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NEW YORK (AP) - A suicide at Northwestern brought back painful memories for Penn track coach Steve Dolan.

It was three years ago that one of his athletes, Madison Holleran, killed herself. He could empathize with what Northwestern coach Joe McKeown and his team were going through when Wildcats guard Jordan Hankins took her own life last week.

"My heart goes out to the students of the team on Northwestern and her family and friends," Dolan said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "In our society at large, and on college campuses, it's a real problem and we're concerned. It's hard to fathom and deal with it."

A study released last year found that of 477 deaths of NCAA athletes from 2003-12, 35 had killed themselves , including 13 football players. The overall suicide rate for NCAA athletes was 0.93 per 100,000, lower than the incidence rate of 7.5 per 100,000 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported for all college students.

The sudden loss of a teammate hits players hard, but it presents coaches with a different set of difficult questions. When do they start to play or practice again? Is it a chance to teach or better to give players space and time to grieve?

After the body of 19-year-old Hankins was found in her dorm room, Northwestern postponed its game at Minnesota, scheduled for last Wednesday. The Wildcats played at home on Saturday against Indiana, beating the Hoosiers in an emotional game that included a tribute to their teammate.

The 60-year-old McKeown has coached for almost 1,000 games, but nothing he had faced prepared him for this.

"Everything I'm telling you is off the top of my head," he said after the game. "We're going to lean on each other."

Dolan leaned on former Penn football coach Al Bagnoli, who had two players who killed themselves during his long tenure at the school.

"I dealt with it a lot more than I ever dreamt of dealing with it," said Bagnoli, now the coach at Columbia. "It's a very difficult scenario. The kids are trying to identify what has happened and there are no answers. There are no answers that can justify the action. It's always tragic when you lose a young person."

The coaches and players are left figuring out how and when is the right time to move forward.

While Northwestern postponed its game, Dolan had a tough choice when Holleran died. His team had a meet the next morning. With a co-ed team of nearly 100 members, including some who didn't know the freshman that well, he let his players choose whether they wanted to compete.

"The healing process is different for different people," Dolan said. "We had part of the team compete because they wanted to and they thought that was the best way to honor Madison. We had others who didn't and stayed back."

Dolan sent a few assistants to the meet and stayed on campus to be there for his athletes.

"That's how we did it," Dolan recalled. "I'm not sure there's a right or wrong answer. You try and do things you love to do. Our team likes to do track and field and they chose to do it. It's a physical outlet. It's difficult as a coach, the hardest thing I've had to deal with by far. The challenge of the sadness and the challenge I felt personally, yet trying to still be a strong leader for others."

One of Bagnoli's players, lineman Owen Thomas, killed himself in April 2010. Thomas' death came five years after Penn running back Kyle Ambrogi killed himself during the season, two days after scoring two touchdowns in a game.

"Our first one happened right in the middle of the season and the second one happened during the spring," Bagnoli recalled. "Each were devastating, each was arguably the most popular kid on the team. Each one had a different set of circumstances. No one saw it coming. ... You question yourself, why didn't I see this. You're dealing with the kids on a very extended basis. That's the first thing you have to come to grips with."

When Ambrogi died, the team, which included the player's brother, decided the best way to honor his memory was to keep playing, Bagnoli said.

Both Dolan and Bagnoli said the deaths helped bring their teams together.

"I felt that, over time, in a way, it made our team come closer," Dolan said. "We really valued each other, going through this together, we needed to support each other. We needed to pull together."

McKeown and the Wildcats took their first step by playing Saturday.

"We as a team decided she would want (us) to play," Northwestern point guard Ashley Deary said. "She loved this game. We've been through so much this past week. To get that win for her and get that release, (there was) just satisfaction knowing we could come together and play as hard as it was."

___

Follow Doug on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/dougfeinberg

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Player suicides lead to tough set of questions for coaches

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NEW YORK (AP) - A suicide at Northwestern brought back painful memories for Penn track coach Steve Dolan. It was three years ago that one of his athletes, Madison Holleran, killed herself. He could empathize with what Northwestern coach Joe...

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Former Northern Highlands 800-meter state champion and soccer star Madison Holleran died in Philadelphia on Friday night.

Philadelphia police said the cause of death was an apparent suicide. She was 19.

Holleran, an Allendale resident, was in the middle of her freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was competing for the Quakers' cross-country and track teams.

According to police, Holleran jumped off a parking garage at 1501 Spruce St. in an area known as Center City. She was pronounced dead at the scene about 7 p.m. Friday night. No one else was injured.

