Four days after Tyler Hilinski died by suicide, former Washington state wide receiver CJ Dimry approached the quarterback’s father, Mark, at a funeral in Southern California.
Dimry, a teammate and former roommate of Hilinski’s, began by telling Mark that he didn’t have a car during his time at Pullman. Somewhat taken aback by the comment, Mark Hilinski replied, “Yeah CJ, I know.”
Eventually, the story would come full circle, but for the next few minutes, Dimry went on to explain that his mother died of cancer when he was 5, something the Hilinskis were already aware of. The part they didn’t know about: For nearly 15 years, Dimry had sought counseling to help him cope with the loss.
Dimry’s visits ranged from weekly to monthly to yearly, but he received regular counseling during his three-year stay at Pullman. Almost without exception, Hilinski was the one who took his friend on dates. Hilinski would normally spend her time looking for dinner and waiting in his car. When Dimry finished, it was not uncommon for the WSU peers to recap the counseling session on the way home.
More than four years after the suicide death of their son, it’s one of the painful questions that still lingers for Mark and Kym Hilinski, who understand they may never get the answers they seek.
“It’s 20 feet from a door,” Mark said. “Why didn’t she ask for help?”
With Dimry’s blessing, it’s a story the Hilinskis have shared hundreds of times speaking to soccer players and student-athletes across the country while representing their nonprofit foundation, Hilinski’s Hope. The foundation was launched shortly after Tyler’s death with a mission to educate and advocate for mental health and wellness as he worked to eliminate the stigma associated with mental illness.
Mark and Kym have made this their life’s work. From their point of view, they had no choice.
For more than three years, the Hilinskis have given “Tyler Talks” to various groups and the couple recently traveled to the Inland Northwest to visit the Whitworth girls’ soccer and volleyball players on Wednesday afternoon. About 80 miles from where their son played college football in Washington state, the Hilinskis still express an affinity for the region, even if it brings up some complicated emotions.
“I feel like we’re home,” Mark told a crowd of about 200 at Whitworth’s Weyerhaeuser Hall. “We loved it here.”
Mark and Kym were in Reno, Nevada, on Tuesday talking to the Nevada soccer team, now led by Ken Wilson, the former WSU assistant who was once responsible for recruiting Tyler to Pullman. They flew from Reno to Spokane the same night, meeting with Whitworth athletes from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and catching a 5 p.m. flight before Thursday’s “Tyler Talk” with a group of high school athletes. in Portland.
The Hilinskis plan to visit 17 states in the coming months, including a trip to Hawaii. Later this month, they will fly to Ireland to watch their youngest son, Ryan, a junior quarterback at Northwestern, play Nebraska in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. Ryan, Northwestern’s presumptive starter this season, still wears his brother’s No. 3.
“We get on planes, get some sleep and do it all over again,” Kym Hilinski said. “… I think there is a need and I think these coaches and these universities are realizing it. Maybe it’s also Tyler’s story. We always say, if it can happen to Tyler…”
The Hilinskis uprooted their lives to spread Tyler’s story, raise funds for mental health awareness and bring to light issues that are often left unaddressed, particularly when it comes to male college athletes. The family sold his home in Southern California, two vehicles, and Mark quit his job in retail technology so he and Kym could spend more time at Hilinski’s Hope.
“Retail technology is a lucrative business, telling this sad story is not,” said Mark. “It’s not meant to be, that’s not the purpose. So I started a new company this year to help on that side. But to the most important point, we were not planning for this growth and we are somewhat surprised with the number of applications.”
Whitworth coach Rod Sandberg connected with the Hilinskis through Ian Furness, a KJR Radio host, FOX 13 sportscaster and WSU alumnus, whose son, Kiefer, plays offensive line for the Pirates. In 2019, Furness hosted a golf tournament in Maple Valley, Washington that raised money for Hilinski’s Hope.
“I said, ‘I don’t have any money,’” Sandberg said. “They do this to raise money to make a difference. I said you pick the date, I’ll make the time.
