limited time. Still, her goals are to get the club started and almost fully ready by spring and get underclassmen involved as part of a solid foundation for the future.