Former Sycamore baseball player Jake Hertzman’s experiences influence The 988 Initiative
CINCINNATI — Jake Hertzman wore No. 11 as a Sycamore Aviator baseball player, but if the school ever decides to retire his number, 988 may be more appropriate.
Hertzman is founder of The 988 Initiative, which promoted the federal suicide and crisis lifeline that went online nationally July 16. Now, anyone in the U.S. can call or text 988 to get connected to a network of more than 200 call centers.
The 2022 Sycamore High School graduate’s first experience with the issue of suicide and mental health came four years ago, when he was selected for one of the title roles in “Chance,” a movie based on the life of Chance Smith, a Hamersville, Ohio, resident who loved to play baseball, but got caught up in teen-age bullying and romance issues, and took his own life in February 2012. Hertzman plays Smith at the age of 12. Other actors portrayed him as an 8-year-old and a 16-year-old.
After the movie wrapped up, in December 2020, Hertzman’s family was in Florida when they received a call – his 14-year-old cousin had committed suicide, at a location Jake would drive past every day on his way to school.
“So after his passing, it was kind of like OK, I now have two events in my life … ‘How can I act on these two events and these two experiences to make a positive impact on the people around me rather than kind of like soaking in all these events?’”
Last fall, he received a notification from Verizon that the 988 number was available to users. Hertzman said he “gauged” the awareness of the number among friends and family, and found few knew about the change.
“It took me multiple weeks to even get an understanding of what the number was, how it was being implemented, and when it was being implemented. I think a lot of people didn’t know that it was active for major carriers. I think that’s still something that people don’t know,” he said.
To remedy that, earlier this year, Hertzman and his younger brother Zach designed a logo with 988 in the middle, then began the effort to promote awareness. Using his sports connections, they found a company to make patches for organizations to put on uniforms, bags, key rings, or wherever else they wanted to display them.
“By getting visibility on those different surfaces, people will see the 988 number and ask ‘OK, what is this number? What does it mean?’ And then the hope is that let’s say a parent asks that question, looks it up online finds it, the hope is that they then talk to their kid about it or the kid gets it put on their jersey, they go home, the parents say, ‘Oh what is that?’ They’re able to talk with their parent back and forth. And that opens up avenues for other conversations around mental health that may otherwise not work,” he said.
The 988 Initiative also distributes stickers and banners, and has partnered with 1N5, a national organization whose mission is to “to prevent suicide by erasing the stigma of mental illness and promoting optimal mental wellness.” The 988 Initiative’s website, 988initiative.org, is linked from the 1N5 website (1N5.org).
Hertzman said they have expanded their outreach. An animal companion company that deals with therapy dogs ordered a banner, and The 988 Initiative is also targeting the ironman, triathlete and paralympic communities, because there are a lot of veterans and amputees in those groups.
“We’ve also … partnered with an organization called Attitude is Free, which is out of Arizona, and then we have so we have some Ironman athletes that are going out and doing competitions in California that are putting our patches and logos on their uniforms and bibs that they wear,” he said.
The Initiative also has “Stress Management Mondays” on its Instagram account (988initiative), where athletes and others post about handling stress. “We’ve had athletes from Iowa University, Yale, we have a potential one coming from Tennessee. So we’ve had a kind of broader geographical outreach through that and as well,” Hertzman said. They have also worked with the Cincinnati Reds on a Mental Health Awareness Month campaign, and have done Zoom presentations to the Ohio High School Athletic Association and Ohio Juvenile Detention Directors Association.
Hertzman started school this summer at the University of Southern California, studying business, and hopes to use college connections to expand the initiative.
For more information on The 988 Initiative, visit jakehertzman.com, 988lifeline.org, or follow on social media – @988lifeline on Facebook, and @988initiative on Twitter and Instagram.
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