Penn mourns football player who took his own life

Penn football cocaptain Owen Thomas was a fun-loving, hardworking young man who took on every task and responsibility, including those relating to the sport he loved and the classes he took in the demanding Wharton School, with a deep intensity.

It was that same quality, however, that "spiraled out of control" and prompted him to take his own life, his mother said Tuesday.

"The intensity, that was his personality," the Rev. Katherine Brearley said from her Allentown home. "But his intensity spiral went downward. His friends and his football coaches all tried to help him put it in perspective and we thought they were succeeding. They told him to take it one day at a time.

"But there was something with his schoolwork where he said, 'I can't do this and it's not worth it.' All the energy that we had seen him put into life spiraled out of control and made him do this."

Brearley, a minister in the United Church of Christ, said her 21-year-old son was found Monday afternoon inside the off-campus apartment he shared with four roommates, all members of the football team. He had apparently hanged himself.

The death was the second in five years involving a Penn football player. Kyle Ambrogi, a senior running back from Havertown, took his own life Oct. 10, 2005.

"Unfortunately, I have a little more experience handling this than I did then," Penn coach Al Bagnoli, said on Monday, remembering Ambrogi. "We know we can't get through this on our own. We're going to handle it as one big family."

Brearley said her son had no history of depression.

"He was so full of life," she said. "He did say he was working so hard but not doing well, and we said, 'We'll deal with it.' He was worried about getting a job in the summer. He was made captain, so now he felt responsible to set high standards for the team. I never imagined it would suddenly turn so bad."

She said her son, a defensive end for the defending Ivy League champs, met with his position coach Friday and "went away feeling positive."

Thomas' death was being felt around campus Tuesday as students prepared for final exams. Many attended an information session to learn where to go for assistance in coping with the tragedy.

Senior linebacker Jake Lewko said he was shocked.

"He was a really funny guy, a great guy," Lewko said. "You couldn't tell there was anything wrong with him. Owen was very entertaining in the locker room and on the field. He was a great leader."

Thomas' father, the Rev. Thomas N. Thomas, pastor of the Union United Church of Christ in Neffs, Pa., and a former football player at the University of Virginia, relayed a message to students through university chaplain Chaz Howard to "ask you all to take care of each other."

Brearley said Thomas was the youngest in a family of four boys - two of whom (not including Thomas) were adopted. "He grew into a vibrant, energetic, personable young man," she said.

Thomas, who helped his parents on missions to Puerto Rico and Appalachia as a teenager, played most sports, but he really loved football.

He started out in sixth grade playing on a 90-pound team. Later, he discovered he was one pound too heavy to play in a higher weight class, but lost two pounds to qualify "and kept it off all season," she said.

Thomas starred at Parkland High School in South Whitehall Township, serving as captain of the football team for two seasons.

"I've never had that happen before and I've been doing this for 41 years," Parkland head coach Jim Morgans said. "He was a wonderful kid. He was such a caring kid. He cared about everybody."

After he considered attending Lehigh to study engineering, Thomas decided on Penn. With the Quakers, he grew in confidence on the field, emerging to become a second-team all-Ivy League player during Penn's 2009 championship season.

His mother liked something else. "He loved his red hair," she said. "We'd watch him play and he'd take his helmet off and he would shake his head and a wave of red hair would flow out."

Brearley said that "as a person of faith," she is comforted knowing that she will see her son again. But that doesn't take away from a parent's sorrow.

"In a way, we don't really understand," she said.

"Please encourage young people, anybody, to reach out and get help. You can't believe the pain we're going through."