In spring 2022, a Trinity athlete brought a chapter of The Hidden Opponent (THO), a national program meant to highlight and support the mental health of student-athletes, to campus. The organization quickly gained steam and is looking to do more for the Trinity athletic community with new focuses and new leadership entering the semester.
Kai McClelland, junior communication major, brought THO to Trinity just under two years ago, opening the door for the mental health conversation at Trinity in a time where the stigma around mental health remained prevalent.
“My perception of the stigmatization of mental health was that if I start speaking about this, everyone’s going to have a negative response,” McClelland said. “As soon as I started talking about it, though, people had a really positive reaction. The main change over the last two years has been less about changing people’s attitudes and more about creating a community of athletes that were already in need of a space to express what they stood for. People are a lot more open to it.”
Following a successful photo campaign in the first year, the Trinity chapter aimed big, releasing a five-part video series in May 2023 detailing the “win at all costs” mentality in sports. The project was a massive success, gaining hundreds of thousands of views from athletes and supporters across the country. Following the successful campaign, McClelland joined THO as the national organization’s social media manager.
“The process started a few days after the video campaign was released,” McClelland said. “The Chief Operations Officer of THO, Leeann Passaro, approached me to tell me that our former social media manager had taken a position elsewhere. She asked if I wanted to join as a social media manager, and I said yes almost immediately.”
The Hidden Opponent is an organization founded in 2017 by former athlete Victoria Garrick, with the goal of allowing athletes to be open about their mental health struggles. The group has had support from around the country, with chapters in all 50 states at both the collegiate and high school levels.
Following McClelland’s transition to the manager role, a new president was needed to fill the vacant seat. Following a vote over the summer break, Carsyn Lee, sophomore business analytics and technology major, was elected as the second president in the young organization’s history.
“I’m really passionate about changing the culture in athletics,” Lee said. “You hear a lot of dialogue on teams from coaches and teammates that say that talking about mental health makes you weak or less of a competitor, and I’m passionate about changing that. If we can start here at Trinity, then we can grow a positive, destigmatized culture to other colleges and schools.”
Lee joins a leadership team that includes Trinity athletes from a number of different sports, including swimming, tennis, track & field and more. Some are entering their positions for the first time this semester, while others, such as Olivia Kim, junior psychology major, are returning for their second year.
“I was introduced to The Hidden Opponent in the spring of my freshman year through Kai,” Kim said. “She reached out to me about participating in a photo campaign for The Hidden Opponent’s Trinity chapter. After she reached out to me, I researched the organization and immediately became intrigued because mental health is a topic that isn’t openly talked about.”
Kim, who serves as the social media chair of the Trinity chapter, has been a member of the leadership team since the beginning. Since then, the organization has grown rapidly, taking a massive role both on campus and off.
“I don’t even know if there are words that can describe the growth I’ve seen over the past two years,” Kim said. “Being a part of this organization means so much to me. As student-athletes, we are expected to juggle academics, athletics and maintain a social life, which is a near-impossible task to accomplish. The most rewarding part of this whole experience is seeing the impact we have on student-athletes and seeing first-hand how the topic of mental health is becoming less taboo and more talked about.”
Though THO is primarily built around student-athletes, it is not an exclusive organization. As Lee pointed out, the group is open to anyone who wants to offer their support.
“We have a chapter GroupMe that’s linked on our Instagram, which anyone can join,” Lee said. “Typically, members get involved by reaching out and asking ‘What can I do,’ and they can help us table in the Coates Student Center or at the Involvement Fair. Anyone can get involved, and we love seeing the support.”
