Why did Michigan's Garrick Roemer commit suicide???

There was another thread or two on here about it that went nowhere. I understand that a family wants its privacy. However, I think there are usually lessons to be learned. I was devastated by the Sam Wopat suicide as I am a big volleyball fan. I try to learn from these things. I have a nine year old. I don't want to miss any signs. There's just not much out there in cyberland, maybe in 6 months or so. I did find this.

http://www.redditian.com/r/sports/24tsjn

If you know someone who is hurting, reach out. I guess there were posts on the social media about how depressed he was. Hindsight is always 20/20.

What surprises me is that this is getting such little publicity compared to the UPenn girl who took her life earlier this year, Madison Holleran. I just hope the coaches at UMich didn't ignore any signs he showed (and if he didn't, then it's not their fault). Rest in peace.

While it shouldn't be forced, I think coaches should start the conversation about mental health. They should make it clear that it's okay to get help, and free counseling is available on campus.

Ivy coach wrote:

Big difference, she was in the Ivy League and he was was attending. A Midwest state school.

Pretty much one of the best public institutions in the country and still a top tier school.

clown college that admitted the FAB FIVE geniuses

B1G Ten wrote:

Ivy coach wrote:

Big difference, she was in the Ivy League and he was was attending. A Midwest state school.

Pretty much one of the best public institutions in the country and still a top tier school.

Maybe Ivy coach was referring to the fact that the mindset out there in the midwest is different?

And to the poster above me, college is what you make of it. Any school can be a "clown college" if you choose the easiest professors and a joke major. I go to a small, un-ranked school where you have b.s. majors like "hospitality" and then very serious tracks like physics and mathematics. They're not impossible, but anybody that is not a prodigy would find the upper level classes in those majors very challenging

Michigan has always rated as one of the top 5 public Universities. Yes, the Michigan AD Don Canham was one of the first to push to relax standards and create programs to keep special top athletes at such a school. For the money sports.

I know they always like to refer to themselves as the Harvard of the mid-west but there must be a reason why Michigan and Northwestern are always ranked highly in academics above the rest of the Big 10.

Everyone should stop speculating on this especially on an open public forum which allows insensitive comments.

Nobody knows what struggle this young man was dealing with in his mind that led to this other than people maybe that were very close to him. But I doubt that even.

Why does anyone do this at that age? Young, healthy, with a whole life ahead of them. But it happens sometimes.

DKCCC wrote:

What surprises me is that this is getting such little publicity compared to the UPenn girl who took her life earlier this year, Madison Holleran.

It surprises me as well because I hadn't even heard of this until tonight.

I would say it's probably because 1) the UPenn girl was very female and very attractive

2) The Upenn girl was in the NY media market

3) The UPenn girl was a state champ

4) Ivy league had something to do with it.

-Rojo

PS. Here is the initial thread:

Girly men wrote:

clown college that admitted the FAB FIVE geniuses

basketball players can be excellent students.

bill bradley-princeton

david robinson-naval academy

grant hill- duke

the FAV FIVE may or may not have been good students, but guaranteed all of them are living extremely comfortable lives, because of their basketball careers.

douglas burke wrote:

Girly men wrote:

clown college that admitted the FAB FIVE geniuses

basketball players can be excellent students.

bill bradley-princeton

david robinson-naval academy

grant hill- duke

the FAB FIVE may or may not have been good students, but guaranteed all of them are living extremely comfortable lives, because of their basketball careers.

the press is well aware that giving attention to suicides actually promotes more of them (as a statistical fact), which is why that they are not given more attention. the bottom line is that if you know someone is very depressed, you need to surround them with friends and family and get them into committed relationships and important activities.

jjjjjjjjj wrote:the bottom line is that if you know someone is very depressed, you need to surround them with friends and family and get them into committed relationships and important activities.

Only add on this, AND you must style your approach so that it doesn't become a confrontation which then becomes an additional stressor. You also have to be careful with your choice of words with and around the individual.

