For Jason Colero, the last five-year period has been an eventful chapter in his life story.
In that time, the MLSE community, education, and program specialist has celebrated 40 years working with the Toronto Argonauts, gotten married, earned his master’s degree in psychotherapy, and watched his Huddle Up program – which is about to wrap up its silver anniversary season – expand beyond his wildest dreams.
The initiative started small, a perfect word to describe it, as Colero – much closer to five than six feet tall – began the program because he knew what an impact bullying could have on children, as he was often a target because of his size, or lack thereof.
In the last quarter century, he’s spoken to almost a million students. A mind-boggling figure, but with technology it’s only going to reach more eyes and ears.
“We’ve developed the Huddle Up platform, free to schools across the GTA,” Colero told Argonauts.ca. “It allows us to reach more youth through all our MLSE athletes, especially the Argos. It becomes like an added curriculum. The teachers have this opportunity and roll with it. It’s also evolved into covering a lot about mental health.”
The online program is one thing, but 35-40 schools each year benefit from athletes visiting them. The in-person visits become more personalized and have led to some amazing revelations by professional athletes, some of whom were bullied at some point in their life.
Huddle Up was exclusively an Argos program until 2019, when MLSE wanted to expand it, bringing in athletes from the Maple Leafs, Raptors, and TFC to share their experiences.
At first, Colero balked at the idea. As someone married to the Argo brand, the father of the program became very protective of his baby.
“I wondered what was going to happen to the Argos, were we just going to be pushed out?” he confessed. “The teachers thought it was incredible that the Leafs work with the Argos, and TFC works with the Argos. We’ve done it in ways where we engaged them with players from different teams, for example we had Nick Arbuckle and Logan Shaw from the Marlies together. It’s really strengthened the message.”
Sadly, the program is still needed. Argonauts.ca was taken aback when Colero mentioned that despite strong messaging from many outlets, hazing has become an even bigger issue than it’s been in the past.
“Our own foundation did a study with the Coaches Association of Ontario that said 33 percent of coaches surveyed found that hazing still occurs in their organization, and of those 33 percent, 85 percent think that it’s team bonding.”
For many kids who don’t want to be the subject of hazing, they opt to simply not play for the team.
“It’s creating a drop in sports participation,” said Colero, becoming more animated as he explained the situation. “Kids who are hazed are more likely to drop out of that sport.”
Does that make it frustrating for Huddle Up’s founder?
“You’re not going to get to those people (the bullies) as easy as you are to the people that need the help. Those who are being bullied or hazed need to know they’re not alone, and they don’t have to do this stuff to feel like they belong.
“It can get discouraging because you’re thinking, what are we doing this for? Why are we putting in all this effort if they’re not listening? But then you have the good moments, where people have said the program has really helped. Kids will come up to a player and say, ‘Thank you so much, I didn’t know how to face this bullying and to know that you guys went through it is really cool.”
The school year is winding down and Colero is preparing for the end of year summit. Among the scheduled speakers, two girls who were bullied will explain how the program helped them. They’re now teachers who have benefitted from Huddle Up and can now assist Colero’s crusade to reduce bullying.