One year later: How a community continues to learn from the life, and death, of Dylan Stafford

This story contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know might be struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention hotline at 800-273-8255 or seek out local resources.

MUNCIE, Ind. – It’s been one year.

One year of pain. One year of reflection and questions. One year of remembering and honoring the short life of Dylan Thomas Stafford.

The memories of him are everywhere. There’s a shadow box inside the Muncie Fieldhouse displaying his No. 22 jersey. A tree planted outside the legendary gym bears his name. Hundreds gathered around that tree for a balloon release in his memory.

There’s a headstone in the ground at Beech Grove Cemetery, just a few miles down the road.

There are the memories his family, friends and those who knew him for only a short time will hold dear for the rest of their lives.

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The impact Dylan made in his 19 years on Earth is immeasurable. Of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of messages his mother, Erin Smith, has received, not one said anything negative about the former Muncie Central star.

Dylan died by suicide on March 27, 2021. The retelling of his story, one of a life ended before it really began, is one his family hopes will help others suffering from mental health issues, to encourage them to get help before it’s too late.

Dylan was a charismatic, goofy and loving friend – always willing to help, whether it be piling his teammates into the back of an SUV to make sure they got to practice, being there for his friends or simply providing a smile when you needed one.

His coaches called him the hardest-working athlete they knew. “He was one that cracked the talent code,” said Dennis Trammell, one of Dylan’s personal trainers.

Dylan strove for perfection. Before most people would wake up, he'd be drenched in sweat at the Northwest YMCA. He’d go to school — grades came easier to him, amassing a 4.7 grade-point average. Then he would put on his Bearcats uniform and dazzle the crowd with the purest jump shot most have ever seen.

He pursued perfection, taking hundreds of shots in self-imposed practice, sneaking his way into area gyms and playing an AAU Tournament during the day, only to come home and find his way back into a gym.

Dylan was never satisfied. It’s what made him the basketball player he ended up being and what earned him a chance to play at Spring Arbor, an NAIA school in Michigan. But inside the fierce competitor and bright smile of a teenager so many players looked up to, was pain he kept hidden.

Finding an escape

The beach was Dylan's escape.

It seemed to be the one place where he found peace, allowing himself to relax from the rigorous schedule he set for himself.

His life revolved around basketball. He would get up early in the morning to play 5-on-5 games at the YMCA, work for hours by himself outside of the open gyms, practices and games at Muncie Central.

Wherever there was a gym, there was place for Dylan to get better.

His mother still doesn’t know where his drive came from came from. No one outworked Dylan, Erin recalls. He always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, eager to prove any doubters wrong.

He was also meticulous about his game. There are pages of notes he kept, breaking down film and discovering tendencies in his opponents.

Every loss weighed heavily on him, though Erin never really knew just how much. After a loss to Lafayette Jefferson his senior year, a game in which he scored zero points and went 0-for-9 from the field, Dylan wrote a note on his phone:

“I swear to God from the bottom of my heart on everything I love, I don’t give a damn about going 0 for whatever or those turnovers, or even this terrible game I played. I can’t stop crying back here. I love each and every one of my teammates. I love basketball. It’s the only thing that got me through a lot of bad times, tough times mentally. … I literally sometimes believe I live solely for this shit.”

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But Dylan never expressed the pain he felt. He ended up scoring double-digits in almost every game the remainder of the season. Life, and the season, moved on.

“Had I known he was taking on so much on his own, thinking he was responsible for a team sport…” said Erin, holding back tears. “It’s tough to see that.”

His whole life, Dylan wanted to play at Muncie Central. Erin was a teacher, so she said he could’ve transferred if he wanted. But playing for the Bearcats, in Muncie Fieldhouse — that was his dream.

At Central, Dylan was a three-year varsity starter, two-year varsity captain and academic All-State selection as a senior. During the 2019-20 season, he averaged 12 points, 4.6 rebounds and 2.8 assists, nearly leading the Bearcats to their first sectional championship since 2014.

Central lost the 2020 sectional championship 54-53 to New Palestine. The finality of his high school basketball career, that loss, brought Dylan to trembling tears. Dylan loved Muncie. In an age where high school transfers are more common, the thought of playing somewhere else never crossed Dylan's mind.

“Just know that when I leave, it kills me to leave,” Dylan wrote in an Instagram post after the sectional championship.

The remainder of the 2020 IHSAA boys basketball tournament was canceled due to COVID-19. The usual celebrations that come with senior year — prom, graduation, summer parties — were taken away as the world dealt with a global pandemic.

