COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State University Football Coach Ryan Day and his family gifted $1 million to the Ohio State University to establish the mental health resilience fund.

What You Need To Know

  • Mental Health is a cause that hits close to home for Ryan Day and his family

  • A $1 million gift is going to Ohio State University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health

  • The fund will help with research and resources for Buckeyes dealing with mental health issues

  • They hope to identify risk factors that contribute to mental health

  • The Mayo Clinic Health System found that societal pressure and increase in higher education costs contribute to anxiety and depression

The Mayo Clinic Health System found that one in three college students experience significant depression and anxiety.

Mental health is an issue that hits close to home for the Day family. Coach Day lost his dad to suicide when he was eight years old and Ryan’s wife, Nina, has struggled with anxiety most of her life.

“The roughest part of my life was in college and there were no resources and I privately struggled,” said Nina Day. “As I had children and growing up with Ryan, we just decided how important it was for them to grow up in a different world.”

The fund is going to the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health and will fund research and resources to aid struggling Buckeyes. Currently, Ohio State has 24/7 resources to help with mild, moderate and severe concerns, but the fund will help the university play offense and defense against mental health.

“Modifiable factors that we can bring into the home, into the schools, into the workplace in which we develop strategies to modify those risk factors to essentially shift somebody’s risk from being vulnerable to being strong and surviving stress,” said Dr. K. Luan Phan, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health. 

The Mayo Clinic Health System reported an increase in depression and anxiety among college students because of societal pressures and the rising cost of higher education. Ryan Day believes there are three options for students struggling with life’s challenges.

“There’s solutions, there’s treatments, there’s different avenues we can take to help treat those types of things, so I just think that approach is hopeful and not where you think there’s no answers,” said Day. “I think that’s really, really important. There are resources and that’s what we’re working on.” 

Day has already established mental health services for his players with two full-time psychologists, two athletic counselors and a part-time psychiatrist on staff.

Anyone struggling with mental health can call the Ohio Care Line at 1-800-720-9616 to speak to a behavioral health specialist.