Last year, Rachel Baribeau stood in the TCF Bank Stadium in Minneapolis for a college football game between the University of Minnesota and Maryland, and together with the coaches and players of both teams, shared a message about mental health with the audience of 30,000 people. She knew that somewhere in that audience, at least one person was helped. At least one person saw that if these people could get up there and speak about their mental health, they could talk about it too. At least one person was exposed to resources he or she didn’t know to look for, and the information might have saved a life.

Rachel Baribeau stood in front of more than 100 Gophers football players in the program’s auditorium in early August and asked a big question: “Who wants to take the mask off and get real with this team?”

Baribeau — a speaker, sportscaster and non-profit founder — had broken the ice, opening up about her struggles with mental health after her mother, Georgia “GiGi” Kelley, died in May after metastatic breast cancer spread to her bones, brain and liver.

Rachel Baribeau has spent the better part of her adult life talking about college football, typically focusing on teams at the top of the national rankings and players in the hunt for the Heisman Trophy.

For Baribeau, the narrative changed in the summer of 2016 when she found the shows she did as a host on Sirius radio were geared more to those making headlines for the wrong reasons, most prominently the rape scandal with the Baylor football team.

MINNEAPOLIS -- As Minnesota waited in the locker room to take the field and face overmatched Rutgers last week, coach P.J. Fleck was collecting his thoughts when a staff member interrupted to report that Wisconsin had just lost to Illinois in the biggest stunner of the season so far in major college football.
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Fleck has had speaker, author and advocate Rachel Baribeau talk to his team about mental health each year he's been at Minnesota. She will attend the game, and Gophers players will go through warmups wearing T-shirts with the message, "I'm Changing The Narrative," the name of her nonprofit.

YWCA Nashville & Middle Tennessee hosted the first-ever national conference on violence against women and healthy masculinity at the Music City Center in downtown Nashville on Sept. 9 and 10. The SHIFT – AMEND Together Conference was sponsored by Vanderbilt Sports and Society and Allstate Foundation. The two-day event kicked off with actor, activist and Time’s 2017 Person of the Year and Silence Breaker, Terry Crews.

PANAMA CITY – Inspirational speaker and sports broadcaster Rachel Baribeau stopped by Bay High School to remind students they are kings and queens.

Baribeau spoke to students Monday and used those terms to remind them of their self-worth. Baribeau encouraged students to be confident, help others and overcome obstacles. “You are not a victim,” Baribeau said. “You are a victor.” Baribeau shared elements of her life to connect with and motivate students, including how she worked for three years unpaid and survived suicidal thoughts and domestic abuse. After the speech, students came up to hug and talk to Baribeau.