Health & Wellness

NFL PLAY 60

For more than 18 seasons, the NFL PLAY 60 initiative has been the League’s national youth health and wellness platform to empower youth to get physically active for at least 60 minutes a day and encourage a healthy lifestyle. The PLAY 60 movement continues to serve and motivate the next generation of youth alongside the 32 NFL clubs and our PLAY 60 partners to get moving and PLAY 60. The NFL Foundation provides grant funding to these partners including the American Heart Association, GENYOUth, Kenneth Cooper Institute at Texas Tech and Special Olympics. NFL club foundations also receive grant funding to support youth health and wellness initiatives in their respective markets. 

NFL PLAY 60 IMPACT GRANTS

The NFL PLAY 60 Impact Grant category supports youth health and wellness by partnering with three national nonprofits to help all youngsters have opportunities to be happy, healthy and fit. NFL Foundation grant funding allows:

• The American Heart Association (AHA) to provide students and families with resources for physical activity at school and home to match quality time with prioritizing wellness, and grants for schools to implement flag football programs and additional physical activity initiatives in PE classes and throughout the school day as part of their Kids Heart Challenge.

• The Kenneth Cooper Institute at Texas Tech to implement its FitnessGram Project which evaluates how NFL PLAY 60 programs affect youth health, fitness and school environments through a collaborative approach, and evaluation of school-based flag football programming deployed by other NFL Foundation youth health and wellness grant partners to help measure impact on student health.

• Special Olympics to support and expand its Unified Flag Football and Unified Sports programs, promoting and fostering inclusive play among athletes of all abilities.

GENYOUTH NFL FLAG-IN-SCHOOL PROGRAM

The NFL FLAG-In-School program, led by GENYOUth and funded by the NFL Foundation, helps schools and nonprofits promote physical activity through flag football. For more than a decade, it has aimed to make flag football accessible nationwide, encouraging youth to reach 60 minutes of daily exercise. The program supplies equipment kits, a curriculum, and materials supporting wellness education, and has reached 17 million students in 30,000 K-12 schools to date.

The program has notably increased girls' participation, supported all-girls after-school teams, and contributed to broader recognition of girls’ flag football as a varsity sport as more states add it to physical education classes.

CHARACTER EDUCATION & MENTAL WELLNESS

The NFL Foundation is committed to building and supporting a stronger society and helping youngsters – athletes and non-athletes alike – and entire school communities learn about the importance of developing character and healthy relationships while supporting their own mental wellness. 

Through strategic partnerships, the NFL Foundation is advancing initiatives that are interactive, engaging, and provide tangible results. These programs work to ensure that middle and high school students have the education and tools necessary to build moral character, navigate complex decision-making, improve conflict resolution and protect their mental health. They include: 

• The NFL Character Playbook Program, funded by the NFL Foundation and powered by digital education provider EVERFI, includes two digital education courses to help teach middle and high school students how to establish and maintain healthy, supportive relationships with their peers (Character Playbook Healthy Relationships), and better understand their mental health and the ways in which they can implement coping strategies to manage their own challenging thoughts, emotions and behaviors (Understanding Mental Wellness). More than 3 million students nationwide have participated in these educational programs since Character Playbook’s launch in 2016 and in continued collaboration with NFL clubs and players.

• The InSideOut Initiative (ISOI), funded by the NFL Foundation and developed by NFL Legend Joe Ehrmann, inspires, catalyzes and equips school communities to transform high school student-athlete lives through purpose-based sports. ISOI provides ongoing professional development for school administrators, ADs and coaches to foster transformational coaching and a culture of belonging for their growth and character development. Since its inception in 2015, ISOI has partnered with 20 NFL clubs in 18 states, having served more than 6,500 schools and 5,000 athletic administrators, nearly 200,000 coaches of male and female sports and nearly 8 million student-athletes. The NFL Foundation also works with the University of North Carolina-Greensboro on a longitudinal evaluation of ISOI’s impact.

TEAM UP FOR SPORTS SAFETY (TUFSS) 

The Team Up for Sports Safety initiative, managed by the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut and funded by the NFL Foundation, propels the adoption of key health and safety policies across all 50 states and Washington DC to reduce catastrophic injuries among high school athletes. KSI collaborates with state policymakers to implement life-saving measures such as emergency action plans, sudden cardiac arrest protocols, heat and hydration guidelines, and more. Since 2018, TUFSS has helped enact more than 300 new policies, including:

• Athletics Emergency Action Plans (EAP)
• Heat acclimatization procedures
• AEDs within 1–3 minutes of venues
• Cold water immersion tubs for heat stroke
• Pre-participation exams
• Extreme weather practice modification policies

SMART HEART SPORTS COALITION/CPR EDUCATION GRANTS

Founded in March 2023 in response to the life-saving emergency response and care provided to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, the Smart Heart Sports Coalition seeks to drive adoption in all 50 states of evidence-based policies that will prevent fatalities from Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) among high school students and in school communities. They include:

• Clearly-marked AEDs at or within minutes of each high school athletic venue where games, practices or other events are held.
• An athletic Emergency Action Plan (EAP) that is specific to each athletic venue, and posted, widely distributed, regularly rehearsed and updated annually, if needed.
• Education in CPR, including AED use, for coaches and other key personnel.

The NFL Foundation also offers grant funding to support CPR education nationwide:

• NFL club foundations can apply for grants to support CPR education and training, as well as to purchase AEDs for local high school sports programs. The purpose of these grants is to advance CPR education and collaborate with coaches, student-athletes and the public to ensure training and equipment are available to address medical emergencies.

• Grant funding has been provided from the NFL Foundation to the American Heart Association to expand its Kids Heart Challenge initiative. Through this program, students and their families across the country learn Hands-Only CPR to be prepared to respond to cardiac emergencies and help support the chain of survival in their communities.

NFL FOUNDATION CLUB & PLAYER GRANTS

The NFL Foundation also provides grant opportunities to NFL club foundations and player-related nonprofits to help support youth health and wellness initiatives in their markets and hometowns.