He was clinically depressed, but only in hindsight does he recognize the symptoms and clues. He had genetic precursors for depression — an aunt who had been hospitalized with schizophrenia, a mother who had had bouts of depression, a niece who was bipolar. Hipple himself struggled with depression as a teenager but didn't realize it until he recalled it years later as an adult.

Suddenly, now in his late 30s, he was unable to get out of bed for work. His energy lagged. He couldn't face the office. The business eventually went bankrupt through his neglect. He turned to drinking and drugs and risk-taking behavior.

He earned his pilot's license and flew like a dogfighter. Pilots are supposed to fly above 5,000 feet so they have time to react if something goes wrong. He flew at 500 feet or lower. He buzzed trees. Flying over open terrain in Michigan's upper peninsula — "where I would be a danger only to me" — he flew between trees, turned sideways. He took up scuba diving and hang gliding and snow and water skiing.

"It's self-medication," he says. "It's the brain finding a way to feel better." The brain accomplishes this by releasing the body's own drugs — dopamine, endorphins, adrenaline — in its response to thrills and fear. It produced a high.

On one occasion in 1998, Hipple was being driven to the airport by his second wife, Shelly, when he scribbled a note, handed it to her and leaped out of the car while it was moving 70 miles per hour. The note said he was sorry. He was hospitalized for 10 days.

"The press got ahold of it," he says. "We made up a story that I was leaning against the door. It was very impulsive. I can't even say it was a suicide attempt."

Looking back, Hipple believes even football was another form of thrill seeking for him. YouTube still has a video clip of him being cut in half by a speeding tackler as he ran down the sideline.

While Hipple fought his demons, his son Jeff was having his own difficulties. After his parents saw him struggle in school they agreed that he should move to Michigan to live with his father for his seventh-grade year. He returned to Utah to live with his mother a year later, but he continued to struggle.

"He didn't want to go to school," says Eric. "His mother called me and said, 'We've got to do something."'

Jeff moved to Michigan again to live with his father at the outset of his ninth-grade year.

"He was captain of the freshman basketball team and things seemed to be going well," says Hipple

But there were signs of trouble even before the basketball season was finished. Jeff was declared academically ineligible late in the season because his grades slumped again. He began to exhibit more telltale signs of depression. He withdrew from friends and became increasingly isolated. He lost his appetite, struggled with insomnia and complained of not feeling well.