Cowboys defensive lineman Solomon Thomas, who co-founded The Defensive Line to raise awareness about suicide prevention, shared an emotional message honoring his teammate Marshawn Kneeland, who died by suicide Thursday.
“Brother Marshawn, I love you. I wish you knew it was going to be okay. I wish you knew the pain wouldn’t last and how loved you are. I wish you knew how bad we wanted you to stay,” Thomas posted on Instagram on Friday. “My heart breaks for you and your loved ones. We will lift your spirit up everyday.”
Thomas’s sister, Ella Thomas, died by suicide on Jan. 23, 2018. She was 24. Solomon Thomas had just completed his rookie season with the San Francisco 49ers and was devastated. He described the following year as the “worst season of his life” and, in a 2021 article in The Players’ Tribune, wrote “it pushed me to the darkest point in my life.”
Solomon’s mother, Martha Thomas, confirmed her son’s poor mental health after the death of his sister.
“It was petrifying, because he hadn’t gotten help yet,” Martha Thomas said. “It felt like life was draining out of him by the day.”
After Thomas refused to seek help for his struggles, his mother asked the 49ers organization to “find a way to help him.” San Francisco general manager John Lynch told Thomas it was OK to get help, and “it made all the difference,” Martha Thomas said.
Three years later, Thomas founded The Defensive Line along with his parents, Martha and Chris Thomas. The foundation focuses on suicide awareness and directs its programs toward communities where more than 50 percent of the population is young people of color. Its website says the foundation focuses on education, creating safe places for young people to speak about their mental health and improving systemic approaches within schools to better prevent suicide.
The pain from his sister’s death hasn’t subsided for Thomas, though. He described his own depression and the difficulties of trying to play through his mental health struggles in The Players’ Tribune piece.
“I’m a mental health advocate now — or whatever they call it — and I know so much more about anxiety and depression than I used to. I realize now that, after you passed away, I experienced the harsh stigma of mental health. All that stuff that people sometimes say, like ‘Toughen up!’ ‘BE A MAN!’ ‘You’re just making up an excuse because you’re not playing well!’,” Thomas wrote. “That stuff had an impact. All of it. It made me feel ashamed, and it angered me. It pushed me to the darkest point in my life. I suppressed my emotions and feelings about losing you. I tried to move on and live a life that everyone else wanted to see me living. I tried not to be a burden. I ignored my pain, and I ignored my depression.”
“I was expected to act like I was OK, but How the f— was I supposed to be OK when my sister, my best friend, was dead? I went down a very dark path, and it became more than I could handle. Living became harder than dying. It was just all black, all day,” he wrote.
Thomas’s work with mental awareness earned him the 2023 Heisman Humanitarian Award. Other athletes such as former NFL wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski and ballet dancer Misty Copeland have also won the award.
The defensive lineman, who is in his first year with the Cowboys, is a nine-year NFL veteran who has also spent time with the 49ers and Jets.
“It’s such a privilege to be able to watch your kid play in the NFL, but to watch him do this work and to be vulnerable with his mental health in an industry that doesn’t always value vulnerability is the proudest I could be,” Martha Thomas said.
His teammate, Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott, has also long been one of the league’s strongest advocates for mental health awareness. The Cowboys quarterback shared his thoughts during a previously scheduled ceremony at his high school in Haughton, LA.
“It’s been a very tough day,” Prescott told CBS News Texas. “It started early this morning, finding out the news. Tragic loss, I hurt. Heavy, heavy heart today. I hurt for Marshawn. I hurt for his family. I hurt for his girlfriend. I hurt for every single one of my teammates. This is a pain that you don’t wish upon anybody.”
Prescott started his own foundation, Faith Fight Finish, after his mother, Peggy Prescott, died in 2013 due to colon cancer. The foundation’s work also shifted to focus on suicide awareness after Prescott’s brother, Jace Prescott, died by suicide in 2020.
The quarterback won the Walter Payton Man of the Year award in 2022 for his work in raising funds for cancer treatments and awareness and suicide prevention. Prescott and Thomas’s organizations collaborated in 2023, when they announced a month-long initiative with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).
Now, the two are teammates in Dallas. In each player’s statement after Kneeland’s death, they reminded people that it’s “OK to not be OK.” Thomas’s final post reshared a message from his foundation. “You’re not alone.”
“They’re members of this club that no one wants to be a part of,” Martha Thomas said. “They could speak the same language, understood each other, maybe didn’t even have to speak the language. They could look at each other and know.”
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or is in emotional distress, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or at 988lifeline.org.
