USWNT's Naomi Girma spearheads mental health initiative to honor Katie Meyer, her fallen friend

AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Grief had been pelting Naomi Girma irregularly for around a year when she had the idea to honor her fallen friend.

She’d been thinking about Katie Meyer, her former Stanford soccer teammate who died by suicide last March. Thinking about her warmth and spirit. And so, around the anniversary of Meyer’s shocking death, Girma decided: I want to build something in her legacy.

She emailed Lilli Barrett-O’Keefe, the executive director of Common Goal USA, a non-profit dedicated to "tackling the greatest social challenges of our time."

Girma knew she had a massive platform looming, the Women’s World Cup; and she wanted to use it.

“I want to launch a movement,” Girma told Barrett-O’Keefe. Over the coming months, she pulled in U.S. teammates and crafted video scripts. Together with Common Goal and Fox Sports, she crafted a mental health initiative that launched Wednesday — and that, Barrett-O’Keefe believes, is already saving lives.

It began with a powerful public service announcement, to anybody struggling: “Dig in, reach out,” USWNT players preached. “Vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness.”

It also began with a piece published Tuesday in The Players Tribune that, for Girma, was difficult to narrate. “It’s still very raw for me,” she said of Meyer and the void her “true friend” left. But “through this project,” Girma said, “her spirit, her warmth, and her legacy will live on. We will make sure of that.”

The project, she and others hope, will “destigmatize the conversation around mental health, especially for the millions of young people around the country who will be watching this World Cup.” Fox Sports has pledged 1% — over two hours — of its World Cup airtime to the subject.

Girma, Sofia Huerta and Sophia Smith — another teammate and friend of Meyer at Stanford — also shot a three-part video series in which they share their mental health struggles with young girls. Girma had looped in Smith with the project already crafted, and of course Smith jumped aboard, because “everything that we do is now for Katie,” Smith said.

Girma was determined all along that the project would go beyond awareness. “For her, it's all about action,” Barrett-O’Keefe said. Girma wrote: “We want to make sure that young people have the tools to cope with depression, anxiety, stress and the very bad days, when it feels like the weight of the world is on their shoulders, and it can never get better.”

So they formulated a plan. After the World Cup, after the PSAs that have already been viewed by millions, they’re “going to send out mental health professionals to youth sports organizations in communities across the country, to make sure that the coaches and players have the tools and skills to know when someone is dealing with a mental health issue, and how to get the proper help,” Girma said.

That part of the project is still under construction, but Barrett-O’Keefe explained further: “We're bringing together coaches from underserved communities in over 20 communities across the U.S. to come in and do a trauma-informed training with us in-person.”

That will happen this winter. Additionally, during the National Women’s Soccer League offseason, they’ll work with NWSL teams “to train players to be mental health captains, or advocates, champions,” Barrett-O’Keefe said.

And all of this, Barrett-O’Keefe said, originated from Girma, a 23-year-old center back primed to step into the World Cup spotlight.

“Naomi Girma is one-of-a-kind,” Barrett-O’Keefe raved. “On and off the field.”

Girma wanted “to harness that [spotlight] and make a difference,” Barrett-O’Keefe said. “She wanted to ensure that young people that don't have access to mental health resources have tools.”

She’d already been funneling 1% of her salary to Football For Her, a non-profit working to expand soccer access for female-identifying and non-binary youth, Barrett-O’Keefe said. Now, she was curating videos and reading every word of news releases. As she prepared for the biggest tournament of her life, she “was completely hands-on” Barrett-O’Keefe said.

Girma did it all amid soccer stress because she knows “how precious life is, too,” she said. “I know how many people are suffering. I know that the people who are smiling the most, and laughing the loudest, and loving people the hardest, and shining the brightest … sometimes, they’re going through things that you could never imagine.”

“We want to help them shoulder the burden,” she continued. “If we have one mission, it’s for young people to feel less alone.” Within hours of the campaign’s release, Barrett-O’Keefe said, people who’d seen it were already feeling that.

Girma did it all because she wants that to be Meyer’s legacy.

“This World Cup,” she wrote, “is for you, my friend.”