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Samantha Tran

Will Bermudez Named a 2024-25 CalHOPE Courage Award Winner

| By: Alex Roberts-Croteau
CalHOPE Courage Award 2024-2025 Associated Press story

SACRAMENTO, Calif. --- Will Bermudez, a redshirt-senior second baseman for the baseball team, and Mya Wang, a former lacrosse player for California have been selected as recipients of the 2024-25 CalHOPE Courage Award.
 
Presented monthly since February 2022, the CalHOPE Courage Award honors student-athletes at California colleges and universities who have overcome stress, anxiety, and mental trauma associated with personal hardships and adversity. Bermudez and Wang were selected from among the 14 student-athletes who were honored throughout the 2024-25 school year as those whose journey best represent the spirit of the award. 

Bermudez was previously honored as a monthly honoree in January 2025, the second Anteater to earn the honor along with women's soccer's Jenika Davis in 2022. The Whittier-native is the first recipient of the end-of-year award which comes with a $2,000 donation made to UC Irvine to support mental health services on campus. Since the inception of the program, more than $65,000 has been donated to support on-campus mental health services for students.

 
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About the CalHOPE Courage Award
The monthly CalHOPE Courage Award is presented by the College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA), in association with The Associated Press; CalHOPE, a Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) crisis counseling and support resource; and the Governor's Advisory Council on Physical Fitness and Mental Well-Being.

"CalHOPE is honored to continue recognizing student-athletes statewide who have overcome challenges to perform their best as both scholars and athletes," said Autumn Boylan, Deputy Director of the Office of Strategic Partnerships at DHCS, which oversees CalHOPE. "CalHOPE's purpose is to build community resilience and help people recover from disasters and public health emergencies through free outreach, crisis counseling, and support services. We hope that by sharing these stories of courage, all will be inspired."

Previous honorees this year have included: Ally Ratto (water polo, Delta College); Dublin Synnott (soccer, Saddleback College), Aaliyah Gayles (basketball, USC); Jailen Daniel-Dalton (basketball, San Francisco State; Mya Wang (lacrosse, University of California, Berkeley); and Justin Watterson, (track, Long Beach State).

At the end of the school year, two of the student-athletes will be selected as the CalHOPE Courage Award winners. The previous winners were: 2024 – Cameron Nelsen (volleyball, Antelope Valley College) and Myron "MJ" Amey (basketball, San Jose State); 2023 - Anysa and Amaya Gray (soccer, University of California, Berkeley) and Nigel Wilson (basketball, Pasadena City College); and 2022 - Julia Schwayder (lacrosse, Occidental College) and Breyon Jackson (basketball, San Francisco State).

Stories about all CalHOPE Courage Award honorees since 2022 are available at CalHOPECourageAward.org and via social media (X & Instagram) at @CalHOPE_Courage.

Sports information directors at all colleges and universities in California are encouraged to nominate deserving intercollegiate student-athletes at CalHOPECourageAward.org. The honorees are selected by a panel of writers, editors, The Associated Press, and the College Sports Communicators.

ABOUT CalHOPE
CalHOPE is a multi-level campaign run by DHCS to connect people with vital mental health and wellness resources and information to help them navigate during times of crisis. CalHOPE offers critical behavioral health crisis counseling programs and uses a public health approach that is focused on strength-based strategies for building resiliency and connecting people to the support they need. CalHOPE partners with the California Governor's Advisory Council on Physical Fitness and Mental Well-Being to promote the CalHOPE Courage Award. CalHOPE resources may be accessed by calling the program's warm line at (833) 317-HOPE (4673), accessing the live chat feature, or visiting www.calhope.org.
 
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