LOS ANGELES — Thousands of adoring fans, hitting a clutch basket in a packed arena. The scene seems like a far cry from every day moments like this one — as USC basketball player Harrison Hornery stands silent, putting up shots in an empty gym.

For Hornery though, it’s the perfect metaphor to life as a student athlete.

What You Need To Know

  • Nearly one in five adults experience mental illness each year, including college students

  • According to the NCAA, almost 40% of college athletes have admitted to depressive thoughts

  • At USC, the Department of Sports Psychology takes an embedded approach to counseling and therapy

  • Their goal is to make access to help even easier for students and encourage open conversations surrounding mental health

“There’s so much pressure behind that,” Hornery said, “So many people wanting us to win and then if you have a bad game, or you happen to drop one that you shouldn’t, it feels like the world’s coming down on you. Sometimes guys can crumble.”

The pressure to be perfect. The pressure to be at your best. The pressure to be tough.

It’s all part of a superhero mentality in sports that creates heightened pressure for college athletes, who like every day students are also just trying to navigate adulthood. 

For Hornery, the struggle has been in dealing with all of that and doing so thousands of miles from family in Australia. 

“Pretty much just having to move away from family, missing them a lot. And obviously, COVID happened my junior and senior year of high school,” he explained. “So there was a real point in time where I wasn’t home for three years and that really hit me hard.”

It’s stories like these that make Robin Scholefield, the director of USC’s Department of Sports Psychology’s job so important.

“A lot of people say, Robin, you work with all these elite athletes. What do they come in for? What do they struggle with?” Scholefield said. “Truthfully, the number one thing that they come in for are the same things as a non-athlete college student. They’re just working on all of those in the public eye.”

She’s been on campus working with student athletes for 25 years now, and while mental health awareness has grown on college campuses nationwide, there’s still a great need for resources.

“Athletic culture is about where there’s a will, there’s a way, but there are some pieces about managing life that are more complicated than just will,” Scholefield explained. “You can’t necessarily just will yourself out of depression.”

According to a 2022 NCAA study, rates of mental exhaustion, anxiety and depression remain 1.5 to 2 times higher than pre-pandemic levels. In 2022, five collegiate athletes committed suicide.

It’s why at USC, Scholefield says an embedded approach to counseling and to therapy has become so necessary.

“You can work collaboratively together to create access to services, but also an environment of health and well being,” she said.

At the root of all of that, promoting an openness to talking about mental health in the student athlete community. 

Hornery says at the end of the day, it’s up to him and other athletes like him.

“I know definitely, as men’s athletes, we’re often afraid to talk to each other or talk to people about our mental health struggles,” he said. “But that stigma is kind of going away and that’s what’s important.”

A reminder that student athletes are just like anyone else, in that they can always ask for help.