On May 5, six Stanford student-athletes faced their peers and did something that sports culture seldom allows. They told the truth about their struggles within their sport and their identities outside of it.
GameFACES, currently in its ninth year, is a yearly event influenced by Stanford’s Faces of Community initiative. Initially held during New Student Orientation (NSO), it has evolved into one of the most awaited traditions among student-athletes. It is an evening when athletes candidly discuss mental health, personal identity and the challenges associated with competing at an elite level.
This year’s speakers featured football player Fisher Anderson ’25 M.S. ’26, field hockey athlete Mia Clark ’27, rowers Célia Dupré ’27 and Abbey Heinemann ’26, track and field runner Juliette Whittaker ’26 and wrestler Lain Yapoujian ’27. Although details in their narratives varied, they all shared a strikingly similar theme: the peril of linking one’s values to achievements.
“Sports shows you who you are, but does not make you who you are,” said Dupré, who competed in the Olympics before coming to Stanford.
She described crossing what she had long imagined would be the ultimate finish line — the Olympics — and finding it empty.
“That fire within you”” she said, “it was always only yours.”
Anderson, a fifth-year on the football team, framed his talk around what he called a growth mindset and the freedom that comes from detaching your identity from outcomes. “When you stop tying your worth to the result of a play or a game,” he said, “you actually end up playing better.”
He applied to speak at GameFACES the year before and was not selected, something he believes was a blessing in disguise.
“The story hadn’t happened yet,” he said.
Clark spoke about struggles with self-harm, depression and suicidal ideation, as well as her family’s history. Her speech included a letter addressed directly to her mother, who was in the audience.
“I want nothing more than to be seen and loved for who I am,” Clark said, “and for that to happen, I have to be fully transparent with the people I love.”
Yapoujian, who suffered a life-threatening blood clot following a meniscus surgery in his freshman year, described what happens when the one thing you have built your identity around is suddenly gone.
“My sport could not carry the weight of my burdens,” he said. “It was never meant to.”
For the athletes in attendance, the effect was immediate. Carter Davis ’29, a football player, said watching his teammate Anderson speak was unlike anything he had experienced in the locker room.
“In football, you don’t really want to show vulnerability,” Davis said. “But by sharing his stories, it did help, and I’m glad that he did.”
Soccer player Milly Bray ’29 echoed similar sentiment, noting that the night served as a reminder that struggle is rarely as isolated as it feels. “You’re with your thoughts,” she said, “and you don’t always talk about them deeply with people. Events like this remind you that you’re not alone.”
Whether GameFACES translates into lasting conversation with coaches or teammates remains an open question. But for one night, Stanford’s athletes made a case that vulnerability and strength are not opposites.
As Anderson put it, the process of falling in love with who you are, separate from what you do, might be the most important competition of all.