Dave Hannigan: Death of a Cowboy shows no one is immune to suicide epidemic

In the second quarter of the Dallas Cowboys versus the Arizona Cardinals, Sam Williams blocked a punt with his helmet. As the ball skittered fortunately back into the end zone, his team-mate Marshawn Kneeland, six-foot-three and 20 stone of impressive athleticism, won the race to reach it, sliding to the turf to score the first touchdown of his NFL career. The jubilant defensive ends celebrated by simultaneously jumping in the air, bumping each other and then hugging. A pair of jolly behemoths relishing their star turn in a game being televised nationally on Monday Night Football.

Forty-eight hours later, Kneeland didn’t stop when Texas Department of Public Safety troopers tried to pull him over for a traffic violation in Addison at 10.33pm last Wednesday. A chase ensued, during which he gave the cops the slip and hit a pickup truck. They called in air support, and his car was eventually found crashed and empty on the Dallas Parkway, just minutes from the Cowboys’ headquarters in Frisco. In the interim, police had been contacted by his friends about a troubling “goodbye” text he’d posted to a group chat, and his girlfriend had also briefed them that he was armed, had a history of mental health problems, and might “end it all”.

As officers combed the area near his vehicle, a drone picked up a heat signature coming from a portable toilet on an industrial estate. When they reached the site, blood was leaking out from the bottom of the structure. Kneeland’s body was inside, slumped on the floor. It was the early hours of Thursday morning. Twenty-four years old, enjoying his second season in the NFL, he was halfway through a $7 million contract playing for the outfit known affectionately as America’s team. Supposedly living the dream. This devoted son, brother, uncle, cousin, nephew, grandson, friend and colleague has become one more case proving even fame and fortune are often not enough to ease somebody’s private suffering and torment.

“Brother Marshawn, I love you,” wrote his team-mate Solomon Thomas on Instagram. “I wish you knew it was going to be okay. I wish you knew the pain wouldn’t last and how loved you are. I wish you knew how bad we wanted you to stay. My heart breaks for you and your loved ones. We will lift your spirit up every day. To anyone struggling please hold on to that light. Please know there is always help and hope. Whatever story you’re going through, it’s okay to feel that pain. It’s okay to not be okay. But the light will come again.”

Thomas, a tackle, cofounded The Defensive Line, a foundation designed to increase suicide awareness and prevention, following his sister Ella’s death at her own hand in 2018. Two years later, Dak Prescott, the Cowboys’ quarterback, changed the direction of his Faith, Fight, Finish charity to focus on the same issue after his brother Jace took his own life. It says much about the suicide epidemic in American society that two men who shared a locker room with Kneeland over the past 18 months already know too well the horror of losing a loved one in these circumstances.

[ Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland dies aged 24Opens in new window ]

Kneeland grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan where his family nicknamed the oversized child “Baby Giant”. Athletic enough to be a 400m and high jump prospect, his record-setting gridiron career at Godwin Heights High School earned him a scholarship to Western Michigan University. Others might have arrived at the school trailing more stellar reputations; none possessed his work ethic. He became famous for fetching up in the locker room at 6am to prehab before training and could be found obsessively poring over game film after classes. Sometimes, coaches watched Kneeland walk around the empty field alone, his playbook in hand, visualising different scenarios he might be involved in.

His obsessive preparation and dedication to the craft paid off as he caught the eye of pro scouts before the 2024 NFL draft. As is customary for players waiting to be selected, he watched proceedings surrounded by family and friends back home, with television cameras on hand to record the moment. When the Cowboys announced they were taking him with the 56th pick the place erupted, the raw emotion of the occasion amplified by the fact his mother Wendy had died from an accidental overdose just weeks before.

“It was definitely tough, I just managed it,” said Kneeland, who thereafter wore a necklace with an urn attached containing some of her ashes. “She helped me a lot in my younger years getting into football. I always had the dream. I always told her, ‘I’m going to the NFL’ and I made it. It’s a hard situation just knowing she got to see me potentially going to the NFL and going through the process. She’s still with me.”

Those who knew Kneeland best mentioned his deep love of Japanese cartoons such as Sword Art Online, Naruto, Cyberpunk and Dragon Ball Z, characters from which featured prominently in his tattoos. From the Manga series Mob Psycho 100, Shigeo Kageyama was one of those he had inked on his arm. A schoolboy with extraordinary hidden abilities, Kageyama is sometimes described as the most human character in all of anime. Why? Perhaps because he battles his own rage and despair while still somehow evincing great empathy for others. Qualities so many people saw in the Cowboys’ number 94.

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