The news of Holleran's death shocked a North Jersey athletics community that had been dazzled by her exploits on the track and on the soccer field.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of Madison Holleran, Northern Highlands Class of 2013. Efforts are under way to provide support and counseling for our students, staff and alumni," said Northern Highlands principal Joseph Occhino in a statement. "As our school community mourns the loss of Madison, we extend our love and prayers to the Holleran family as they grieve and we respect their privacy during this extremely difficult time."

Holleran posted a picture on her Instagram account of a lit-up Rittenhouse Square in Center City Philadelphia at approximately 6 p.m. Friday. The picture has been favorited more than 400 times. There was no caption added to the photo. Rittenhouse Square is just a few blocks away from the parking garage.

On social media, many of her former teammates and rivals expressed disbelief and sadness.

"You will never be forgotten," wrote Highlanders senior Caitlyn Bach. "I will always remember all the great things you taught me. I will miss you dearly."

"From the few times we spoke to the countless times I've watched you race, I can't believe this. ... from one runner to another," tweeted Don Bosco senior Kyle Levermore.

"You were one to remember and to always remember, Madison, rest in peace and may your memory stay with me every day," posted Indian Hills senior Tom DiLandro.

Holleran was part of two undefeated state championship soccer teams at Northern Highlands and as a senior was The Record Female Spring Athlete of the Season, an award given for the defining performance of the season.

Holleran was also The Record Indoor Track Athlete of the Year, sharing the honor with Ramapo's Deanna DiLandro.

Madison first came to track prominence as a sophomore, when she anchored Northern Highlands to fifth place in the state Meet of Champions 4-x-800 meter relay less than three months after starting her track career.

As a junior, she anchored Highlands to a remarkable seventh-place finish in the Penn Relays' 4-x-800 and placed fourth in the state Meet of Champions 800.
The story continues after the video playlist
Her senior year was even better. Trying indoor track for the first time, she was an instant success, rising to third on the all-time Bergen 800 indoor list and running the fastest 1,000 meters in six years in North Jersey. She ran the difficult leadoff 1,200-meter leg on the distance medley to help the Highlanders earn indoor All-American status in the event.

Outdoors, her 3:33.1 1,200 split was one of the best in the history of the Penn Relays and her dominant win at the state Meet of Champions 800 in 2:08.87 placed her third in Bergen history behind NCAA Division I All-Americans Janine Davis and Jasmin Jones.
A LEGACY: HELPING OTHERS: THE STORY: Archive: Madison Holleran, the girl behind the pictures Archive: Allendale family's focus helping others Book about Madison Holleran, social media and dangers of perfection released today
Penn's director of track and field/cross-country Steve Dolan released a statement Saturday afternoon.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our teammate and friend Madison Holleran," Dolan said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends. We will always carry her in our hearts."

Penn was scheduled to compete in a track meet against Lehigh on Saturday, but made it optional for their athletes to attend.

"The entire Penn community is deeply saddened by the death of Madison Holleran," said Penn president Amy Gutmann in a statement. "She was bright and well-liked with an incredible future ahead of her. There are simply no words that can properly convey the sense of heartache that we all feel at such a tragic loss."

Funeral services are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday.

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Archive: Former Northern Highlands star Madison Holleran dies

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Former Northern Highlands 800-meter state champion and soccer star Madison Holleran died in Philadelphia on Friday night. Philadelphia police said the cause of death was an apparent suicide. She was 19.

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The primary of the mission of the Madison Holleran Foundation is to prevent suicides and to assist those in a crisis situation with phone numbers and resources that will assist them during their time in crisis. We will also focus our efforts on preparing high school seniors and college freshman, since this can be a very difficult transition period, as it was for Madison and many college freshman.

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The primary of the mission of the Madison Holleran Foundation is to prevent suicides and to assist those in a crisis situation with phone numbers and resources that will assist them during their time in crisis.

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As part of the stories of the year collection, this piece is being resurfaced along with others in the coming days as ESPN Digital and Print Media closes out the year. Check out the full list here.
ON THE MORNING of Jan. 17, 2014, Madison Holleran awoke in her dorm room at the University of Pennsylvania. She had spent the previous night watching the movie The Parent Trap with her good friend Ingrid Hung. Madison went to class. She took a test. She told a few friends she would meet them later that night at the dining hall. She went to the Penn bookstore and bought gifts for her family.

While she was there, her dad called. "Maddy, have you found a therapist down there yet?" he asked.

