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GoHeels Exclusive: Making Mental Health A Priority

As a tennis player at Notre Dame in the 1970s, Dr. Brian Hainline, the NCAA's chief medical officer, went through a bout of depression so severe that he considered dropping out of school.

He ultimately just quit the tennis team, costing him his scholarship. But after a year-long hiatus, he returned to the sport for his senior year, during which he played No. 1 singles and doubles for the Fighting Irish and paid his own way.

"Tennis became mine. It wasn't my parents' or my coach's," Hainline said. "But I understood the depths of what it could mean to be deeply clinically depressed.