Episode 33 - Reagan Rust

Trigger waring: discussion of suicidal ideation This week’s episode of The Mental Matchup features Reagan Rust, the first D1 ice hockey player to come out of Mississippi, and now professional hockey player in Stockholm Sweden. Reagan is the founder of the Female Athlete Society, a free platform that connects female athletes to each other, and to resources, to help them navigate their athletic career, feeling empowered and confident. She is also the host of the Unpaved Path Podcast where Reagan interviews people in the sports world who blazed their own trail, to highlight their successes, failures, and the lessons they learned. In our conversation, we talk about her first experience with depression and suicidal ideation in the ninth grade, and how she has dealt with depression and axiety, on and off, since then. We discuss the stresses of her recruiting process, the advice she gives to other athletes currently in the recruiting process, the sacrifices she made as a youth player, the difficulties she faced during her first two years in college at RIT including her transferring process, and her experience after transferring to BU. We also cover her inspiration behind the Female Athlete Society, how her support system showed up for her during tough times, and the structure of ice hockey leagues–Kat and Schuyler were both pretty clueless, and learned a lot. Find the Unpaved Path Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4GdXWwRO9nKEY53gpT2HiQ?si=3eadfa6fdcbf4004Check out the Female Athlete Society:https://www.femaleathletesociety.co/And learn more about Reagan:https://www.reaganrust.com/