"No, but don't worry, Daddy, I'll find one," she told him.

But she had no intention of finding one. In fact, she was, at that exact moment, buying the items she would leave for her family at the top of a parking garage. Godiva chocolates for her dad. Two necklaces for her mom. Gingersnaps for her grandparents, who always had those cookies in their home. Outfits for her nephew, Hayes, who had been born two weeks earlier. The Happiness Project for Ingrid, with a note scribbled inside. And a picture of herself as a young kid, holding a tennis racket. Over winter break she had told her dad that she was borrowing that picture, that she needed it for something.

She didn't say what.

Then, on the evening of Jan. 17, just after dusk settled on the city, Madison took a running leap off the ninth level of a parking garage in downtown Philadelphia.

She was 19 years old.

MADISON LOVED QUOTES. Sometimes she took a picture of the words, spotted in a magazine, and posted the image on social media. Other times she wrote down the quote -- in beautiful script, to be framed -- so she could revisit the sentiment anytime she wanted.

She loved to draw, write in her journal and read. She enjoyed long runs, singing in the car, sushi, and bananas with peanut butter.

She also loved her big New Jersey family. She was especially close with her dad, whom she called "Big Jimbo." He was her biggest fan. He came to her soccer games and track meets, always wrapping her in a hug afterward. He believed she could do anything.

Family and friends used to joke that whenever they opened the Bergen Record, they saw a picture of Madison, another athletic feat captured in print: so many goals scored, so many track meets won.

Life seemed good; life was good.

Then Madison left for college. She had decided to run track at Penn, only two hours from home, but it felt like a foreign land to her. Everything seemed to change. Running had once made her feel alive, but at Penn she couldn't breathe. Her friends had once made everything better; now they just couldn't understand.

EVERYONE IN MADISON'S LIFE holds a piece of her story, possesses a clue: a text message, a vacant look, a deleted Instagram post. In the days after she died, the people who knew her best converged on Allendale, New Jersey, her hometown; siblings (one brother, three sisters), parents (Jim and Stacy), high school friends, college classmates -- all offered their shattered piece to see whether they could rebuild Madison.

It was as if they hoped she might be breathed back to life. As if they might then do and say the things they hadn't known she needed.

Madison was beautiful, talented, successful -- very nearly the epitome of what every young girl is supposed to hope she becomes. But she was also a perfectionist who struggled when she performed poorly. She was a deep thinker, someone who was aware of the image she presented to the world, and someone who often struggled with what that image conveyed about her, with how people superficially read who she was, what her life was like.

THE LIFE MADISON projected on her own Instagram feed was filled with shots that seemed to confirm everyone's expectations: Of course she was loving her first year of college. Of course she enjoyed running. Her mom remembers looking at a photo on her feed and saying, "Madison, you look like you're so happy at this party."

"Mom," Madison said. "It's just a picture."

Everyone presents an edited version of life on social media. People share moments that reflect an ideal life, an ideal self. Hundreds of years ago, we sent letters by horseback, containing only what we wanted the recipient to read. Fifty years ago, we spoke via the telephone, sharing only the details that constructed the self we wanted reflected.

With Instagram, one thing has changed: the amount we consume of one another's edited lives. Young women growing up on Instagram are spending a significant chunk of each day absorbing others' filtered images while they walk through their own realities, unfiltered. In a recent survey conducted by the Girl Scouts, nearly 74 percent of girls agreed that other girls tried to make themselves look "cooler than they are" on social networking sites.

No image captures the paradoxes of Madison's Instagram account more than the one she posted just an hour before jumping off the parking garage. Holiday lights are twinkling in the trees of Rittenhouse Square, and Madison put a filter on the image that produced an ethereal quality, almost as if the night is underwater.

She seemed acutely aware that the life she was curating online was distinctly different from the one she was actually living. Yet she could not apply that same logic when she looked at the projected lives of others. Before going home for winter break, she asked Ingrid, who was also struggling at Penn, "What are you going to say when you go home to all your friends? I feel like all my friends are having so much fun at school."

She and Ashley Montgomery, a friend and track teammate, followed a group of Penn upperclassmen on Instagram. They would scroll through pictures and say to each other, "This is what college is supposed to be like; this is what we want our life to be like."

Madison's high school friends had told her they were also struggling. Emma Sullivan was running track at Boston College and having a hard time. Another friend, Jackie Reyneke, was playing basketball at Princeton and feeling overwhelmed. They had all shared some form of their struggles with Madison, yet in her mind, the lives her friends were projecting on social media trumped the reality they were privately sharing.

