They walked hand-in hand onto the field, two rugged captains of Wabash College's football team. It was senior day.

Evan Hansen and Kyle McAtee were both seniors, four years of grit and sweat together. The kind of bond only grit and sweat can forge.

As they stood on the 50-yard line before the game Sept. 8, their talk turned to the upcoming Monon Bell Classic in November. It is Wabash' most historic and anticipated game — this year is the 125th Classic — against rival DePauw University.

Through helmets, their eyes locked.

“I can’t wait,” Hansen said to McAtee. “Man, I cannot wait for that game.”

Wouldn't Evan have let McAtee know then — if he wasn't going to be there for that game in November?

After a 16-13 Wabash win against University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and walking with his parents at halftime that senior day, his mom cradling flowers, Hansen went to The Creekside Lodge in Crawfordsville.

It's the kind of restaurant a 6-1, 200-pound linebacker loves — with spicy cheese balls, “wicked hot” wings and loaded tater tots.

Chuck and Mary Hansen’s middle son — a gentle guy off the field but a tornado on — was flashing his goofy smile as they ate dinner. They said goodbye, just as always.

Wouldn't Evan have let them know — if this was going to be the last time he would see them?

Hansen went home to his Beta Theta Pi fraternity brothers that Saturday night. On Sunday, he showed up for a meeting with his football coaches.

“He didn’t let on to anyone. Nothing,” said Chuck Hansen, of Carmel. “He was able to hide everything from everybody. On the outside, he is still smiling and looking to the future.”

On the inside, the charade was over.

On Monday, Sept. 10, Evan Hansen, 21, took his life.

Two deaths, two years apart

In what is believed to be an uncanny coincidence, Hansen wasn't the first Wabash College football player to die by suicide on Sept. 10 — World Suicide Prevention Day.

Exactly two years before Hansen's death, Austin Weirich, a 20-year-old junior, took his life. While he wasn't on the football team at the time of his death, he had played the prior two seasons for Wabash, a 6-4, 240-pound defensive end.

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He had played with Hansen. And much like Hansen, Weirich was a young man with everything going for him.

Handsome, successful and smart, Weirich was class president in high school all four years in Goshen, Ind. With weighted honors classes, he graduated with a grade point average higher than the perfect 4.0.

At the time of his death, Weirich was majoring in economics and minoring in business. He was active in campus programs. He was a member of the Wabash Acts Responsibly Council, which focused on, among other issues, mental health.

"Our son masked depression in perfectionism," said Leslie Weirich.

And, like Hansen, he masked it in outward happiness.

The Friday morning before he died, Weirich was texting with his dad, as they did every day. Later, Leslie Weirich and her son had a 45-minute video chat — talking about his classes, how it was the football team's bye week.

Weirich wasn't playing that season because of injuries, but he still hung out with the team. He was supposed to go to a player's house that weekend to watch the Notre Dame game.

That Friday afternoon, he lifted weights. His sweaty towels were found in his room after he died. That evening, he talked to his dad again. He was going with friends to a burger house.

"He was on top of the world," Leslie Weirich said.

"Or so we thought," said Keith Weirich.

The Weirichs were awakened at 2:30 a.m. by a loud knock on their front door. It was a police officer.

"Are you Austin Weirich's parents?" he said. Something terrible had happened.

"Austin was my best friend. I felt like I knew him inside and out," said Keith Weirich.

"We did everything together and yet I lost him."

'Losing one of our own diminishes us'

For Wabash, a male liberal arts college with fewer than 900 undergraduates, Weirich and Hansen were the second and third deaths by suicide in the past four years.

In 2014, Aronno Haque, a senior at Wabash, was found dead in Central Park Lake in New York City where he was visiting family during the college's winter break. Police ruled it a suicide. Haque was not a member of the football team.

When asked about the three suicides and the impact on the college, Wabash President Gregory Hess said in an e-mail, “We are a close-knit community, and losing one of our own diminishes all of us."

Hess also said Hansen's death "calls us to redouble our efforts — through our counseling center, our Mental Health Concerns Committee, our student life professionals, and our faculty and staff generally — to educate students to look for and recognize signs that they or their classmates may need help, and to encourage them to seek it as a normal and appropriate response to life’s challenges."

Both the Hansen and Weirich families say they do not blame Wabash or the football program for their sons' deaths. Mental health is a deeply personal issue.

"Austin didn't die by suicide. Nobody dies by suicide," said Leslie Weirich. "You die by loss of hope in that single moment, without moving on to the next moment."

Wabash football coach Don Morel declined an IndyStar request for an interview through Brent Harris, director of sports information and marketing for Wabash.

“At this time his focus is on how he, the coaching staff, the team and other students are dealing with the emotions of the situation," Harris said.

McAtee said dealing with the emotions is "like trying to make sense out of nonsense."

He, after all, is trying to make sense out of two of his "football brothers'" deaths. McAtee remembers eating burgers with Weirich that Friday before he died.

McAtee remembers how he and Hansen both showed up to Wabash as freshmen, Hansen so good, yet so shy and humble. Their lockers were close to one another, and, after an early practice, McAtee asked Hansen how he had done.

"Yeah, I think I practiced OK," Hansen told him.

Hansen didn't practice OK.

"I'm out there second string and he’s out there starting," said McAtee, a 6-1, 275-pound center. "It's kind of unheard of to come in that first year and start. And yet, Evan is saying he's just OK. From then on, I knew he was a special guy."

At the time of his death, Hansen had been playing football for 14 years, since he was a rambunctious, 7-year-old. He played varsity as a freshman at Guerin Catholic High School in Noblesville.

