High school team committing suicide?

October 4, 2007 5:32 PM

I need help finding news about a group of high school sports players committing suicide in the northeast US.

I checked the blue for a FPP but I couldn't find anything going through tags or the search.

It was maybe a year or two ago where a high school teenager on a football team (maybe it was some other sport) committed suicide. He was something like the fifth boy on the team that did. I think the school was in Vermont or Maine or somewhere up there. Maybe he was out of high school, but I do remember it made news because of the unusual number or suicides plaguing the team.

posted by daninnj to society & culture (8 comments total)

Sports Illustrated
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:43 PM on October 4, 2007

Cool Papa Bell has the article, but don't be caught up in the sensationalism of the news-- the suicide rate in Northern Maine is very high. The only thing remarkable about Winthrop is that the suicides were all on the football team-- until you notice that a large percentage of males at Winthrop High were on the football team. Small towns make for collusion of extra-curricular activities.
posted by Mayor Curley at 5:57 PM on October 4, 2007

I'm not a native Mainer, but can you really consider Winthrop to be in northern Maine? And 5 suicides within one high school within 3 years seems high, especially considering the size of the high school (about 350, near as I can tell). I agree with the Mayor that being on the football team may be a red herring, but 5 suicides in a such a small school within a few years does seem notable in and of itself. I'd like to see comparable stats from similar high schools.
posted by mollweide at 7:27 PM on October 4, 2007

mollweide: that's Winthrop, Massachusetts you've got there.
posted by equalpants at 7:29 PM on October 4, 2007

350 students = 115 or so per class (usual three-year arrangement) over three years means a total population of 480 or so. The rate for this age group is 7.3 per 100,000 (successful suicides).

That works out to one suicide every 28 years or so.

On the other hand, suicide isn't evenly distributed. 4/5 of teen suicides that are successful are boys (2/3 of the attempts are girls). Suicide has been known to cluster, and is susceptible to the copycat effect. One notorious death can indeed lead to another, and another.

I actually knew two people in high school who killed themselves. (I don't think they knew each other, though.) One was a sad sack with an annoying personality who couldn't get into any clique, including the reject clique to which I belonged. Hung himself in his closet. The other was an overachiever who entered Harvard (I think, or was it another Ivy?) on a biochemistry scholarship at 17 (I left high school early, too, but I started at the local community college). He was a classic freshman suicide, sometime before Thanksgiving. (He also chose hanging, according to what I heard.) My high school had classes of about 250-300 students, just about twice as large.

But my high school wasn't out in the sticks, either (not that it's Fun City). Rural suicide rates are higher.

In any event, I caution against drawing general conclusions about the town or the school (or the football program) from this.
posted by dhartung at 11:58 PM on October 4, 2007

Neither Winthrop, Maine nor Winthrop, Massachusetts is in Northern Maine.

[One time I didn't have to pay a parking ticket because the meter maid made that same MA/ME mistake.]

It was a big deal when NYU had five or so suicides in two years. And that's out of something like 30,000. Of course, they had something in common, too--they all jumped.
posted by lampoil at 4:29 AM on October 5, 2007

NYU had another jumper this year, too.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:16 AM on October 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

Oops, you're right. I accidentally pasted the wrong url. Here's Winthrop, ME.
posted by mollweide at 9:50 AM on October 5, 2007