After that heartbreaking loss, life seemed to go back to normal. Dylan trained daily and worked part-time. His next chapter, playing college basketball at Spring Arbor, was only a few months away.

But Dylan never made it to Spring Arbor. The day before he was set to leave, Dylan told his parents he didn’t want to go. He had already called the head coach and explained his gratitude for the opportunity, but something was holding him back.

“Looking back now, we never saw signs and he never once came to us,” said Ben Smith, Dylan’s stepfather, who keeps stats for Muncie Central’s boys basketball team. “We have no idea that he had ultimately made a decision not to go to Spring Arbor and he never let on. The night he was supposed to leave, he just decided, ‘I’m not going.’”

'He was happy'

Basketball was always a part of Dylan’s life. Without it, there was a void. Dylan stayed home and had conversations with Bob Hatfield, the psychologist at Muncie Community Schools, who offered to talk with him if he needed it.

Once Dylan made the decision to stay home and was getting ready attend Ball State University, there seemed to be a weight lifted. “He was happy,” Erin said.

Dylan worked late delivering food. On the night of March 26, that’s what his parents assumed he was doing, working.

Dylan’s friends called Erin and said they were worried about him.

Erin called Dylan while he was on the road. She wanted to see if everything was OK. A week before, he had purchased a shotgun, which Erin didn't discover until after she spoke to Dylan.

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When Dylan picked up the phone, he sounded no different. He told Erin he was driving to Myrtle Beach to clear his head. His family had never been to Myrtle Beach, but Erin knew the beach was the place where Dylan found peace.

The day before, Erin had talked to Dylan about Ball State, how much fun he'd have playing intramurals, competing without any real pressure. The thought made him laugh.

“He didn’t want you to know,” Erin said. “He didn’t want you to know, so there were no red flags for anybody to know.”

She added: “If they didn’t call me and say they were worried about him leaving, I wouldn’t have been able to speak to my son one more time and say, ‘I love you.’”

Erin asked Dylan to come home and talk. He was always independent and insisted he was OK. She told him not to text and made him promise to call her when he arrived.

Twenty minutes after Erin placed that final phone call with her son, his phone turned off. She later found out he filled up his gas tank in Elizabethtown, Kentucky and kept driving. She and Ben filed a missing person’s report the next day, on March 27, when Dylan wasn't responding to texts.

Ben and Erin were preparing to drive down to find him on March 30. Before they were able to leave, they received a phone call that would change their lives forever.

Dylan’s car was found outside Shelbyville, Kentucky. Dylan, 150 yards from his car, used the shotgun to take his own life.

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'If Love Could Have Saved You...'

“If Love Could Have Saved You, You Would Have Lived Forever.”

Those words are inscribed on Dylan’s tombstone. They were on the back of the shirts worn at his Celebration of Life at the Muncie Fieldhouse on June 26, 2021.

Over the past year, Erin has received messages from perhaps thousands of people who've shared their thoughts of Dylan. The messages hurt, but they also help serve as a reminder of how special her son was.

Some of the messages talked about his game, others joked about his obsession with milk — Ben swears they’d go through eight gallons a week — and love for chicken patties. He loved video games and had a way to light up any room. There was a gravity around him, everyone who met Dylan wanted to be his friend.

He never made it about him, either. Dylan's selflessness is what made him so well-liked. He marched in the summer of 2020 during a protest against police brutality. In a world that feels so divided, Dylan loved everyone. Erin believes he got that from his grandfather, Tom Gillepsie, who died in 2017 and who Dylan honored with a tattoo on his left shoulder.

That’s the Dylan who LaSalle Thompson, head coach of Indy ICE AAU, will remember.

“If our society could take Dylan’s traits and everyone can take that and learn from it and apply it to their lives, this will be a much better place and planet to live on,” Thompson said. “… (He was) one of the most unselfish, selfless individuals that you will ever meet or come across in a lifetime.”

It’s easy to get frustrated on the court when you get taken out of a game. Erin and Ben have seen it countless times. But Dylan never got upset. On the bench he was just as, if not more vocal, than he was on the court.

Dylan had a way to make everyone feel special. He made you feel like an All-Star even if you barely played. People saw the hard work he put in, the talent he possessed. He had a way to give you the confidence that you were just as good as he was.

Looking back, Norm Aul doesn’t think Dylan ever realized the impact he made.

Norm is the father of Yorktown sophomore Tyler Aul, who at age 11 had to relearn how to walk, talk and read after he miraculously overcame a brain bleed during surgery to remove a tumor. Tyler had another brain bleed and had to have another surgery on Oct. 27, 2021.

