A College QB's Suicide. A Family's Search for Answers.
Sports Illustrated
Cards and collages line the entryway to the Hilinski family’s home in Irvine, Calif., everything signed with My deepest condolences and promises of prayers. There’s an oar from the University of Minnesota football team, a note from the Seahawks’ general manager and 20,000 wristbands stuffed in boxes, each stamped with a red number 3 and two words: Hilinski’s Hope.
The messages arrive daily, reminding the family of its new dichotomy. Now, there’s before Jan. 16 and after, life with Tyler and without him. It’s the difference between the photo the Hilinskis cling to and the envelope they cannot bring themselves to open.
The framed picture is blown up and rests on the floor of the entryway, against the wall. It’s what Kym Hilinski, the family matriarch, looks at when she wakes at 2 a.m., thinking things she had never thought, like, I hate my life. Her middle son, Tyler, never seemed happier than in that photo. It was taken on Sept. 9, 2017, four months before Kym carried his ashes through airport security and covered the drum set in the music room with wilting flower bouquets. Tyler is centered in the frame, wearing his crimson number 3 Washington State jersey, surrounded by fans reaching out to touch him. That’s her Sweet T, her Big Ty, her Superman. Even though he’s the backup quarterback, Cougars fans are carrying him like a deity off the field after he threw for 240 yards and three touchdowns in a triple-overtime 47–44 conquest of Boise State—the best game of his life.
Kym, as usual, covered her eyes with her hands at Martin Stadium that day. Tyler’s older brother, a medical student named Kelly, was halfway through his graveyard shift at an Ogden, Utah, hospital, stealing glances at his laptop between calls to the ER. His father, Mark, and his younger brother, Ryan, were at home in Irvine, causing such a ruckus that neighbors stopped by to check on them. Eventually, Kym found Tyler on the field, just after the photo had been taken. He put his arm around her. “Did that just happen?” he asked.
The photo showed Tyler as they knew him, before he entered a closet in a Pullman, Wash., apartment and fatally shot himself. Before the family needed answers and resolved to find out why. Now, the image both comforts and haunts the Hilinskis, reminding them of better times, together, as the closest of close-knit football families. But it also makes them wonder. Was Tyler’s happiness that day just a mirage?
