The Mental Matchup

This week on The Mental Matchup, we’re joined by Trevor Ruhland — former Division I football player and national champion at University of Notre Dame.

Trevor opens up about what was happening behind the scenes while competing at the highest level of college football, including his battle with an eating disorder, identity struggles tied to performance, and the pressure to always appear strong.

In this episode, we talk about identity beyond sport, the silent battles many athletes face, vulnerability in men’s mental health, and what it looks like to find purpose after the game ends. Trevor shares his story with honesty in hopes that other athletes feel less alone and more willing to ask for help.

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This week on The Mental Matchup, we’re joined by Hania Taduran—former Division I beach volleyball athlete and founder of Breaking Barriers, an organization dedicated to advancing mental health support for athletes through education, peer connection, and advocacy.

Hania brings a rare and powerful perspective to this conversation, blending her lived experience as a high-performing athlete with her clinical training in Marriage and Family Therapy. Having competed on a nationally ranked NCAA team at FIU, she understands firsthand the pressure, identity challenges, and emotional weight that often come with elite athletics.

In this episode, Hania opens up about her personal journey and the experiences that shaped her passion for making mental health support more accessible and usable for athletes.

Together, we explore:

Hidden grief in athletics and how it shows up in performance, identity, and emotional well-being

Why athletes often struggle to name or process grief—and what actually helps

Barriers to help-seeking in sports and the subtle ways stigma shows up in athletic culture

What it takes to shift environments so athletes feel safe asking for support

The story behind Breaking Barriers and how Hania is turning awareness into meaningful, systemic change

This conversation is an honest look at what so many athletes carry behind the scenes—and a reminder that vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s a pathway to connection, healing, and growth.

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This week on The Mental Matchup, we’re joined by Tyler Ingle — a former student-athlete and communications professional whose journey through mental health challenges is as raw as it is impactful.

Tyler opens up about navigating anxiety, depression, and a severe eating disorder, while also processing deeply personal experiences like his father leaving at a young age. These are the kinds of struggles that often go unspoken in athletics and in life—and Tyler is changing that.

Through honesty and reflection, Tyler shares how his experiences shaped not only who he is today, but how he shows up for others. From working across professional sports leagues like the NWSL and USL to supporting athletes at the collegiate level, his mission is clear: to make a positive difference and remind people they’re not alone.

In this episode, we talk about:

The hidden nature of mental health struggles in athletes

What it looks like to confront anxiety, depression, and disordered eating

Processing abandonment and its long-term impact

Practical strategies Tyler used to move forward

How vulnerability can become a tool for connection and change

This conversation is a powerful reminder that healing isn’t linear—and that your story, no matter how heavy, can become something that helps someone else keep going.

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This week on The Mental Matchup, Lisa Fiore shares a deeply personal story about how her mental health journey has shaped the way she shows up — as a parent, leader, and advocate.

Lisa opens up about struggling with disordered eating beginning in high school and navigating a path that spanned more than two decades. She reflects on how those experiences changed her relationship with herself and how they now inform the way she talks about mental health with her children and supports others in her community.

Today, Lisa channels her experiences into leadership and service. A former Executive Director of Girls on the Run and current Director of Strategic Partnerships for the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges, she is passionate about creating supportive environments for young people to grow and thrive.

We talk about healing, resilience, parenting with openness, and the hope that comes from sharing your story.

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This week on The Mental Matchup, we sit down with Laura Ollinger, a Teen & Young Adult Well-Being Coach and Founder of Positively Healthy Coaching. Laura works 1:1 with teens to help them navigate stress, anxiety, and self-doubt while building the tools they need to thrive.

With an extensive background — including being a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Elite Neuroencoding Specialist, and clinically certified in stress and self-regulation through HeartMath — Laura brings both science and strategy to her work with young people.

In this episode, we explore:

The biggest challenges teens and young adults are facing today

How stress and anxiety show up — and what to do about it

The difference between confidence that’s built vs. confidence that’s performed

Practical tools to help young people regulate emotions and build resilience

How parents, coaches, and mentors can better support the athletes and teens in their lives

Laura’s approach focuses on developing both mindset and skill set — empowering young people to feel more confident, connected, and clear in who they are and where they’re going.

This conversation is a must-listen for anyone invested in the well-being and development of the next generation.

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Ally Irish is back for Part 2 on The Mental Matchup—and this time, we’re diving deeper into her work in athlete mental health research.

Building off her experience co-founding The Head Game Project, Ally shares insights from a qualitative research study conducted with NCAA Division III athletes, focused on understanding well-being through the lens of the whole person. From identity and time demands to team culture, relationships, and external pressures, this conversation explores the many factors that shape a student-athlete’s experience beyond performance.

We unpack what athletes are really navigating day-to-day—and why shifting the conversation to support the full human behind the athlete is critical for long-term well-being and success.

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This week on The Mental Matchup, we’re joined by former Division II lacrosse player Allison Irish, who co-founded The Head Game Project, a peer-to-peer mental health advocacy group created to support student-athletes and spark more open conversations about well-being.

What started as a senior-year initiative at Saint Anselm College became the foundation for Ally’s career in clinical psychology and athlete mental health. We talk about athlete-led advocacy, shifting sport culture, and how empowering teammates to support one another can transform well-being and performance.

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What if an athlete doesn’t quit because they stop loving their sport — but because they never learned how to handle the pressure?

This week on The Mental Matchup, Coach Bre shares her journey as a former collegiate volleyball player who appeared successful on the outside while quietly struggling with the mental demands of high-level competition. Discovering mental performance training later in her career transformed her relationship with sport and inspired her life’s work.

Now a Certified Mental Performance Coach and Co-Founder of The Elite Competitor, Coach Bre helps athletes, coaches, and parents build practical mental skills so athletes can handle pressure, grow through adversity, and enjoy their sport — before burnout or setbacks hit.

A 4× state champion head volleyball coach, Coach Bre brings 13+ years of experience and a background in education to redefining how mental training shows up in sports.

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This week, we’re joined by former Division III lacrosse player and mental health counselor Maddie Meadows.

Maddie shares her journey with anxiety — and the pivotal conversation with her mom that led her to begin therapy. Just two years later, during her senior lacrosse season, her mom was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Maddie opens up about navigating anticipatory grief while balancing athletics, academics, and life after sport.

Now working in the mental health field, she reflects on the gaps in support at the Division III level and challenges the idea that “mental toughness” should come before mental health.

This episode is a powerful reminder that athletes are human first — and that support systems matter.

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In this episode of The Mental Matchup, Kat chats with Aubrey — a Division I field hockey player at Lehigh University and co-founder of the Live Like Liv Foundation — to talk about what it’s really like to navigate profound loss as a young adult and student-athlete.

After losing her best friend, Liv, to leukemia, Aubrey found herself balancing the demands of Division I athletics while carrying a grief that felt impossible to put into words. In this conversation, she shares how loss reshaped her identity, her relationship with sport, and the way she shows up for others.

Aubrey opens up about:

What grief looked like behind the scenes of being a “high-functioning” athlete

The silent pressure student-athletes feel to keep performing while struggling internally

How vulnerability became a source of strength

Building the Live Like Liv Foundation to honor her best friend’s legacy

This episode is a reminder that student-athletes are navigating more than practices, games, and exams — they’re navigating life. And sometimes, that life includes unimaginable loss.

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