Tyler met Dylan at the Northwest YMCA in 2017 after his first brain surgery. They were like two peas in a pod. From a young age, both worked on their game tirelessly. The two hit it off immediately.

Norm said Dylan was like an older brother to Tyler. Tyler looked up to Dylan, who was just beginning his career at Muncie Central.

“There was something about the bond that they had,” Norm said. “Dylan was like that, I felt, with a lot of kids. It’s like he didn’t realize the effect he was having on them, just with the way he treated them and how he acted with them as far as making them feel just as important as him.”

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He added: “(Dylan) had that something, you know what I mean? … That little thing that I’m talking about, Tyler has that something at times, too. You can’t really figure it out.”

Dylan and Tyler became somewhat inseparable. Whenever Dylan was at the gym, Tyler wanted to be there, too. Tyler could shoot from deep just like Dylan, and Dylan gave Tyler — like he gave so many other people — the confidence to be his best.

People tell Norm they didn’t realize Tyler and Dylan were that close. Norm laughs. His son wasn't the only one that grew attached to Dylan.

Dylan spent time coaching youth basketball and seemed to have a knack for making every kid feel like they were an important part of the team. Norm remembers telling Dylan that he was more than just a great basketball player; he’d make a great coach because he cared about everyone equally. Not as a player, but as a person.

The bond between Dylan and Tyler is a double-edged sword for Norm. On one hand, Dylan had an impact on Tyler – and still does to this day. On the other, Dylan’s death was difficult for Tyler. Those difficult experiences are why Norm believes it’s so important to continue talking about mental health issues, particularly among kids.

And while Dylan is no longer alive, Norm believes he’s still with Tyler in everything he does. When Tyler woke up from his most recent brain surgery, he asked, “Is Dylan still alive?”

“This is coming from my son who basically they said were surprised he made it through the major brain bleed that he had,” Norm said. “It was almost like he had seen Dylan. We felt like he had seen Dylan.”

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'Everybody struggles'

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorizes suicide as “a serious public health problem.”

In 2020, it was responsible for nearly 46,000 deaths. That same year, an estimated 12.2 million adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.2 million made a plan and 1.2 million attempted suicide. From 1999 to 2018, suicide rates increased 35% in the United States. For people ages 10-14 and 25-34, suicide is the second leading cause of death.

“Mental health in this country is misunderstood, it’s not talked about, it’s uncomfortable,” Erin said. “It’s uncomfortable to tell somebody that your son killed himself. It’s shocking to people to hear that and they don’t want to hear.”

While it’s painful and uncomfortable, Erin said mental health needs to be talked about more. Research has shown that adults' and teens' brains work differently. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps make rational decisions, isn’t fully developed until age 25.

For athletes, talking about mental health has long been taboo. Simone Biles, arguably, or perhaps inarguably the greatest gymnast in the world, and Naomi Osaka, one of the most dominant tennis players in the world, helped propel the conversation around anxiety and depression by choosing not to compete on the biggest stages in their sports last year. They're not the only ones who've opened up about their own issues.

Athletes become attached to their sport. It becomes their identity, an identity which is judged by how you play.

But pressures to perform at such a high level compound on even the best athletes. Earlier this month, Stanford University soccer star Katie Meyer was found dead in her on-campus residence. Meyer’s mother, Gina, who confirmed Katie had died by suicide, said “there is anxiety, there is stress to be perfect,” during an interview on NBC’s Today show.

Stress, depression and anxiety are seen at all levels of education:

• An American College Health Association National College Health Assessment (undergraduate reference group executive summary, Fall 2021) reported 24% of undergraduate respondents were said to have “serious psychological distress”; 21.5% have reported ever being diagnosed with depression; 27.3% have been diagnosed with anxiety; and 18% reported both depression and anxiety.

• A Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance in 2019 reported 18.8% of high school students have considered attempting suicide, 15.7% made a suicide plan and 8.9% attempted suicide.

• An NCAA GOALS study from 2019 reported, in the month prior to taking the survey, 30% of female student athletes and 25% of male student-athletes have felt difficulties piling up so high they could not overcome them.

Hatfield, who has worked as a licensed psychologist for almost 30 years, said there are more students at a younger age — some as young as kindergarten — dealing with depression and anxiety.

While he said society has gotten better at addressing mental health, Hatfield believes — and he isn’t alone — that there’s still more work to be done.

“People are realizing that we have to address the mental health side of things, otherwise we’re missing out on an opportunity for this individual,” Hatfield said. “… Everybody struggles, everyone. No matter what you see, no matter how successful you may think they are, there may be struggles going on that they just need somebody to check in on ‘em.”

