Spring 2025 Community Impact Scholarship Winner

Sydney Elizabeth Garber

Sydney’s experiences balancing mental health while playing sports have inspired her to create an initiative that supports other female athletes. Her organization, The Iron Butterfly, serves as a resource for fostering meaningful conversations about mental health among female athletes nationwide. Congratulations, Sydney – your efforts are truly inspiring!

Read her essay here:

As a pitcher in high school softball, I know a lot about pressure. Between the daily test of your fortitude in the circle, combined with social media commentary on how you played and even what you looked like doing so, it can be a lot. On top of that, most athletes I know play year-round in exposure tournaments in front of prospective coaches, so the pressure is significant and unrelenting.

I discovered that the cumulative impact was weighing on my mental health. And in talking to other girls who play competitive sports, I learned that they were experiencing the same things. Hoping to learn more about mental health in women’s sports, I was disappointed to find limited resources available. I decided to do something meaningful about it.

Over the next several months, I collaborated with numerous NCAA head coaches and athletes across sports disciplines to identify the best resources to share. I also connected with mental health associations and professionals to get their support. At the end of May, in conjunction with Mental Health Awareness Month, The Iron Butterfly initiative was launched.

The news was picked up by almost 400 news outlets around the world (e.g., the Associated Press), reaching a potential audience of more than 55 million people. A subsequent feature article appeared in Yahoo Sports, which reached up to 35 million additional people, and our Instagram has reached more than 32,000 people to date. I was even highlighted on the front page of my state’s top newspaper and asked to present at a coaching conference on athlete burnout and recovery. See the full details of the initiative and news coverage in this file saved on DropBox.

What is most exciting about the initiative is that I get feedback directly from other female athletes who have read one of my dozen blogs, visited the website, or engaged with me on our Instagram page. I have been asked to collaborate on related initiatives with them, be a spokesperson on the subject, or most commonly simply thanked for making a difference in their lives by helping them feel more connected to others like them.