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A
Mother's Crusade
By
Scott Howard-Cooper – Sacramento Bee Staff Writer
Last
Updated 8:45 am PDT Monday, October 9, 2006
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Jan
Ulrich visits the grave of her son, Nathan Eisert, in
Louisville, Ky., last month. Ulrich said she realized at
her son’s funeral service, looking at his teammates,
that she had to do all she could to prevent suicides by
other student-athletes. Special
to The Bee
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LOUISVILLE,
Ky. -- Jan Ulrich needed to know whether Nathan was in heaven or
hell, she said, because a mother should look after her child and
she was going to find him and comfort him.
That
was how it started.
Immediately
after her son's death, Jan says she became numb, almost
unconscious. She remembers bringing hair gel and a comb to the
front of the church before the memorial service, and leaning into
the casket to fix Nathan's hair. The people at the funeral home
had not brushed down the sides the way Nathan liked.
Jan
talked to Nathan a lot as she worked, though she can't remember
what she said. She mostly recalls looking over and seeing the man
from the funeral home in tears as she chatted away.
When
the service began, she became possessed. This, she remembers
vividly. She felt called, and she knew exactly what it was she
wanted to say.
Nathan
Eisert, her son, had killed himself, and college sports were to
blame. Jan Ulrich was sure of that.
The
call to the campus police at Western Kentucky University in
Bowling Green was logged in at 8:17 p.m. on June 10, 2002. There
had been a possible suicide in one of the dorms, Pearce-Ford
Tower, in Room 918.
The
report states that four officers responded within four minutes. A
white male was discovered on the bed with what appeared to be a
gunshot wound to the right side of the head. A handgun, a
.380-caliber cartridge and several incidentals also were
catalogued. The scene was secured.
Nathan's
father, Glenn Eisert, was already there. He was the one who had
discovered the body.
Glenn
had been home, about three miles from school, when he began the
search for his son. Nathan hadn't shown up at the park the day
before, when he and Glenn had planned to practice softball in
preparation for joining their church team.
It
was unlike Nathan, routinely considerate of others, to skip an
appointment. But maybe, Glenn thought, Nathan confused the days or
went to the wrong park. Maybe he just plain forgot.
Glenn
called, and kept calling as the hours passed and the day turned.
By Monday evening, he was panicking. He drove to Pearce-Ford
Tower.
Nathan's
car was in the parking lot, so Glenn went inside and told a worker
that he needed to get into Room 918. His son lived there, he said.
Something may have happened.
That
was Monday. The funeral was Thursday, a daytime service. It was
conducted at the church where Nathan had been baptized as an
infant, and where Jan had met Glenn in a youth group, before they
dated through her high school years and eventually married as she
attended the University of Louisville.
Now,
in that same church, Jan was struck by the sense that she had to
say something. She felt impelled to speak. To a woman for whom
Christian faith meant so much, these were not glancing emotions.
Western
Kentucky athletes were in the church. They were with Nathan on
that day as he had been with them for two years on the basketball
team, as a freshman walk-on who scraped his way to a scholarship
as a sophomore.
The
pastor spoke. Friends and teammates spoke. Jan came last.
She
rose from the first row and felt the room clench. A mother was
about to eulogize her son, and no one knew what to expect. After
all, Jan had already collapsed to her knees once, when picking out
the casket; the man at the funeral home had asked her to choose
the color for the lining, as if she were picking car upholstery.
But
when she rose, friends saw Jan transformed into a mother empowered
with purpose. Her crusade for suicide prevention, in fact, began
on the spot.
Eventually,
that crusade would lead Jan to take on Western Kentucky, the
athletic department and basketball coach Dennis Felton, demanding
changes in the way they approached the delicate issue of athletes
and depression.
In
this unscripted instant, though, she focused on Nathan's peers.
She chastised every one of them. She told them not to allow what
happened to Nathan to happen to them. She said they'd better not
dare consider suicide as a way out, told them to sear the image
into their minds of their parents picking out their children's
caskets.
"I
want you to think about what I've gone through the last few
days," Jan said to Nathan's friends, his teammates. "I
want you to remember this."
She
delivered her message: that whatever happened in Room 918, it did
not solve any problem. She said it with Nathan in the open casket
at her side.
The
mother had entered her consuming crusade, without planning it,
without realizing it and, of course, without wanting it.
"At
first, it was, maybe if I work hard enough, I can bring him
back," she said later. "But that didn't work. And I'm
still going."
Four
years later, Jan seems exhausted from trying to prevent other
mothers of college athletes from experiencing what she suffers.
Yet, there is always a new mom to meet and console.
That's
where the guilt comes now, from not reaching families she hasn't
yet met to help stop what she could not prevent with her own son.