On the field at Wabash, Hansen was fearless. And beloved. He liked to make up handshakes with teammates and dance to celebrate on the sidelines.

He was a deep-thinking, kind soul, too. Hansen was majoring in biology and Spanish with plans to become a nurse working in underprivileged countries.

"Not once in my life did I ever hear Evan swear," said Chuck Hansen. "He never threw anything or hit anything or broke anything. He was always so calm and peaceful."

The Hansens would get letters at the start of each football season from mothers of incoming freshman on the Wabash team, telling them how nice Hansen had been to their nervous sons.

"All of a sudden, it's all over. He’s gone. All the things he was going to be won’t ever happen," said Chuck Hansen. "And Evan did it by his own hand."

Suicide not rare among

college students

The Hansens knew. Their son had been struggling. They didn't know to what extent. They knew he had been getting help for depression. They didn't know how deep it had gotten.

The Weirichs knew their son would "plummet at times," when he couldn't see the results of his efforts or things didn't go quite the way he thought they should. The summer before Austin Weirich went back to school his junior year, his parents sought professional help for him. He saw it as a sign of weakness.

And so, both Hansen and Weirich smiled. And they put on their acts.

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S., but the second leading cause among college-aged students, after traffic accidents. Suicide prevalence is four times greater in young men than women.

The national rate among college athletes nationwide is not known because whether or not a person is an athlete typically is not reported.

A University of Washington study that looked at athlete deaths found that out of 500,000 student athletes in NCAA sports, 477 died by suicide between 2003 and 2013. That’s nearly 48 deaths per year. Since then, some high-profile suicides among athletes have been publicized.

In January, 21-year-old Tyler Hilinski, a Washington State quarterback, was found in his apartment after he didn’t show up for practice. Police found a suicide note.

A year earlier, Jordan Hankins, a 19-year-old basketball player at Northwestern University died by suicide in her dorm room in January 2017. She was a 2015 graduate of Lawrence North in Indianapolis.

And three years before that, Madison Holleran, a University of Pennsylvania freshman and member of the track and field team, took her own life.

Suicide “most often occurs when stressors exceed current coping abilities of someone suffering from a mental health condition,” said Kelsey Steuer, Indiana area director with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “We know in this age group, there are many stressors that may overwhelm, but it is never just one thing; it is all of the stressors together."

Being a college athlete hasn't been found to increase the risk for suicidal thoughts or behaviors, said John F. Gunn III, a doctoral student at Montclair State University in New Jersey, in the department of family science and human development, where he specializes in suicide.

In fact, much research has found a "protective effect" of sports on suicide, he said, meaning athletes are less likely to die by suicide due to being part of a team and reveling in successes and hard work with others.

But for those athletes who do suffer from mental health issues, a scary phenomenon abounds. Few are reaching out for help.

Perhaps, it's the toughness it takes to make it in collegiate sports. Admitting a struggle might be seen as a flaw or shortcoming.

One in three college students experience significant symptoms of depression, anxiety or other mental health conditions, according to Daniel Eisenberg, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Yet, in a study of the university's athletes, he found that most don't get help. Overall, 30 percent of college students with mental health conditions do reach out, compared to 10 percent of athletes.

But there are other possible factors, physical impacts, such as traumatic brain injury or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — especially in high-impact sports, such as football — that could affect an athlete's mental state.

Boston University asked the Hansens to allow doctors to test Evan Hansen's brain for CTE, a neurodegenerative disease found in people with head injuries. The Hansens agreed.

Chuck Hansen said it would likely take several months to get the results.

For now, he waits and tries to make a difference, reaching out to his son's friends and teammates. Any young person he knows. Trying to save lives in any way he can. Trying to prevent what happened to Evan Hansen from happening to anyone else.

"If someone is thinking they are all alone and no one cares and they can’t reach anybody and, if they did, they wouldn’t get any help, they are wrong," he said. "The mind is tricking them."

And so Chuck Hansen sends out texts.

"If you need me, I'm here. You may feel happy now, but if you ever need to talk, I'm here. If you don't feel like you can go on any longer, I am here. Put me on speed dial."

A game to remember,

in memory of Evan Hansen

It was Saturday, Sept. 15, one week after that senior day game, the last game Hansen played. For the Wabash football team, it felt like a lifetime had unfolded.

They had buried their teammate. Some of them had buried a second teammate. And they were taking the field against Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio.

"It was a day after putting our brother to rest. And it was just so much bigger than a football game," said McAtee. "There was excitement, but it wasn't excitement to win the game. It was getting to do something Evan loved."

Football.

The first play of the game, Wabash' defense went out with 10 men, without a player in Hansen's spot.

They won 47-14.

Hansen should have been there that day. But something got in the way. Something overwhelmed him, said Chuck Hansen.

"He listened to the lies," he said. "The lies his mind was telling him."

The Hansens and the Weirichs want one thing out of all of this — to have their sons' deaths mean something. To help raise suicide awareness. To save another family from the pain.

Leslie Weirich has begun speaking publicly about suicide at churches and schools. Keith does his part on a more personal level, advocating for awareness one-on-one. Together, they started a scholarship in honor of their son.

People should never be afraid to ask, said Gunn, if there is any suspicion or concern that someone is contemplating suicide.

"You can not make someone suicidal by asking them if they are or asking if they are struggling with suicidal thoughts," he said. "The worst you can do is have an awkward conversation and, if it saves a life, awkward is a small price to pay."

The Hansen family has started a tribute page to their son.

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @Dana Benbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com.