{"id":837223,"date":"2026-09-05T10:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T10:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/837223\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T10:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T10:04:11","slug":"boise-state-mental-health-organization-bridges-the-gap-between-sports-and-mental-well-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/837223\/","title":{"rendered":"Boise State mental health organization bridges the gap between sports and mental well-being"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSport is just a really powerful connector with people.\u201d BroncoBOLD provides student athletes, and high schoolers with resources to talk openly about mental health<\/p>\n

BOISE, Idaho \u2014 September is National Suicide Prevention Month, and mental health organizations across Boise are holding events to raise awareness and continue the conversation around mental health.<\/p>\n

One of those organizations, BroncoBOLD<\/a>, is working to bridge the gap between sports and mental health at Boise State and high schools across the Treasure Valley.<\/p>\n


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The program uses sports and athletics to create connections, encourage conversations about mental health and help students feel more comfortable seeking support when they need it.<\/p>\n

Boise State\u2019s Bronco Bold program is using sports to bring people together, create connections and provide tools to make it easier to talk about the topic of mental health.<\/p>\n

The program focuses on suicide prevention by spreading awareness, and creating opportunities for students and athletes to build protective factors against suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Bronco Bold, we really focus on preventative upstream prevention, and so putting out programming that really works to create those protective factors that help protect against suicide,\u201d said Stephanie Donaldson, Boise State assistant athletic director of athletic counseling and mental performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cSport is just a really powerful connector with people,\u201d Donaldson said. “We use the platform of sport as just to bring people together, create connections, and intentionally do that for our community.”<\/p>\n

Bronco Bold began as a program within Boise State Athletics but has since expanded to high schools across the Treasure Valley. The program now has initiatives in 20 different schools. Last week, more than 200 high school students attended Bronco Bold\u2019s high school ambassador summit, where students learned how to become advocates for mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust last week, we had over 200 high school students join us for our high school ambassador summit, where we\u2019re teaching students how to be advocates of mental health, and take giving them the tools and the resources to go into their own schools and promote their own Bold programs,\u201d Donaldson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Representatives from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline\u2019s 988 service also attended the summit to educate students on resources available, including calling or texting 988 when they need mental health support.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of their programming this year within their schools is promoting 988 and helping their students and their peers know that that\u2019s an option to call if you need help,\u201d Donaldson said.<\/p>\n

The high school programs use sports to build awareness around mental health. That includes initiatives such as wearing \u201cMental Health Matters\u201d bows on athletic jerseys, similar to the campaign used by Boise State for there “BOLD” game.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur high schoolers have been amazing at promoting that within the community and their own communities at their schools,\u201d Donaldson said.<\/p>\n

Donaldson said one of the most important parts of creating a supportive environment is simply making time to listen.<\/p>\n

\u201cShowing someone that you can show up, that you can care, you can create space for them, and you can hold that space for them is incredibly powerful,\u201d Donaldson said. \u201cWe teach it as like it\u2019s your power tool to create connection and to create change too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSport is just a really powerful connector with people.\u201d BroncoBOLD provides student athletes, and high schoolers with resources…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-837223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}