Hundreds of youth wrestlers converge on Fairfax tournament to raise mental health awareness

It’s been nearly 15 years since Eric Monday, a pillar of northern Virginia’s wrestling community, killed himself.

On Saturday, hundreds of wrestlers will take to the mats at George Mason University to his memory and raise awareness about the mental health challenges athletes face.

The 12th annual Melee Til Midnight, a wrestling tournament organized by the Eric Monday Foundation, has a couple of simple goals. First, provide high-quality competition. Second, and most importantly, break down the stigma associated with mental illnesses.

“It’s a tournament that everybody looks forward to. It’s an exciting, fun event,” Brian Monday, Eric’s father and the founder of the Eric Monday Foundation, told The Washington Times. “But we’re making sure we’re doing mental health education for the coaching community and touching on the purpose we’re there for — to take down the stigma of mental health.”

Saturday’s event will draw more than 400 wrestlers from 17 states, including nationally ranked competitors looking for a tune-up ahead of July’s national junior and youth championships in North Dakota.

The competitors are divided by ages and weight classes to ensure fair matchups. Careful bracketing is a necessity, the organizers said, as the wrestlers range in age from 6 to 50 years old.

“There’s something for every level,” tournament director Phil Cronin said. “There will be a lot of kids who will be able to challenge themselves. It’s really the last competition before everybody takes the summer off, the last opportunity to get a competition in.”

But while the athletes are enjoying their bouts on the mats, their coaches will be learning how to help them through a mental health crisis.

“You’re coming to this event for great competition. Good wrestlers search out great competition,” Cronin said. “Then when they get here, we’re going to give them literature. … They come for the great competition and then we give them mental health tools to take back to their schools.”

The Eric Monday Foundation offers online training to help coaches better recognize when an athlete needs assistance. The National Institute of Mental Health found that 49% of adolescents will face a mental health challenge. Among young people, athletes are often less likely to ask for help.

“They won’t tell you when they sprain their ankle,” Cronin said of young athletes. “If they won’t tell you when they’re physically injured, they’re sure not going to tell you they’re feeling depressed or anxious.”

“It can be difficult to talk to other people about it,” said Carson Easlick, a rising junior at Westfield High School in Chantilly. “For wrestlers, it’s really difficult to be open, especially to the coaches since it’s such a tough sport. But this foundation really helps people.”

Monday and Cronin both noted that wrestling coaches aren’t social workers or psychiatrists. But coaches, especially those at the high school level, can make a difference.

“I don’t think any coach really wants to stigmatize mental health issues,” former Centreville High School baseball coach Scott Rowland said in a video for the foundation. “I think all coaches get into coaching to help students. We’re just not all sure exactly how to do that with this topic right here.”

The Eric Monday Foundation aims to help by raising awareness and offering free mental health training for coaches. The organization recommends the LASRR method: listen, accept, support, refer and report.

“This is not messaging that coaches are regularly hearing,” Brian Monday said.

When Monday talks to coaches about mental health, he says he focuses on their faces. He sees them sifting through memories when he describes warning behaviors for young athletes.

The typically energized coaches go quiet — they think about athletes they mentored in the past.

“This is the way it hit me on the front end: Could I have done a better job with whoever the athlete was,” Monday said. “That’s the most interesting thing I see is the recognition in peoples’ eyes —- this was a world they’re already in.”

Cronin has had that experience as a coach — he was Eric Monday’s club wrestling coach more than 15 years ago. He still thinks about what he could’ve done differently.

“I had a connection not just to Eric Monday, but I knew other kids like that,” the National Wrestling Hall of Famer said. “There isn’t a coach out there in any sport that doesn’t have that story about the kid that that they missed. That kid that they wish they would have recognized something in them. All of us have that.”

That’s the reason for Saturday’s event — to help keep young athletes from falling through the cracks when experiencing a crisis.

“It’s no longer acceptable to miss those warning signs,” Cronin said. “That just can’t happen anymore.”

Athletes and coaches say the conversations around mental health have shifted over the past 10 years — the next generation is more willing to talk about their feelings. But they won’t always ask for help.

“That’s the next step,” Cronin said. “We can get the kids to talk about anxiety and depression or what freezes them, but I’m not sure we’ve got them to where they’ll go to the resource they need to go to. That’s our next level.”

The coaches aren’t the only ones who take the mental health message away from the event. Armed with “#TakeDownTheStigma” shirts and wristbands, wrestlers will return to their schools and clubs ready to share what they’ve learned.

They’ll talk about Eric Monday.

“He’s the face of it. It’s not just a story, there’s this kid on posters and he looks like you do,” Cronin said. “He’s got a little bit of a cauliflower ear. His hair is longer than his dad probably would’ve liked. … Every kid that’s wrestling brings him back with them.”

The Melee Til Midnight began as a memorial tournament — a way for those who loved Eric Monday to honor his memory.

They still remember him, but his story is inspiring much more. Thousands of wrestlers have competed in the Melee Til Midnight, allowing hundreds of coaches to receive mental health training.

“Sometimes, good things are born of tragedy,” Brian Monday said. “Every coach can make a difference, and it’s easier than you think to engage.”

• In the U.S., the national suicide and crisis lifeline is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org