\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFriday night was about more than touchdowns and traditions as St. Xavier and Elder High School faced off on the field, organizers turned the rivalry into a chance to talk about something both schools say matters even more than the score: young men\u2019s mental health.Booths from Cincinnati Children\u2019s and local nonprofits like 988 and the Ben Morrison Foundation lined the concourse, offering resources and one-on-one conversations for students and families. Saint X\u2019s therapy dog, Evan, greeted students, while members of the school\u2019s Sources of Strength club handed out information and shared their own stories of where they find help.\u201cWe\u2019re trying to deconstruct this idea that being manly means forcing your mental health down and not talking about it,\u201d said Jason Ahlers, Saint X\u2019s assistant principal for student life. \u201cI graduated in 1991 \u2014 we were taught if you talked about mental health, people would harm themselves. We now understand that\u2019s just not right.\u201dStudents echoed that message.\u201cI\u2019d say my source of strength is probably healthy activity,\u201d said junior AJ Thomas. Eric Nienabear added, \u201cFor me, it\u2019s my mom and dad. I rely on them \u2014 they\u2019re kind of my rock.\u201dOrganizers say the goal is simple but urgent: use a packed stadium and a heated rivalry to normalize asking for help.\u201cMy ultimate hope is that if there’s one kid in this crowd who feels alone, who feels like it’s too hard, that he’s going to ask somebody to talk about it. That’s all that would matter. That’s what’s important.” Ahlers said.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tCINCINNATI \u2014<\/strong> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Friday night was about more than touchdowns and traditions as St. Xavier and Elder High School faced off on the field, organizers turned the rivalry into a chance to talk about something both schools say matters even more than the score: young men\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n Booths from Cincinnati Children\u2019s and local nonprofits like 988 and the Ben Morrison Foundation lined the concourse, offering resources and one-on-one conversations for students and families. Saint X\u2019s therapy dog, Evan, greeted students, while members of the school\u2019s Sources of Strength club handed out information and shared their own stories of where they find help.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to deconstruct this idea that being manly means forcing your mental health down and not talking about it,\u201d said Jason Ahlers, Saint X\u2019s assistant principal for student life. \u201cI graduated in 1991 \u2014 we were taught if you talked about mental health, people would harm themselves. We now understand that\u2019s just not right.\u201d<\/p>\n Students echoed that message.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say my source of strength is probably healthy activity,\u201d said junior AJ Thomas. Eric Nienabear added, \u201cFor me, it\u2019s my mom and dad. I rely on them \u2014 they\u2019re kind of my rock.\u201d<\/p>\n Organizers say the goal is simple but urgent: use a packed stadium and a heated rivalry to normalize asking for help.<\/p>\n \u201cMy ultimate hope is that if there’s one kid in this crowd who feels alone, who feels like it’s too hard, that he’s going to ask somebody to talk about it. That’s all that would matter. That’s what’s important.” Ahlers said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday night was about more than touchdowns and traditions as St. Xavier and Elder High School faced off…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":259093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[246,210,2198,136024,517,136025,136026,54642,2774,136022,11645,136023,15689,136027,6225,67,132,68,132858],"class_list":{"0":"post-259092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-family","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-help","11":"tag-high-school-rival","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mental-wellness-night","14":"tag-one-on-one-conversation","15":"tag-organizer","16":"tag-rivalry","17":"tag-saint-x","18":"tag-school","19":"tag-strength-club","20":"tag-student","21":"tag-therapy-dog","22":"tag-united","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-young-man"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}