By Alyeska Yee-Jenkins, Freshman, James Madison University @JMULacrosse
Imagine receiving a call that your teammate and best friend had been killed at the hands of a loved one. For former Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach at the University of Virginia, Julie Myers, and her team, that was their reality. One of her players, Yeardley Love, was killed by her boyfriend after an argument. Thus, the One Love Foundation was born to teach the signs of healthy and unhealthy relationships and help teammates understand how to support each other and prevent family or friends from life-threatening situations. One Love is a powerful organization and message in the lacrosse community. Its message has reached youth participants since its start in 2010, giving them the opportunity to teach us how to love better. I was exposed to One Love at a young age and had the opportunity to learn and share the foundation’s message.
I first heard of One Love in eighth grade playing for my travel team Virginia Metro when we attended their tournament. My coach sent us several of their educational videos. Truth be told, at the age of thirteen, I couldn’t really comprehend the idea of someone you love hurting you emotionally and physically. So while I was able to understand the signs of a healthy relationship, I couldn’t understand the physical abuse or the extent to which it could go. Growing up, I had the fortune of being raised in a loving and caring family. I learned how to be a good teammate with a caring club team. To me, the idea of physical harm at the hands of someone you consider family seemed unreal.
As I got older and entered high school, I began to understand that not all relationships are loving and caring. They can be unkind, unhealthy, and even abusive. I began to truly see the power of One Love at a more advanced level. I wanted to learn more and help spread the word to my friends and classmates. Now, old enough to grasp the deeper meaning of One Love, I became an ambassador. I helped share the early signs of an unhealthy relationship to create a better team and community in my high school. As an ambassador, I spread the word to my high school by creating a club. Sharing the foundation’s mission became a big part of who I am and it continues to be a passion I love to share with others. It was great to discover it followed me to college.
As an incoming freshman at James Madison University, it was amazing to enter such a close-knit and motivated team. Like me, they were also passionate about the One Love Foundation. They made it a priority to build a healthy team culture and use their leadership platform to share the One Love message to help young adults understand that relationships can potentially escalate in harmful ways. It was essential for us to show up for each other and other teams in order to navigate these relationships as young adults. As a program, we had a workshop led by Julie Myers, CEO of One Love, in the preseason, thanks to the friendship of her and our current assistant coach, Colleen Shearer. Julie experienced firsthand the tragic incident that caused the foundation to be born. She explained her experiences, regrets, and the impacts it had on her life to our team. Now, this wasn’t just an unfathomable story that my youth club coach told me in middle school, it was reality. Julie helped us understand the importance of speaking up if you see something concerning in relationships. She explained the worst-case scenario, which she experienced personally, of unknowingly being a bystander. It was a full-circle moment from being exposed initially as a middle school youth sport participant at the One Love lacrosse tournament to now being in the presence of the coach who received that tragic call as a Division I college athlete.
To start the spring semester, two inspiring friends, Savannah Derey and Josie Pell, became One Love ambassadors. They worked together to facilitate a team discussion in the workshop with Julie. They also put together a video that was posted on Instagram to spread the word to people beyond our community. Afterwards, our team was eager and willing to get involved with the organization and play for something bigger than ourselves, demonstrating how driven and enthusiastic our culture is. We felt the power of truly understanding healthy relationships and how to support each other better.
To continue to grow our impact, we dedicated our University of Albany game to the One Love Foundation. To start the game, both teams wore the same shirts displaying One Love largely on the front and a QR code linking to the website on the back. We also had several teammates take over popular lacrosse accounts like Inside Lacrosse, IWLCA, and our own JMU account. Through these media outlets, the team was able to further spread the word about One Love and show what the team was doing to represent the organization. Continuing to play for something bigger than ourselves is important, so we will be joining Johns Hopkins on March 30th for another One Love game! The foundation has been a part of the different phases of my life. It started as a story that touched me in middle school and it’s currently a huge part of my college team’s culture. Now I am in the presence of the people who lived through the tragedy that spurred the birth of One Love. I hope that reading my story will inspire you to also become involved in the organization, so that you are never the one receiving that tragic call. To learn more, please consider checking out https://www.joinonelove.org/.
BEHIND THE WHISTLE 