Former KU Jayhawks cheerleader gone but not forgotten thanks to ‘Love Like Remi’

Remington Young, a former KU Jayhawks cheerleader from Maize, Kansas, always seemed to have a smile on her face. She was unfailingly positive and would light up a room with her personality.

“She was your All-American girl,” said family friend Jim Johnson.

Behind closed doors, however, Remi, as she was known to those close to her, grappled with debilitating mental health battles. She died by suicide in May 2022.

“She was fighting a battle that nobody knew about, starting her senior year (of high school) into her freshman KU season,” her mother, Amy Young, told The Star recently. She’d also broken an ankle.

“I just saw what that did to her overall mental health,” Young continued, “between getting ready to go (to college) and all the pressures that were there as a student-athlete, as well as when she got hurt, and it went downhill from there.”

September is Suicide Prevention Month nationally, and that’s become a central cause for Young’s family and closest friends. In the months that followed her passing, they decided they wanted to help others by sharing her story.

Thus was born the Love Like Remi Foundation.

“As I did research over time after everything happened, I just thought it was so important,” Young said of the foundation’s inception. “I had people coming over to me going, ‘Amy, she’s such a poster child for what this doesn’t look like’ — you know, what people think mental health and suicide look like — so that’s where this all started.”

There’s a passage on the Love Like Remi Foundation website that reads, “Anyone who had Remi in their life never once had to question if they were loved. To know Remi was to know unconditional love in its more pure and selfless form.

“Her smile was contagious, hugs incomparable and her soul as radiant as the sun. She made the world a better place and every person’s life she touched was left better than she found them.”

The Love Like Remi Foundation is adamant about removing the stigma around mental health, particularly in sports.

“Our mission is to support student athletes facing the pressures inherent in sports, academics, and society to perform at the highest level,” another passage on the site states. “Our mission is to remove the stigma associated with student athletes asking for help so that these challenges are not faced alone.”

Through Remi’s life and passing, Young connects on a very personal level with student-athletes who may share her daughter’s inner turmoil.

“I thought sports and student-athletes were such an important part of her story, and that I could speak on that,” Young said. “That’s where my passion comes from. Obviously it’s from Remington and what she went through, and knowing that I don’t want another parent, friend, anybody to have to go through this.”

Love Like Remi has raised money for a number of mental health support measures aimed at students, including the Pando Initiative specifically targeting the Wichita area.

The Pando Initiative website outlines a desire to assist young people who are struggling with school and life, and Johnson, the friend of the family, is centrally involved with fundraising. He said Love Like Remi was able to help place mental health advocates within the Maize School District.

Both Young and Johnson said suicide prevention can start as young as age 10 — it’s now known to be the second-leading cause of death for those aged 10-24, according to the 988 Lifeline.

“We ... wanted to craft something a little different, where they would be there as an advocate or friend for kids as young as elementary age to have someone to talk to,” Johnson said. “We put one of these advocates in each of the five elementary schools in the Maize School District, so that’s been great.”

After one year of Love Like Remi’s partnership with Pando, Johnson said, a local survey showed 100% of the students using these services found an advocate who was there for them in a time of need. Johnson said the survey also showed that 98% felt that advocate made them feel safe in school.

Pando has been instrumental in education efforts, too, with Johnson saying around 90% of students assisted received such support. That’s led to improved grades and attendance, Johnson said.

“It’s kind of a win-win,” Johnson said, “from an emotional perspective as well as a performance-in-school perspective. We were very happy with that. We helped get that off the ground and it looks like it’s going to continue for years to come there at the schools.”

Love Like Remi supports such partnerships through its annual Voices For Hope Gala. This year’s gala took place earlier this month. Last year’s event supported the foundation’s work with Pando.

“We found that we want to hit it hard with the younger generation by teaching at the high school (level),” Young explained, “because that’s where it started for Remington.”

Young said the foundation also wants to direct resources toward scholarships for various sports programs at KU, Kansas State and Wichita State, where both Young and Remi’s father, Randy, were student-athletes.

“It was obviously a family thing for us,” Young said.

This year’s Voices For Hope Gala featured keynote speakers Steve and Gina Meyer, the parents of Stanford women’s soccer player Katie Meyer and founders of Katie’s Save. The couple’s daughter died by suicide in March 2022 while playing for the Cardinal soccer team.

Katie’s Save backed a California state policy proposal that would give students a “designated advocate” in times of need — much like the Kansas partnership in the Maize School District. Bill 1575, or “Katie Meyer’s Law,” passed unanimously through the California Assembly in January.

On a more personal level, Young said the Meyers have been incredibly supportive since Remi’s passing.

“We started talking on the phone and we had the same thoughts, the same mission, to make this count, make our girls’ legacies count,” Young said. “Remington and Katie were a lot alike: go-getters, good students, good kids. Overall (they were) just good to the core, and then to have something so tragic happen to someone you thought was living the dream is so frightening.

“We started talking about that and what we can do to put our message out there. So it was an easy decision. When we were planning this gala and trying to figure out keynote speakers, I called them right up and they said, ‘Of course, whatever you need from us.’”

Since Remi’s death, Young has faithfully carried on her daughter’s legacy. She’s pleased to see the effect Remi’s story, and the foundation in her name, have had on others.

To sum up that impact in a few words, as she sees it, both are saving lives.

“I think being able to see her face, see Katie’s face, these kids that were prom queens or cheerleaders or the best of their sport — they deal with that stuff,” Young said. “Mental health is a real thing, and I think that people are starting to see that with these kids being the face of it. … It can be your cheerleaders or team captains of the soccer team.”

As the Love Like Remi Foundation pushes forward toward new goals, Young will keep fighting the remaining the stigma surrounding mental health, especially among young people and athletes.

“Just look at it from a perspective of you know it can happen to anybody,” she said. “Talk to your kids, talk to your athletes. You just don’t know. … And get them help. Meds and therapy, they do work. They worked for Remington until she stopped, and this is what I have now.

“And love like Remi. That’s what we tell everyone.”