Reading Athlete pairs picture books with mental health education and team activities so the page becomes the place a hard conversation can start. Every book, guide, and session is free to the school and to the athlete.
Reading Athlete is a free, peer-led toolkit. Working with Athlete mental health non profit organizations and with libraries, we put books in the hands of student-athlete ambassadors. A team reads one book together, and an ambassador trained to set the conditions for trust starts a conversation about total health.
The design rests on one idea: people open up sideways. We talk about ourselves more honestly after we have talked about someone else's story first. Books fuel conversation.
That is the whole thing. It is not complicated. It was built by someone who has been in the room.
Spring 2026 was the first season Reading Athlete and Morgan's Message ran together. Morgan's Message offered the pilot to its ambassadors and brought the peer-to-peer model and the safety framework. Supported by Scholastic, Reading Athlete distributed the book "When You Dream Big!" By Peter H. Reynolds, the curriculum, and the measurement to volunteer Youth Ambassadors. All materials were provided for free.
The training and materials are now hosted on TadHealth, where they are available to Morgan's Message's network of 6,300 or more active Campus Ambassadors on 1,900 or more campuses across six countries. Availability is not the same as delivery, and the two are reported separately.
The pilot was administered April- May 2026. As of June 1, 2026, ran in 89 high school/collegiate teams in 26 states.
Morgan's Message offered pilot to the ambassadors, who delivered the peer-to-peer model, and the safety framework. Reading Athlete brings the books, the curriculum, and the measurement. Neither organization charges a team anything. Spring 2026 was the first season the two ran together.
Athletes completed an anonymous check-in before and after their session. Average well-being on the WHO-5 Well-Being Index rose from 64.0 to 68.6 on a 100-point scale, an effect concentrated in sleep and calm. That is a small, short-term lift from a fifteen-minute activity that costs nothing, which is what we would expect and what we will keep testing.
Final Report:
"Reading Athlete: Utilizing the influence of picture book bibliotherapy as a tool to model vulnerability, inspire connections, and build community for student athletes."
August 5, 2026
Study Advisor, Dr. Ellie Foster, Kevin Love Fund
Report Advisor, Dr. Ashleigh Maxcey, Vanderbilt University
Presented August 5th for Summer 2026 Vanderbilt Mentor Immersion Program.