"We celebrate athletes when they commit to schools: the announcements, the photos, and the moment when years of hard work finally seem to pay off. But we rarely talk about the emotional toll it takes to get there, or what happens when the dream you built your identity around suddenly disappears."

In an Athletes for Hope post, UC San Diego fencing's Hania Hafeez details the recruiting journey that led her to UC San Diego, along with reflections on her collegiate journey after her freshman year. Read the full story HERE.

Hafeez is a member of the Athlete Mental Health Alliance through Athletes for Hope. The epeeist is a native of Windham, New Hampshire. She is entering her sophomore year at Eighth College, where she studies biochemistry.

About Athletes for Hope
AFH is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit that aims to educate, encourage, and assist athletes in their efforts to engage with community and charitable causes, to increase public awareness of and support for those efforts, and to inspire others to do the same. AFH empowers professional, Olympic, Paralympic and collegiate athletes to channel their energy for a common goal: to make the world a better place.

About the Athlete Mental Health Alliance
The Athlete Mental Health Alliance (AMHA) exists to elevate athlete voices and turn lived experience into action—challenging the systems that have too often failed to support mental health in sport. By bringing together athletes, research, advocacy, and partners, AMHA is working toward a national approach to athlete mental health—one designed with athletes, for athletes, to create lasting change across all levels of sport.

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of The Big West in NCAA Division I. The 24-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 39 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in NCAA Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.