Jan
eventually was certified by the QPR Institute, a national
suicide-prevention group, and she grieves her way through three or
four awareness presentations a month. Some are directed at the
warning signs of crisis, and intervention; some are support
meetings with families and friends left behind by self-inflicted
tragedy.
Survivor
groups, they call those. Not because the loved one survived, but
because everyone around them has to find a way to.
The
speeches are targeted at everyone, not only athletes or college
students. Sports are part of Jan's story, and that aspect of it
connects with audiences. It's Kentucky, after all. Of course she
is going to show a picture of Nathan playing basketball.
Beyond
that, Jan says she feels certain that sports played a role in
Nathan's death -- in particular, the mind-set that athletes can't
show weakness, that they must play through pain.
Nathan
played through it all until he went to his father's house. He took
the gun from there.
Glenn
Eisert liked to shoot for marksmanship. The father, divorced from
Jan and living in Bowling Green, kept several guns, all locked
away, and Nathan was the only person to whom he told the location
of the keys.
Glenn
said he didn't like the 9 mm pistol anymore, so he didn't notice
that the locked metal briefcase had vanished. It's impossible to
even know when Nathan took it, only that the ultimate decision in
Room 918 was a planned act. Nathan had to take the gun, and he had
to get bullets somewhere, because Glenn didn't have any.
Jan
says she now believes her son was suffering from severe
depression, and felt as if he couldn't ask for help. He was a
walk-on at Western Kentucky who had been given a one-year
scholarship, and he certainly wasn't going to show himself as
unworthy.
Nathan
got the scholarship the summer after his freshman season, the
2000-01 school year. It was a major accomplishment for someone who
hadn't started playing basketball until his junior year in high
school, after sprouting three inches from the year before, to
6-foot-3. Nathan seemed to love college, the chemistry of the team
and the success in reaching the NCAA Tournament.
But
almost immediately, there was a hurdle. The very day he was put on
scholarship, not 30 minutes after telling his father the good
news, Nathan severely sprained an ankle.
Jan
thinks the depression started then. There was physical pain -- a
common trigger of depression, mental-health experts say -- and a
brutal rehabilitation, in which Nathan pushed himself almost
without restraint.
He
couldn't let down the team. His family and friends in Louisville
and in Bowling Green had so cheered his success. He couldn't fail
them.
His
sophomore season came. Trying to compensate for the
still-undependable ankle, Nathan developed a back problem.
The
team's roster, meanwhile, had changed -- and so had the mood
around it. Nathan found himself struggling to get in games, and
struggling to perform anywhere close to his expectations when he
did play.
Jan
could see the disappointment on his face. She ached at the sight,
and of Nathan apologizing to her for not getting into a game,
after she had driven from Louisville, 110 miles away.
Several
times, she says, she confronted him about whether he was still
having fun.
"Oh,
Mom," Nathan replied. "You don't have to worry about me.
I'm fine."
It
was Nathan the peacemaker, his mother now says. He didn't like
confrontation. He was trusted, the guy other people went to with a
problem. He seemed conscious of not being a burden.
One
by one, though, red flags were raised. Nathan's grades, once a
source of pride, slipped dramatically. His sleep seemed erratic,
with Nathan sometimes appearing exhausted. The coaching staff got
reports that Nathan had been cutting classes, his father said.
His
sophomore season ended abruptly when he was removed from the team
because of academic issues, his father said. No one told Nathan it
was a permanent decision, only that his scholarship would not be
renewed at that time.
Glenn
was informed, and he couldn't help but wonder if his son was a
little relieved to get away from the expectations. Players were
informed, but they still spent time with Nathan and referred to
him as a teammate.
No
one, least of all Nathan, informed Jan.
Weeks
passed. Nathan turned 20 on May 27, 2002, and his mother served
cake and ice cream on plates with a basketball motif. Another day,
when they were at the mall together, Nathan wondered why people
seemed to be staring. Jan said they must be trying to figure out
where this tall kid played basketball.
She
says she can't get over, now, how those moments must have been
such a kick in the gut for her wounded son.
Nathan's
last trip home to Louisville ended in a fight with his girlfriend.
He was internalizing everything and she was frustrated because he
wouldn't talk. Finally, while they were in a car, she said she
couldn't be in a relationship with someone who wouldn't open up.
The girlfriend later told Jan that Nathan's response to that was
to slam his fist into the dashboard and shout, "I'm so
angry!"
It
had been five weeks since he was kicked off the team. He drove
back to Bowling Green that Saturday night, through open country
and darkness. No one heard from Nathan Eisert again.
Nathan
may have been dead close to two days when his father opened the
door and found him, authorities say. No one in the dorms reported
hearing a gunshot. The date of death was listed as June 8, a
Saturday.
When
police responded the night of the 10th, they found a picture of a
male and female torn in two alongside a broken frame. Also found
was a bottle of 56 Skelaxin pills, a prescription muscle relaxant
to treat injuries. But no explanation.
