WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Sept. 9, 2014) -- The Pentagon held its annual Resiliency Health Fair Tuesday as part of Suicide Prevention Month, hosting Monday Night Football legend Eric Hipple, who spent nearly a decade as a quarterback with the Detroit Lions before suffering the loss of his son to suicide and realizing he too was suicidal.
Before introducing Hipple, Karl F. Schneider, acting assistant secretary of the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), addressed the joint-service audience in the center courtyard, saying that the Army and all the services continue to emphasize positive ways of dealing with the stress that comes with life and 13 years of war.
"We want to emphasize the positive ways to deal with stress and that is to develop resiliency," Schneider said. "The people here today are here to help teach us how we can deal with the stress of military service, how to recover from the harm it can cause, and how to develop that resiliency muscle that enables us to defuse in the future."
The secretary said of Hipple, "His resiliency has been tested by adversity, including the loss of his 15-year-old son, Jeff, to suicide. He is committed to building awareness and breaking down the stigma attached with depression and other behavioral health issues. His award-winning book, "Real Men Do Cry" was featured in a 2008 documentary in a national outreach program called "Men Get Depression," and today, he serves as an outreach specialist for the University of Michigan Depression Center."
Hipple will always be known in Lions' lore for one particular game during the 1981 season when as the third-string quarterback, he was called in to lead the Lions against the Chicago Bears. It was his first career start, and one that by the end of the broadcast would become known as "The Night of the Hipple."
The Lions mauled the Bears with #17 running for two touchdowns and throwing for four. When the Lions quit gnawing on their archrivals, the glowing scoreboard in Detroit's Silverdome told it all -- Lions 48, Bears 17. That Monday Night Football game was the scene of one of the greatest debut performances in NFL history.
Hipple would go on to take the Lions to two playoff bids and a divisional championship. He earned the Lions most valuable player award in 1981 and is still ranked fifth in career passing for the team with 10,711 yards.
Life after the NFL started out great -- a big house and a television show focused on what was going on with the Lions. The cash was also rolling in from his insurance business. In 1997, "it all became boring." He had bouts of depression and was suffering from the injuries that had added up from 10 years of being hammered in the league by bigger men who didn't want him to hold onto the ball, much less throw it. He was becoming dependent on alcohol and painkillers; his marriage ended and bankruptcy hit.
Then in 2000, the unfathomable happened -- just 15 years into life, son Jeff committed suicide with his dad's hunting rifle. The guilt ravaged Hipple as did the questions… "Why didn't I see this coming, why?" His son had been doing poorly in school, had quit playing sports and was despondent.
Rock-bottom was around the corner for Hipple. The third time he was busted for DUI, the payment was 58 days behind the bars of reason. Jail was where he vowed to change his life and move in a different direction.
Today, 13 years later, Hipple understands his depression and that of his son's as a disease, but one that can be overcome by seeking help and treatment instead of burying it behind a football or Soldier exterior.
Hipple said the number-one thing he wanted people to take away from his story on depression and how to get help was to remember, "No one is alone, and that the power of one means that you do everything you possibly can to make sure you are solid, you're healthy, but even with that, we know that sometimes we need a teammate, a peer to talk with.
"Somebody who is afraid to seek help, usually that fear comes from not knowing how people are going to react to you -- fear for your career, jeopardizing that maybe help is not available," he said. "It's the nature of the beast which says, you are alone and you don't feel like talking to someone, that you recognize that is exactly when you really, really need to reach out and talk to somebody -- that's where the strength comes from and how we get help."
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