Thankful for son's years

The story begins and ends with a grave on a grassy hill in Logan. Jeffrey Daniel Hipple is buried here under a polished, black granite headstone, with the image of his face carved into the stone above a drawing he once made of winged shoes.

From here, visitors can see the west-side bleachers of the Utah State football stadium, the site of so many of his father's triumphs, and out onto Cache Valley, which in summertime opens below into a broad plain of green and gold plaid.

The tombstone tells part of the story:

September 5, 1984

April 9, 2000

Out of the pain of Jeff's premature death came the beginning of understanding, discovery and redemption for his father, Eric. But also the question that haunts him: Why didn't he understand his son's pain? After all, Jeff's pain was his pain; it was what he had felt all his life without understanding it for what it was. The mind-numbing sadness and emptiness, the ailments, the listlessness, the confusion, the days when he couldn't get out of bed.

Eric Hipple was living two lives. Everyone knew him as the quarterback of the Detroit Lions and, before that, as the quarterback for Utah State University. But there was a darker side. There was a man few knew. The man who once threw himself out of a speeding car; the man who flew his airplane between trees; the man who quit going to work simply because he didn't and couldn't care anymore.

Then Jeff took his own life and Eric's life bottomed out.

He not only wound up in jail, he was glad to be there. His eventual quest to understand his son's death turned into a journey of self-discovery and healing. Hipple found an explanation for his behavior and his son's: depression. It became his cause and his vocation.

Hipple is now the outreach coordinator of the Depression Center at the University of Michigan, delivering speeches around the country nearly nonstop to educate people about recognizing, treating and understanding depression. He also wrote a book about his experiences, "Real Men Do Cry," which will be released in Borders bookstores later this month.

"I want people to understand that when things are bad, there are ways to handle it," he says.

It is a curious thing: Most humans seem to know more about the surface of the moon and the depths of the ocean than they do about the human mind. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death in the 15-to-24-year age group. Depression is an illness that few recognize or understand.

Hipple had symptoms of depression throughout his life, although he didn't know it. He did what men and football players are taught to do: He put his head down and kept going and wore a brave face.