For Rowan field hockey’s Kylie Elwell, sports are not just sports, but a way of life. In all honesty, they were her life.

“Since I was five years old, I’ve played a sport every season. I was a three-sport athlete my entire life, and then was playing travel sports on top of those three sports,” Elwell said.

Elwell played field hockey and lacrosse at Egg Harbor Township High School. At first, she wanted to play lacrosse in college but decided to pursue field hockey instead during her senior year. After visiting many colleges, including Rowan, Elwell committed to East Stroudsburg University (ESU) in 2021.

Initially, Elwell was excited to begin her athletic career at ESU, however, things started to take a turn during the first few weeks of her time there.

“I was redshirted with three other girls, and then my mental health was not well because I was three hours from home. Then within the first month of being at school, my grandmother passed away, who I was really, really close to. That was the first major death in my family,” Elwell said. “So that just was very, very hard. I was just really not in a great space.”

On top of her grandmother’s death, Elwell, who had already experienced depression in the past, struggled academically as well.

“My grades were horrendous because of this. In high school, I was a varsity athlete all four years. I had all A’s and was in the National Honor Society. So, for me to not be playing and for my grades to be that bad, I just didn’t feel like myself at all,” Elwell said.

The situation worsened when two of the three girls Elwell was redshirted with, transferred to other schools. Although Elwell had the opportunity to join the team with her other teammates transferring, she knew she would have little playing time. She decided it would be better to keep her year of eligibility and spent the year redshirted. The other redshirt freshman left on the team took the opportunity, leaving Elwell as the only redshirted player.

After spending some time at home to grieve the loss of her grandmother, Elwell returned to ESU. Without the usual comfort of a sport, Elwell’s mental health suffered, to the point where she considered taking her own life.

“I was just in a really bad place, and it got to the point where basic daily tasks were just difficult to do, like getting out of bed, brushing my teeth, and remembering to eat. I had struggled with that before, but the added part, I think of my grandma passing away, and me viewing her as this incredible woman. Her just being gone and feeling like nothing got affected–it kind of made me value my own life less,” Elwell said. “Because she was one of the best people I’ve ever known and she’s just gone, and I’m really not that great. If I was gone, it wouldn’t affect people nearly as much as it did with her.”

Despite feeling so depressed, Elwell still went to class and practice. Over winter break, her parents talked with her about how she was feeling and tried to convince her to transfer to a school closer to home. Elwell, however, wanted to go back to ESU as she had friends on the team and had signed a full-year apartment lease.

 “I went back, and I worked my butt off that spring, in all our spring practices. I did extra work outside of practice. My grades were a little bit better, but my GPA was so low it barely budged,” Elwell said. “I thought I did really well that spring.”

Come the end of the semester, it was clear that ESU was not the right fit for Elwell. She started wondering if she should have chosen lacrosse or could find a way to play both sports at ESU. After considering all her options and talking with ESU’s field hockey and lacrosse coaches, she reached out to someone she knew she could talk to– her high school field hockey coach. Elwell’s former coach knew Rowan’s current field hockey coach, Michelle Andre, from their coaching days at Stockton University.

The phone call with her former coach made Elwell reflect on her first visit to Rowan during her senior year of high school and how Andre made her feel wanted.

“Michelle said at the end of the trip, ‘I understand you may be exploring different divisions right now and that Rowan might not be on the top of your priority list. But just know if anything happens wherever you end up, know that you’ll always have a place here on this team,” Elwell said. “I didn’t realize how much I was going to need that.”

Elwell debated transferring to Rowan for the upcoming fall semester but knew she still needed time to recharge mentally, or her play would suffer. Due to a miscommunication issue about transferring, Elwell was not on ESU’s field hockey or lacrosse team and watched as her teammates won both the Conference and National Championships.

Elwell turned to drinking to numb the pain.

“I was so depressed… I don’t think I was sober-minded a single day that entire semester. I was just so miserable, and then them winning everything was just the added slap in the face,” Elwell said. “I called Michelle and was like, ‘I actually think I want to transfer in the spring now like I needed to get out. I can’t do this. I’m so miserable not playing a sport right now. I need to be doing something.’’

Elwell told Rowan’s field hockey coaches about her mental health struggles when she transferred in the spring of 2023.

“When I came to Rowan, I had gotten better with doing my schoolwork but was still struggling,” Elwell said. “I told them that outright. Assistant coach Kristiina [Castagnola] put together a study hall to help me get my homework done.”

Now Elwell is in a better headspace, something she links to her faith.

“I started realizing that my life is so much more than how I’m doing in my sports right now. I’m putting so much pressure on myself and crying and literally planning on taking my own life over a sport that should be my outlet,” Elwell said. “It wasn’t until I started going back to church that I realized that my identity is more than my sport. God doesn’t care how well I play field hockey, He just cares about me.”

The biggest advice Elwell has for anyone who is struggling– is to talk to someone. Elwell helps other Rowan students talk about their mental health as President of The Hidden Opponent Club (THO). THO is a mental health-based club for student-athletes.

“If you’re struggling, find somebody to talk to and find somebody to talk to that will help you, which is why we have THO. It’s so that, if you see your teammate at a meeting, there’s somebody that cares about their own mental health,” Elwell said. “If they’re trying to work on it, you can talk to them without it being a judgment type thing. You know that they’re going to be empathetic because they’re either struggling with it themselves, or they’re looking to help their teammates who are struggling.”

The club focuses on providing a safe space for athletes to discuss their mental health experiences and learn about different ways to help them through whatever they are going through. One helpful tool for athletes discussed is time management.

“If you’re struggling with staying on top of your assignments, you can say, ‘This is what I’m having a hard time with,” Elwell said. “If you don’t tell anyone what you’re feeling, you can’t get help for it. And then it goes both ways. Even if you’re not struggling with something, and you’re like, I’m completely on top of everything. I’m on top of my schoolwork. I’m on top of my sport. I’m happy. I still think it’s beneficial to be a part of it because then you learn how you can help your teammates. There might be somebody who’s too scared to say something, and just you being like, ‘Hey, how are you doing? Let’s check in, it can change somebody’s life.”

Elwell is pursuing a degree in elementary education and is hoping to coach middle school field hockey so she can be there for athletes the way her coaches were there for her; not only as Kylie the athlete but as Kylie the person as well.

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