UNCW SAAC hosts ‘Pie an Athlete’ event

Funds raised benefitted 'Hilinski's Hope'

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WWAY) – The UNCW Student Athlete Advisory Committee held an event Wednesday raising hundreds of dollars for the organization ‘Hilinski’s Hope‘.

It’s to promote student athlete mental health and destigmatize that athletes need to be overtly brazen and brawn.

“We’re raised to be tough, but mental health isn’t just something you can fight through,” said Hannah Altman, a junior on the UNCW Woman’s Golf Team.

Paddy Morris is the Special Events Coordinator for SAAC and is also a junior on the swim team. He said it was very impactful to meet the Hilinski family and hear their story.

“I think a lot of time (mental health for student athletes) gets overlooked,” said Morris. “People see us as a happy successful done everything we possibly could… A lot of us struggle. A lot of us struggle from the pressures from coaching, pressures from athletics, school, everything. It’s hard to find outlets and Hilinski’s Hope is one of those outlets.

UNCW’s SAAC has around 75 members. Each of those representatives goes to an athletic team and brings concerns to the group, who has the hear of Athletic Director Micheal Oblinger. Just this year, they brought in a full-time director of student-athlete wellbeing. Morris adds it’s allowed many student athletes to take big strides in their mental health.

Tyler Hilinski was a former division one football player at Washington State. On January 16 2018, after not showing up for practice earlier that day, Hilinski was found dead in his apartment with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was 21 years old. According to police, a rifle, which belonged to one of his teammates, was recovered next to him along with a suicide note. The death was officially ruled a suicide. Doctors revealed that Hilinski was found to have Stage 1 chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which caused him to have the ‘brain of a 65-year-old’.