Terry Trafford had all the talent in the world.
The heart-breaking story of a troubled young man has seemingly come to an end, but, questions remain about why Trafford, 20, would have chosen to take his own life earlier this month on March 3rd.
A talented center for the Saginaw Spirit, he was suspended and subsequently released on March 1st, after four years with the team, when he was caught using marijuana in a team hotel room on a road trip.
He managed to hide the news from his father, Roy Trafford, long enough to leave their Toronto home, acting as if he were re-joining the team after a short suspension. Once his father discovered he’d been cut he asked him to come home.
“I said, ‘Turn around. Come home. I know what’s happened. This was a blessing in disguise. He didn’t want to go back there next year. There was another team that was quite interested in him. Me? I was leaning toward having him pack it in.”
But it was too late. Although it took 8 days to locate him, police believe Terry Trafford died March 3rd of self-inflicted asphyxiation. He was found in his pick-up truck in a Walmart parking lot.
“Nobody saw this coming,” Saginaw Spirit team president Craig Goslin said. “If we had, we certainly would have reversed our course and thrown our hands around him and gotten him some help and all that. Nobody, nobody, nobody, from his former coaches to his friends to the players on the team to the community in Saginaw, all the kids who know him well, nobody, nobody saw this coming.”
While we must be careful not to assume Trafford may have taken his own life just because he was cut, we must examine the process the Spirit used in handling this situation. He may have been depressed and hiding it as elite-level athletes are taught to do with pain they suffer from. His father believed depression was a possibility.
“He was never diagnosed, but it runs in my family,” Roy Trafford said. “I’m kind of the king of depression, but it didn’t take me to the level that Terry was in.”
Ontario hockey league players are considered to be athletes of professional caliber, but, they’re also still considered junior players and many may need much more help coping with the rigors of semi-professional hockey.
Regardless of the reasons, a young, talented athlete is dead, and we are left to wonder-what, if anything, could have been done to save him before it came to this? Heart-breaking story. Rest in peace young man.