TAF Impact: 'Out of the Dark'

For 95 years, the Trojan Athletic Fund has proudly supported USC's 21 varsity sports by investing in the future of every student-athlete who dons the Cardinal & Gold.

The contributions of alumni, parents, former student-athletes and friends make possible unforgettable moments on the field, court and pool. But it's the stories they help write off the field in the lives of these future scholars, Olympians, and community and business leaders that are most remarkable. This is one of those stories.

"If I can help even one other person by telling my story, then that's the best thing I can think to do."

Meet former Trojan diver Haley Ishimatsu. Olympian. Two-time NCAA champion. Four-time All-American first teamer. And one of 40 million Americans with an anxiety disorder. Her life changed completely when she transferred to USC after her freshman year because of a specific investment the Trojan Family has made in supporting its student-athletes: a fully-staffed, fully-integrated sports psychology department.

Haley's goal is to see mental health prioritized and discussed openly in athletic environments across the country, and that starts with sharing her story of triumph at USC. USC's Director of Clinical & Sport Psychology Services, and fellow Olympian, Robin Scholefield shares her purpose.

"The USC Athletic Department prioritizes the health and wellbeing of student-athletes. The goal is for student-athletes to function well in every aspect of their lives while they are here, including their physical and mental health, academics, and athletics, and the department provides the resources and support needed for athletes to help overcome challenges and succeed in all of these areas," states Scholefield. "Despite some myths out there, excellence is not in opposition to healthy being. Psychological health supports consistency and excellence."

Haley Ishimatsu, former USC diver

An estimated one in five adults in the U.S. will face a mental health challenge each year. And student-athletes aren't immune. The stakes are higher for student-athletes when they enter college – more pressure, a bigger platform – and the number of responsibilities they're juggling only increase with school, sports and personal life.

An international diver, Ishimatsu competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics when she was 15. The pressures of succeeding on the world's largest stage while also working to figure out her college and career path were silently building to a breaking point. Understandably, she felt isolated and alone, unsure of who to share her anxieties with and unable to break free of what she describes as her "catastrophic" thought cycle.

"I felt so much pressure on me. It created this little voice in my head that told me, 'You're not good enough,'" explains Ishimatsu. "My depression was something I'd noticed ever since I was in high school, but I just thought I was weird. [In college,] everything just got exacerbated."

Ishimatsu was not alone. For years, student-athletes struggling with depression, anxiety and other common mental illnesses have had to live in the dark. But for the past 20 years at USC, a group of dedicated individuals led by Scholefield, have been working to turn on the light.

Scholefield started as a generalist in the counseling center at USC in 1998. But with her elite athletic background - she was a 1976 Olympic medal winner at 13 - she quickly built relationships right across the street within the athletic department. Coaches began referring student athletes for a wide variety of personal, mental health, and performance concerns, and sought her counsel on matters including team dynamics and more. Impressed by her work, coaches advocated that she be hired on exclusively to work with the athletic department. So, in 1999, she became USC's lead sports psychologist, a title almost non-existent in college athletics at the time.

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These days, USC Athletics has four full-time clinical sports psychologists who work with all 21 teams, and meet, at some point, with every single student-athlete beginning with a two-hour orientation their freshman year. Scholefield believes her team's biggest strength is its complete integration within the athletic department. What they offer is not an off-site mental health service, it's a collaborative endeavor between student counseling and athletics in which one hundred percent of their time and energy goes into working with student-athletes. This integrativeapproach allows their clients to feel comfortable receiving treatment within their regular athletic environment with specialists who understand their world view. It also allows for more proactive approaches to handling and preventing the development of more serious issues.

"We have built this program one client at a time, one coach at a time," explains Scholefield. "The longer I was here and the more closely I worked with our athletics staff, the more they understood what we were doing and why it was important. It gradually evolved from there."

Ishimatsu is just one of the hundreds of student-athletes who has benefitted from this individualized and intentional approach. Her transition to college was difficult. Duke University was far from her home in Southern California, and there were pressures mounting in the pool. She found herself struggling with what would later be identified as depression and anxiety.

"It was really hard to get out of bed," remembers Ishimatsu. "I had no interest in doing anything. I didn't go to classes. I would cry for no reason on the bus. I knew something was wrong. It got to the point where I had to go to a hospital for observation for a week. I was not in a good place at all."

