Soccer Stage

More professional athletes are talking about mental health. The US Women’s Soccer team is the latest to do it, helping bring more awareness and hopefully help to young athletes to address depression, and limit suicide.

The team, now competing in soccer in the World Cup, is using its platform to talk about mental health. Defender Naomi Girma talked about her Stanford Cardinal teammate Katie Meyer who died a year ago from suicide.

“This is personal for me,” Girma wrote. “I’ll be honest, it’s not easy to talk about this on the eve of a World Cup. It’s still very raw … I know what an honor it is to be a part of a World Cup team. I know all about the pressure and expectations.”

Early this month, Ons Jabeur’s loss in the Wimbledon women’s tennis finals was admittedly her toughest ever and in front of millions watching but the humanitarian athlete used the stage to address the issue. Jabeur is a role model for her work but what stood out after losing was her grace and honesty in defeat. She showed athletes it’s okay to lose, okay to feel upset about it, but that you move on, you are more than the game, and more than that one moment. You are human.

In fact, in a poll of 365 8 to 15 year olds asking which sports players they look up to, 9% said Tunsinian Jabeur - the highest vote getter was mom or dad or an older sister at 37% collectively. US Women’s soccer players collectively had 15% of the vote.