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When NFL safety Ryan Mundy retired from the game after the 2015 season, he didn’t enter a career with the cohort of former pros in sports broadcasting or coaching. Mundy, who was drafted to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the sixth round pick in 2008 and was a 2009 Super Bowl champion, was instead ready to challenge a culture that has shamed men in sports, particularly Black men, out of being emotionally vulnerable. “I just got to a place where I couldn’t hold it in anymore,” Mundy tells Fortune .

“I came up in the era, particularly within sport, where we didn’t have the agency to talk about our emotions. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t have the language or wherewithal or even the confidence or courage to speak to someone about it.” Mundy hopes his advocacy will empower other men who too often internalize societal messaging that wrongly equates emotional vulnerability with weakness.



Managing mental health is a bedrock of overall health and affects performance both on and off the field. Mundy, who has experienced anxiety and depression, admits that his game paid the price when his mental health declined. “A lot of times you can put athletes on pedestals.

The reality is athletes are human beings, and deal with the same type of emotions and conditions that everybody else deals with,” he says. There’s a difference between being mentally tough to counter the pressure and nerves of competition, Mundy adds, and larger mental health challenges that require i.

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