Realizing she'd reached a breaking point, the diver took a year off to go home and be with family. Her older sister, Victoria - also a fellow elite diver - helped to encourage and support Haley, ultimately encouraging her sister to transfer to USC. Ready to step back into the world of college athletics in 2012, her enrollment as a Trojan came with one requirement, more for her own good than an actual stipulation: her coach required she see one of the athletic department's psychologists.

"I knew that therapy would help me. But also, I'd seen a counselor before and it hadn't helped much. A part of me was apprehensive about it," explains Ishimatsu. "The first session with the counselor at USC was eye-opening. Right out of the gate she asked what it was I wanted to accomplish, which was really different. There was a goal and something we could actually plan around. There were steps. There were tools."

Dr. Robin Scholefield, USC Associate Director Clinical & Sport Psychology Services — Robin M. Scholefield, Ph.D.

According to Scholefield, the current generation is entering college with more mental health symptoms and more severe symptoms than any other in history. So providing tangible tools and coping strategies is central to her and her team's work.

"The skills you need to manage your personal life and your mental health are largely the same skills you're going to use performance and vice versa," explains Scholefield.

Ishimatsu finished her first semester at USC with a 3.9 GPA. For comparison, her first semester at Duke, she finished with a 1.2. It's been three years since she graduated from USC, and you can still hear the joy in her voice when she talks about that first semester transformation, one that wouldn't have been possible without the mental health resources USC provided.

"I remember I went to U.S. Nationals that next summer and people all around me noticed that I looked better. Like I physically looked happier and looked like I was having fun," recalls Ishimatsu. "Before, I was a wreck at meets. I was afraid of disappointing the coaches, the organization or anyone. But once I let that go it all changed."

Ishimatsu finished out her diving career at USC in 2015. She graduated with a degree in sociology and found a job as a research assistant in Los Angeles. After three seasons at USC, she felt healthy – mind, body and spirit.

"At the end of my career, I won the Pac-12 Women's Swimming & Diving Scholar Athlete of the Year," Ishimatsu reflects. "All of this struggle I'd been through, changing schools, figuring out what I wanted to do, changing majors, overcoming depression, to be awarded it was amazing. Haley Ishimatsu

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In 2013, Brian Hainline was named NCAA Chief Medical Director and immediately set to work identifying the biggest issues athletic departments were facing from a health perspective. After interviewing the athletic medicine staffs from across the country, he quickly discovered that the biggest health problem facing student-athletes was neither concussions nor on-field injury rates - it was mental health. Hainline immediately organized a task force to develop guidelines for schools to follow in providing mental health services for student-athletes. Since then, the NCAA has invested significantly in mental health awareness and de-stigmatization, encouraging the expansion of mental health resources in universities across the country.

As more attention is given to mental health in the collegiate athletic world, USC continues to lead the way with more dedicated staff working exclusively with student-athletes than any other athletic department in the country. USC boasts higher utilization rates than seen in almost any population, a sign that student-athletes are actually tapping into the resources available to them.

The cooperative approach from all parts of the department – administration, coaches, counselors and student-athletes – allows for creative solutions, growth and a more accepting culture around mental health than is often seen elsewhere in athletics. According to Scholefield, the goal is to be proactive in creating a culture that supports student-athletes holistically.

"Student-athletes who know they are more than just an athlete tend to thrive and perform better over time," Scholefield emphasizes. "If you have good relationships, are connected to your values, and work to develop your character through your sport, all of which are within your control, that is sustaining, that is lasting. The challenges of sport offer all that and more."

That's certainly the case for Ishimatsu, who discovered freedom from anxiety and a life of possibility in her time at USC. Now, she's hoping her story opens the same door for others.

"Now, I'm able to see forward," Ishimatsu explains. "By far the most important thing I learned is that I am more than just a diver, just a student or just a worker in an office. I am me. And I need to make time for that."

Haley Ishimatsu

TAF Impact: 'Out of the Dark'

Players Mentioned

Haley Ishimatsu

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University Southern California Trojans

TAF Impact: 'Out of the Dark'

Players Mentioned

Haley Ishimatsu

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