By: Kevin FrylingIndiana University
Every year, Indiana University optometry students and faculty deliver free eye exams to thousands of people, including nearly 10,000 children across Indiana and abroad. They also provide vision screenings for hundreds of amateur sports players, including those competing in Special Olympics and college athletes at IU.
The screenings conducted in partnership with IU Athletics are an especially high-intensity exercise, with hundreds of busy student-athletes coming through Memorial Stadium in spring, summer and fall.
At a vision screening event early last year, IU optometrists discovered an uncorrected eye problem in one particularly high-profile player: Fernando Mendoza, the 2026 Heisman Trophy winner and IU quarterback who led the Hoosiers to their historic undefeated football season and College Football Playoff National Championship win.
Struggling to see
“When I got (to IU) and did the eye testing, I found out that I actually needed better vision, and that I was living my life straining for better vision,” said Mendoza, who was diagnosed with hyperopia, or farsightedness, which is treatable with contact lenses or glasses.
Fernando Mendoza, who was diagnosed with farsightedness during a free vision screening in partnership with IU Athletics. Photo courtesy of the IU School of Optometry
“It helped my confidence knowing that I did everything possible to help my vision, and that I was at the same level — if not better — than other players at seeing the field,” he added. “It really helped me with my peripheral vision. That’s a big thing when you’re playing the game; everything happens so fast.”
Mendoza said he thought it was normal for close-up objects to appear blurry.
The optometrist who leads IU’s vision screenings said it’s a familiar story. Many patients don’t realize the eye strain and fatigue that can result from farsightedness — especially younger patients whose focus system is better able to mask issues.
“Hyperopia is a condition in which you can see well most of the time, but you’re putting in a lot of work to see,” said Dr. Katie Connolly, an associate clinical professor and chief of Pediatric and Binocular Vision Services at the IU School of Optometry.
“By the end of the day, people with farsightedness will experience their vision going in and out; they may get headaches a lot more easily, and they may get tired a lot more easily.”
As the optometrist who leads eye exams for IU Athletics, Connolly provides personal vision care to the majority of IU student-athletes, with support from several other colleagues at the IU Atwater Eye Care Center, which is run by the IU School of Optometry.
A close relationship
The relationship between the school and IU Athletics began in 1985, according to Nicholas Port, a professor at the IU School of Optometry. Port started working closely with IU student-athletes through his research on eye tracking and concussions, coordinating with Dr. Steven Hitzeman, the emeritus faculty member who had established the original vision screening program.
In 2016, Connolly took over the clinical program following Hitzeman’s retirement. Port maintains a shared office space in the south end zone of Memorial Stadium a dedicated research space alongside student-athlete services such as sports medicine, dining, nutrition, athletic training and rehabilitation.
“The research space is very unique,” Port said. “Only one or two other universities have research space that’s sitting inside an athletics building. That proximity makes a huge difference when you’re recruiting students for studies.”
The South End Zone Complex also serves as the staging ground for the optometry screenings, Connolly said.
These screenings serve about 200 new student-athletes each academic year. Each event involves quickly rotating students through stations staffed by small teams of optometry students overseen by faculty. The screenings test for eye alignment issues, ocular disease, depth perception and refractive error.
The final test, which determines students’ need for corrective lenses, is conducted by Connolly or a clinical colleague. Everything else is handled by optometry students, with oversight from a trained faculty optometrist.
Learning through practice
In addition to providing critical vision care, Connolly said, the screenings are an important opportunity to practice delivering efficient and high-quality patient care for students at the IU School of Optometry, which educates 80 percent of all optometrists in Indiana.
“The more experience our students get in a clinical environment, the stronger they will be as optometrists after graduation,” she said. “In the case of the athletes’ screenings, it’s also an important chance to work with a unique patient base. Student-athletes have different needs than others they might see in their general clinic.”
Jenna Barbour, a fourth-year student at the IU School of Optometry, was serving at the event where Mendoza received his hyperopia diagnosis.
“Vision screenings have been essential to my early skill development as an optometrist because they’re an opportunity to grow our clinical skills,” Barbour said. “I also assumed wrongly that most of the athletes would have close-to-perfect vision, since many sports rely on hand-eye coordination and visual accuracy. I remember being surprised by how many we referred to the eye clinic for a comprehensive exam.”
In addition to screenings with IU Athletics, IU School of Optometry students get several other opportunities to work with patients in the community. Locally, the school partners with school districts in Monroe and surrounding counties to provide free, in-school vision screenings to about 5,000 children. It also participates in the Special Olympics’ Opening Eyes event in Terre Haute, Indiana, an annual event that provides free eye screenings to nearly 500 participants.
Internationally, Connolly accompanies IU optometry students on an annual trip to Jamaica, where they provide eye screenings to approximately 4,000 children through See Better, Learn Better, a 501c3 nonprofit organization for which she serves as executive director.
“Routine eye exams aren’t just about seeing better; they help people perform their best in school, at work and in life,” Connolly said. “No one should have to get too far in life with an undetected vision problem.”