Jan
and Glenn had not gotten along since their divorce years earlier,
communicating mostly on parental issues, they both acknowledge.
After the tragedy, they stopped talking altogether. If there was
anything to say, e-mail worked fine. That's how they decided on a
headstone for their son, they remember. E-mails.
They
share a 21-year-old daughter and, always, a son, and they haven't
spoken since days after the funeral, each said. Jan says she has
sympathy for what Glenn walked into that night, and shows the
courtesy to warn Glenn if reporters might be calling about their
son or if she will be speaking about suicide prevention near
Bowling Green.
Glenn,
for his part, understands that Jan putting herself out there, in
hopes of saving someone else's child, is part of the grieving
process.
But
it ends there. Glenn thinks Jan is too slick in her presentation,
that her intimate story is too much. Jan can't forget Glenn
failing to tell her about Nathan being kicked off the team, and
can't forgive him for the gun.
"I
think that she does what she needs to do to help her get through
it and cope with it," Glenn said. "Personally, I think
she's gone overboard. But if that's what she needs, fine."
Said
Jan: "This is all I know to make a difference. One article,
one TV appearance, one piece of legislation isn't enough."
Glenn
still stays close to the Western Kentucky basketball team. He goes
to games and takes photos for the school's sports information
department, making a special point to get shots of walk-ons and
players at the end of the bench.
"It's
a healing process," said Pam Eisert, Glenn's wife. "It's
still somewhat of a connection to Nathan. We come here and we can
feel him. We still feel support from the players, whether they're
still here or not. "It fills an empty void. I don't know
if I'm saying this right. It's a comfort."
Jan
remains in Louisville, her hometown, with her husband, Stephen
Ulrich, and she cannot get far enough away from Bowling Green. She
went to the campus to collect some of Nathan's belongings, and has
given presentations there. She even took part in ceremonies the
next season when the 2001-02 team was honored for winning the Sun
Belt Conference and reaching the NCAA Tournament.
But
Western Kentucky still mostly makes her cringe.
Jan
can't get past coach Dennis Felton not talking to a player, even a
former player recently dismissed, for a month after delivering
such life-altering news -- not a single call to check on Nathan, a
good kid who, as far as anyone knew at the time, simply lost
academic focus.
Asked
about the incident, the coach has said he couldn't be expected to
know that trouble was barreling down when the people closest to
Nathan missed it, too.
Felton
was right that Jan was as unaware of the signs as anyone. She
doesn't deny it. And, besides, as much as she blames an uncaring
system for her son's death, her issue with Felton is more what has
he done about it since. That is what churns her emotions about
Western Kentucky.
Jan
wants to know that her son's death made a difference, in much the
same way that it spurred her to work for suicide prevention. The
athletic department has responded to the tragedy by building a
closer relationship with the student-counseling office. During
meetings with teams before their seasons start, the athletic
department now makes athletes aware of the services offered by the
counseling office and encourages athletes to seek help for any
emotional needs.
But
Jan wants to know that it also changed something with Felton, who
left after the 2002-03 season to become head coach at Georgia. She
has not spoken with him since.
"I
would like him as an ally," Jan said. "I would like him
to say: 'It was a loss for me, too. I want to ensure that other
coaches don't or won't have to deal with this.' That's what I'd
like him to say."
Said
Felton: "I don't do anything differently. I have always been
attentive to my players. But I don't know that suicide would pop
into my mind before, the way it may now.
"She
(Jan) never insinuated she had any problem with me. I've always
been an ally. We talked as often as she wanted to talk."
Nathan
was returned to Louisville for the service and burial. Jan and her
husband, Stephen, Glenn and his wife, Pam, eventually ordered the
headstone.
"GOD'S
BIG ANGEL," it says on the top of the plate in the ground at
the head of the grave.
Jan
is sure of that, though she says she knows suicide is a sin within
the church. On the night of the horrible news, the pastor who had
come to the house called everyone together in prayer, and talked
about how Nathan could not make a rational decision in a time of
such deep grief.
The
pastor said Nathan would not be abandoned by a loving God, and at
that moment Jan had her answer.
Nathan
was in heaven.
About
the writer:
·
The
Bee's Scott Howard-Cooper can be reached at showard-cooper@sacbee.com.
Bee staff writer Mark Kreidler contributed to this story.
Nathan
Eisert's dream unraveled quickly after he earned
a scholarship at Western Kentucky. An injury slowed Eisert's
play, and then his grades began to slip, leading to the
sophomore's removal from the team. The Courier-Journal
Jan
Ulrich has been certified by a national
suicide-prevention group, and conducts
three or four presentations a month that
focus on depression warning signs and
intervention. The sessions also provide
support for family members devastated
by suicide. Special
to The Bee
Nathan Alan Eisert Foundation, Inc.
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