Hatfield said coaches at all levels, from elementary through college, should go through mental health training because student-athletes struggle with mental health at all levels.

Gavin Dowling, an all-state honorable mention basketball player out of Greenwood High School and former AAU teammate of Dylan, stepped away from playing collegiate basketball at Anderson University this past year. As a freshman, Dowling earned all-conference honors after averaging 10.1 points and 5.8 rebounds, good for third- and second-best on the team, respectively.

People didn’t understand his decision. He still receives questions from people asking, “Why did you step away?” Following Dylan’s death and the overdose of another friend, Dowling decided it was time to put his own mental health first.

His grades were plummeting, and he said he reached a low point.

“I wanted to make sure I looked into my own life and I see that impact and how is that going to affect people if I reach that point myself?” Dowling said. “You know, there was a time where I got pretty close and it was scary.

“I talked to a lot of different people and I came to the realization of if I don’t get this handled first and foremost, it’s going to — it’s not going to be any more beneficial to take my own life.”

Dowling said he feels like student-athletes often feel the most pressure. He said some of that comes from a fear of disappointing those around you. And, competing at the highest level of college sports, stepping away also can risk losing a spot on a team you worked for years to achieve.

But, by stepping away, Dowling said he realized the people who loved him love him as a person, whether he played basketball or not. He’s planning to return to Anderson in the fall.

“I think that everybody just strives to be perfect too much,” Dowling said. “No sport is perfect; there’s not a perfect sport in the world. Everybody makes mistakes, and I think that’s something that athletes struggle with … Sadly, people take it to extremes that I wish they didn’t. The fear of disappointment I think puts an insane amount of pressure on student-athletes.”

Dylan's legacy lives on

Two days after Dylan's death, Ben saw a cardinal on a bush outside of their home. Cardinals are said to be a sign that a loved one who passed is watching over you. He knew he had to do something to continuing honoring Dylan.

Dylan’s legacy will live on. His parents, in conjunction with the Muncie-Delaware County Community Foundation, have raised nearly $100,000 for the Dylan T. Stafford We Before Me Scholarship, which will give $2,200 to a student who embodies Dylan’s “We Before Me” attitude through service to others and to the community.

Thompson began the Dylan Stafford Award on his Indy ICE AAU team, honoring a player who represents academic and athletic excellence. Thompson never gave out awards — there’s no team MVP — and probably will never give out another.

“I know I’m never going to forget Dylan and him being such a great representation of our Indy Ice family,” Thompson said, “I feel like his legacy is important ongoing as long as I’m doing Indy ICE, I just feel like it’s extremely important to remember him and let those student-athletes know in the future what the award is and what it stands for and congratulate them on being able to achieve such an honor because it comes from a great young man which it’s named after.”

Nowadays, when people talk about Dylan, they first talk about who he was as a person.

Basketball comes up, the stories from games and his nonstop work ethic, but when people remember Dylan, they first remember the type of human he was. A selfless leader who had a knack of putting other people in front of himself.

“We have to get past what we think people are defined by,” Hatfield said. “Unfortunately, with athletics, we do that a lot. I mean, I was guilty of that. … Forget the athlete, but if you have a relative or a friend that you’re concerned about, just express that concern.

He added: “I think we just have to be more concerned about people for not what they do but for who they are.”

People wear his number in his honor. His little sister, Allie, wore No. 22 during her freshman season at Central. Whether it be on shoes or T-shirts, his number will live on. Dylan’s legacy will live on through the tattoos people got in his honor, the No. 22 Bearcat symbol on their social media pages and the times with him they’ll never forget.

If you’re worried about someone, don’t be afraid to have those conversations. Don’t be afraid to seek help if you need it. Talking about mental health, especially in athletics, has long been viewed as a weakness, when, in fact, it’s a strength.

Talking about mental health is hard. Admitting you need help is even more challenging. Dylan’s life, and death, helped opened the eyes of the community he was so proud to be a part of. People are having the tough conversations, checking in on each other to make sure they’re doing OK.

“I wish everybody could have the chance to meet and just know Dylan,” Dowling said. “Although it was a short time that he had here, I mean, he impacted a lot of people’s lives for a long, long time. I’m not sure why everything happened … but I know he’s training people on the other side and teaching basketball. I know he’s got the prettiest jumper in heaven. I know that for sure.”

If you or someone you know might be struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the suicide prevention hotline at 800-273-8255 or seek out area resources.

Robby General covers Ball State and East Central Indiana high school sports for The Star Press. Contact him via email at rgeneral@gannett.com or on Twitter @rgeneraljr.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Community continues to learn from the life, death of Dylan Stafford