“I can talk about it all I want, they experienced it. The courage they have to stand there and share is incredible. You can tell, they had the attention of all our players and they were able to tell them to get help in a way that I can’t.”
Although many are still reluctant to engage in conversations about mental health, the Hilinskis receive constant affirmation that they are making an impact on the lives of young people.
“Somebody walks up to me and whispers in my ear, ‘You just saved my life,’” Kym said. “That’s so humiliating and it just blows your mind and honestly, it happens after every ‘Tyler Talk.’ Each talk said: ‘You changed my life’ or ‘you saved my life’”.
Only Hines, a junior runner at Whitworth, admitted that he has faced suicidal thoughts and battled depression in the past. Wednesday’s “Tyler Talk” hit close to home for the Kent, Washington native, serving as a reminder to himself and others that resources are always available to those struggling.
“It really felt welcoming, it felt like home to me hearing that,” Hines said. “I didn’t really know this at the time, or at the time I was going through my depression and suicidal (thoughts), but it’s nice to know that there are people who love me for me, who will help me and care about me as well. “
Kym Hilinski recognized the pressure student-athletes face in 2022. As the Pac-12’s projected starting quarterback in the midst of the social media age, Tyler found his share of those pressures at WSU, but Kym believes the portal as well as new Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) opportunities have added to the strain of being a modern college athlete.
“So much pressure and stress that I don’t think they realize how much pressure and stress they are under,” he said.
Mark added: “Or they do it and they’re athletes and they soak it up.”
Through in-person and virtual visits to more than 150 colleges, the Hilinskis have seen an evolution in the way college athletic leaders, particularly head football coaches, address mental health issues. Some of the early “Tyler Talks” were athlete-only affairs, but now Mark and Kym notice coaches in the audience more often, and it’s not uncommon for them to hold exclusive meetings with coaching staffs who are eager to learn what they can. do for your players
“We had someone need attention in the middle of a talk, the head football coach on the West Coast stopped the thing, everyone loved this kid, the players surrounded him,” Mark said. “If you could bottle that up, it would break the stigma on college football.”
“If your coach knows and believes that you have to take care of your mental health,” Kym said, “then I think student-athletes are like, ‘Yeah, I have to.’”
Whitworth’s defensive back and junior captain Colten Chelin agreed that conversations about mental health and mental wellness have become more prevalent since he joined the Pirates football team in 2018.
“They’re always going to tell you, ‘Oh, be tough, you’re fine, put some dirt on it,’ and you can’t do that with mental health,” he said. “So the stigma is slowly going away, but this was a great reminder.”
Even with all the work they’ve done, Mark and Kym Hilinski know their work is nowhere near done. In 2020, they earned an ESPN Stuart Scott ENSPIRE Award during ESPY week. They made several appearances on NBC’s Today show to share Tyler’s story. They recently put together an ESPN.com list that names “The 11 Greatest Power Agents and Defenders Shaping the Future of College Football.” Others on the list included SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Jackson State coach Deion Jackson.
Acknowledging that the website probably considered them “advocates” rather than “power brokers,” Mark still couldn’t resist the joke: “Kym Hilinski and Greg Sankey, the power brokers of college football.”
Through Hilinski’s Hope, the couple launched “Game Plan,” a six-part online mental health course that can be purchased for $6. Their “Unit3d” podcast, sponsored by Hilinski’s Hope and hosted by sports psychologists and mental health professionals, just completed its 150th episode. This year alone, they will deliver more than 100 “Tyler Talks,” a marked increase from the 18 they They gave the first year.
“We don’t have answers, we’re not telling people, go drink this water and everything will be fine,” Mark said. “It’s just, if you give them enough of a story that hurts, it tends to resonate a little bit. … There is not a lot of work we can do to fix it.”
Near the end of an interview Wednesday afternoon, Mark Hilinski pulled out his phone to make sure he and his wife were still on their way to catch a flight to Portland. With a photo of Tyler as his wallpaper, Mark couldn’t help but smile as he noted the time.
15:33
“All we want is for him to come back,” Kym said. “We would give anything to get Tyler back.”
