A growing movement of coaches and physical education teachers are intentionally addressing mental wellbeing in youth sports by helping students recognize and process their feelings, have trusted adults to talk to, and be resilient through life’s ups and downs, according to a K-12 Dive article.
“I don’t care about the four years or three years of them winning and losing. I care about the 80 years after this, or the 20 years after this that they’re going to have the real scoreboard and how they’re approaching life,” says Lio Quezada, head coach of the boys and girls wrestling teams at Virginia’s Fairfax High School near Washington, D.C. He also teaches social studies at the school.
To better understand how to support students’ mental health, Quezada participated in mental health training for coaches through the Eric Monday Foundation, a nonprofit that raises awareness about mental health and provides tools to coaches, athletic directors and parents to support students’ mental well-being.
The foundation’s mental health training is required for all middle and high school coaches in Fairfax County Public Schools. In December, the foundation said 5,000 coaches in Virginia and 15 other states had participated.
The foundation is named after Eric Monday, a wrestler who died in 2009 at age 21 while suffering from depression. Brian Monday, Eric’s father, said he created the foundation after seeing Eric’s experiences with both coaches who were supportive and those who ignored or did not address his mental health struggles.
The free online training does not aim to make coaches mental health professionals or experts. It gives coaches tools to engage with students holistically and to address mental health concerns that arise. Many coaches are not educators or full-time employees of school districts.
The foundation’s training uses the acronym LASRR for Listen, Accept, Support, Refer and Report. It includes information about how coaches can recognize and respond to youth mental health issues when they occur.
“We spend a lot of time telling coaches that your teams are going to be more successful when everybody feels like they’re engaged and part of it, not isolated,” Monday says.
These organizations also stress the importance of youth mental wellness through exercise and sports:
- Morgan’s Message, another Virginia-based nonprofit, has a student athlete ambassador program where high school and college students promote mental health awareness on their campuses with the aim of eliminating the mental health stigma among student athletes.
- The Society of Health and Physical Educators, or SHAPE America, launched the health. moves. minds. program alongside Booster, an education fundraising solutions company in 2019. The program offers publicly accessible curricula and integrates school fundraising with physical, social, emotional and mental wellness activities.
“We like to say that we teach our students that when they take care of their body as well as their mind, they live their best life,” says SHAPE CEO Stephanie Morris. “Mental health has to be something we pay attention to through physical education and health education so that our students have the opportunity to grow holistically.”
Research has shown that youth participation in sports can bring mental and physical benefits – and it can also lead to mental health challenges, according to a 2024 article published by Johns Hopkins Medicine. Some youth athletes might equate their athletic performance with their self-worth or feel overwhelmed and anxious.
According to a February website post by the National Federation of State High School Associations, specializing in a sport at a young age can put youngsters at risk for burnout, injury, mood issues, anxiety and lower self-esteem.
The competitive nature of sports makes it necessary for coaches to ensure youth athletes have the social, emotional and mental tools to handle pressures on and off the field, says Andrew Baird, director of student activities at James Madison High School, which is also in Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools.
When he hires coaches, Baird looks for people who will help make sports a positive experience for students — including being committed to supporting students’ mental and physical development.
“If we expect our teenagers to make the right decision 100% of the time, we’re setting them up for failure,” Baird says. Having students know that coaches care about them “is that first step in a difficult situation for a teenager to say, ‘Hey, I’m struggling.’”
Parents, coaches and organizations leading the movement say it isn’t about lowering expectations or shielding students from disappointments or challenges. It’s about helping them recognize and work through tough situations, as well as having trusted adults to talk to, they say.
If youth athletes are “not in a good space — mentally, socially, emotionally — whatever we’re teaching them on the ball field doesn’t even matter, because they’re not going to retain it at all,” Baird says.
K-12 Dive
