Head coach of Garfield Heights High School football team Mac Stephens doesn't believe that the hardest part of his job is always helping his players become better football players.
"I've always said as a coach, it's easy to coach football, but I'm trying to impact lives in a positive way," Stephens said. "Sometimes, that's the difficult part."
The Browns helped Stephens with impacting his players' lives off the field by holding an event for his team devoted to helping high school football players away from the field. On Aug. 14, the Browns hosted Garfield Heights, John Hay High School and Kirtland High School tackle football players and coaches at Huntington Bank Field as a part of the Browns Building Healthy Relationships Program with the One Love Foundation. The players and coaches participated in an interactive discussion on the signs of healthy relationships, highlighting the Browns' dedication to high school football player development.
"Through Browns Give Back, the Cleveland Browns are really invested in the community and identifying how we can make a difference," Vice President of Community Relations Jenner Tekancic said. "Bringing together high school football athletes who can leave a positive impression on other scholars when they get back to school is really important to us. We're really proud to be partnering with the One Love Foundation and we look forward to continuing our partnership with them and launching more programs."
The Building Healthy Relationships workshop is an initiative to provide student-athletes and coaches with the tools to identify both healthy and unhealthy relationships. The program has a partnership with the One Love Foundation, which is a national non-profit organization that educates young people about healthy relationships. They have a goal of ending abusive relationships through their programming. Through the Building Healthy Relationships Program's partnership with One Love Foundation, student-athletes are given the skillset to build more positive relationships and team culture.
The One Love Foundation was started by Sharon Love and Lexie Love Hodges, whose daughter and sister Yeardley Love was killed by her ex-boyfriend weeks before graduating from the University of Virginia in 2010. Yeardley Love played college lacrosse at the University of Virginia under former head coach Julie Myers, who coached the women's lacrosse team at Virginia for 28 seasons before joining the One Love Foundation as CEO in 2023. The One Love Foundation's mission was started in Yeardley Love's honor to raise awareness on the signs of unhealthy relationships.
Myers and Director of Programming Michael Harley led an interactive workshop that taught the players and coaches in attendance the importance of healthy relationships. Myers and Harley started a portion of the event by identifying 10 unhealthy and healthy signs of relationships and asked players to give examples of each. The topics related to football, including about how intensity — one of the 10 negative signs — can be a positive on the field, but a negative in other situations.
Myers talked about how starting the discussion now on the importance of healthy relationships is critical for high school football players. Teaching them those lessons will help them off the field and later in their lives, while also impacting the people around them.
"It's all about being able to maximize potential and to be happy in life," Myers said. "So, if you just plant the seeds of healthy behaviors and relationships, it will impact their locker room, it will impact their success (and) they will bring it to their own relationships as well."
Coaches were also involved in the discussion and provided their insight into the different questions regarding healthy relationships. Over halfway through the discussion, coaches were brought to a different area of the room for a more tailored discussion. The coaches recognized the significance of talking about healthy relationships with their players and how that will help set their players up for success.
"This type of investment in young lives is crucial to helping change the character of young men and just getting them to do the right things in life," Stephens said.
Harley mentioned the importance of having a place to speak about their experiences, which the workshop served as for the high school athletes and coaches.
"It's just assumed that you know what to do, but we don't have spaces to talk about relationships and to learn how to have healthy relationships," Harley said. "And I think that's what the space creates is the opportunity for the young people to lead the conversation about what they're actually seeing."
The players can take what they learned from the workshop into their high school seasons this year, and Harley complimented the Browns' commitment to helping local youth football programs.
"For the Browns to say, 'This is important in our community,' and to be the people that sends 160 athletes and 20 coaches on buses to the stadium to create this opportunity is so meaningful," Harley said.
To stay engaged with the Browns in the community, follow us @BrownsGiveBack.