Among my group of friends we had two designated people to talk to him on topics that needed to be discussed. But a different one took matters into his own hands and confronted him about missing food items. Yes, the missing food items and subsequent bulimia were hard for others to cope with but there was a bigger issue at hand. Unfortunately, it was thoughts like that confrontation which no doubt resonated in his mind as he concluded that "no body liked him" and he was "going to get fired from his [high caliber] dream job" just two years later. My one friend also unintentionally said something to the effect that "anyone who is anyone graduates in four years" right in front of him when talking to some others. No one else noticed, but I saw my one friend look down because it stung him inside. I know for a fact it really hurt him and the fact of the matter is my other friend wasn't even right. He was just being arrogant and speaking foolishly.

douglas burke wrote:

Girly men wrote:

clown college that admitted the FAB FIVE geniuses

basketball players can be excellent students.

bill bradley-princeton

david robinson-naval academy

grant hill- duke

the FAV FIVE may or may not have been good students, but guaranteed all of them are living extremely comfortable lives, because of their basketball careers.

Oh, they were terrible students. It is an outrage to compare Juwan Howard favorably with Bill Bradley. Also, most of the fab five spent their millions on beyatches n bling, and are now bankrupt. No respectable university would admit these "students".

5) The UPenn girl's family (NJ) wanted all the details about their daughters suicide out in hopes of helping other families prevent such tragedies.

I would say that living in an environment where feminists and the media are constantly running down men as rapists and dirty-dangerous jobs workers, and lacking honor unless they register for selective service at age 18, then die in war for women, and are abused in family courts, and are blamed for all of women's problems, yeah, that may have something to do with it.

Girly men wrote:

clown college that admitted the FAB FIVE geniuses

Chris Webber went to one of the best private schools in Michigan.

Jalen Rose was on the honor roll in high school.

Juwan Howard was a member of the National Honors Society and president of the Senior Boys Council and has been praised numerous times for his intelligence, professionalism and citizenship.

Jimmy King went to Plano East High School, which has been ranked in the top 3% of high schools in the US, and he worked as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch.

Ray Jackson wasn't exactly a top recruit who had a bunch of strings pulled for him to be able to play.

All of them had high enough scores on their ACT to qualify to play as freshmen. As far as I know, all five graduated from Michigan. Sorry that your image of them is so far from the truth.

"I just hope the coaches at UMich didn't ignore any signs he showed (and if he didn't, then it's not their fault)."

-holy crap, man. by no stretch of the imagination is it anyone's fault except the selfish guy that took his own life. are you kidding me? are you one of those everything is someone else's fault guys? give me a break.

you are very mixed up wrote:

"I just hope the coaches at UMich didn't ignore any signs he showed (and if he didn't, then it's not their fault)."

-holy crap, man. by no stretch of the imagination is it anyone's fault except the selfish guy that took his own life. are you kidding me? are you one of those everything is someone else's fault guys? give me a break.

Would I exclusively blame the coaches? NO. Suicide and it's reasons are very complex. I did make it seem like either/or, but I should have been more clear.

I'm just saying, if the kid tried to tell the coaches "I'm having a really hard time right now" and they shrugged it off or didn't do much about it then that would be bad, but it still wouldn't be exclusively the coach's fault. Some people don't believe mental illness is a real thing, and sometimes those people are in the position to help save a life. I just hope that coaches, wherever they coach, aren't like that.

Nice try, dumba$ wrote:

Girly men wrote:

clown college that admitted the FAB FIVE geniuses

All of them had high enough scores on their ACT to qualify to play as freshmen. As far as I know, all five graduated from Michigan. Sorry that your image of them is so far from the truth.

Check your facts, jack.

"Former Michigan athletic director Don Canham told the Detroit Free Press last week, "The Fab Five were dirty . . . a disgrace to the University of Michigan"

Revelations that Webber received staggering amounts of money from a booster confirmed an image of an out-of-control program. Booster Ed Martin gave Fab Five center Chris Webber $280,000 while Webber was in high school and college, and gave another $336,000 to three other Wolverines basketball players.

Only one of the Fab Five, Howard, received any sort of degree, and in an era of heavily scrutinized NCAA graduation rates, that's another indictment of the team."

Oh, you can be certain that although they couldn't count to five timeouts, they knew where be da hookahs.

Get out of here. This is absolutely unnecessary to bash any school on a thread about the death of such a beautiful person.