This confused them, and it still does.

Checking Instagram is like opening a magazine to see a fashion advertisement. Except an ad is branded as what it is: a staged image on glossy paper.

Instagram is passed off as real life.

Yes, people filter their photos to make them prettier. People are also often encouraged to put filters on their sadness, to brighten their reality so as not to "drag down" those around them. The myth still exists that happiness is a choice, which perpetuates the notion of depression as weakness.

Life must be Instagrammed -- in more ways than one.

MADISON ONCE POSTED a picture collage of her dad on Instagram with the caption, "Happy Father's Day to Big Jimbo, the greatest man I've ever known and ever will know. Love you with all my heart Daddio."

Every summer they attended the U.S. Open, the last of the tennis grand slams. Madison loved watching the best female players, occasionally wondering aloud whether she could have played tennis at the highest level.

"Of course you could," Jim said.

The first inkling he had that his daughter wasn't doing well at Penn was when she refused to come with him to Flushing Meadows, site of the U.S. Open, just after the start of her freshman year. She said she was too swamped with schoolwork and practice. He offered to drive down to Philly from Allendale, a four-hour round trip, just so she could get a break from what he sensed had become a high-pressure environment.

But Jim didn't press her. "I should have just driven down there and gotten her," he says, letting the sentence trail off.

Madison's older sister Ashley had started college at Penn State just two years before. She was unhappy, so she transferred to Alabama, where life improved. Jim and Stacy thought Madison must be going through something similar. A change of scenery was what she needed. An easy fix like that and Madison would continue her upward trajectory.

"This is normal," her sister Carli told her. "People leave home, they're unhappy, they transfer -- they figure it out."

Madison shook her head: "It's not normal. It's not normal to feel like this."

She started seeing a therapist during Thanksgiving break and would continue seeing the woman through winter break. The closest Madison came to a diagnosis was "battling anxiety."

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that happened when she was younger, growing up, that makes sense of the decision she made," Stacy says. "Am I angry at her? Yes, of course I am."

Everyone now agrees that Madison was depressed, though she had never previously exhibited symptoms. (Depression exists on Jim's side of the family.) Something had changed with her brain chemistry. She was not seeing the world in the same way she had before. She had lost weight too, had become so thin as to appear sick.

The day before Madison returned to Penn for spring semester, she had a session with her therapist that Jim also attended. She admitted to having suicidal thoughts. "If you have suicidal thoughts, don't act them out," her doctor said. "Either call me or call someone in your family."

Madison nodded.

As a family, they had never talked about suicide. Jim never considered it a real possibility -- just the dramatic ending to someone else's story. As Carli explains: "Other people battle depression for years. With Madison, it feels like one day she was happy, the next she was sad and the day after she was gone."

Jim feared that speaking about suicide would make its likelihood greater. He didn't raise the subject as he and Madison drove back to Philadelphia.

Bill Schmitz Jr., former president of the American Association of Suicidology, points out that depression does not have a one-size-fits-all prognosis. "The course varies," he says. "In a way, it's the same as cancer. For some, we might prolong life for months, for years. For others, it can be very sudden."

Jim drove Madison back to Philadelphia on Jan. 11. As they approached the exit off I-95, he offered to keep driving, to put Philly in the rearview mirror, to drive south, to the University of North Carolina or Vanderbilt University -- to somewhere, anywhere. She could enroll at a new school, start over.

"Let's just keep driving," he said. "Let's enroll you somewhere else."

She shook her head. She had promised to meet friends at a Penn basketball game.

As he left his daughter that evening, Jim remembers looking at Madison and thinking, She's still not happy; that's not a happy kid I'm walking away from.

A few days later, at the start of the spring semester, Stacy and Mackenzie, Madison's youngest sister, drove to Philadelphia to join Madison for a meeting with Steve Dolan, the head track coach at Penn. Madison had told Ingrid she was planning to quit the team.

The three Hollerans walked into Dolan's office. Madison pulled out a letter she had written outlining why she wanted to quit.

"I need to figure out if track is making me unhappy, or Penn, or if it's something else," she read from the letter. She also spoke of struggling with the training (at that point, she was being coached by an assistant, not Dolan) and with the dorm she was in. She talked about wanting to join a sorority.

Dolan listened patiently, but the news surprised him. Madison seemed to have lost perspective, was seeing through a blurred lens, like some kind of dysmorphia. She had excelled in school (GPA of 3.5) and in track during the first semester, despite her constant fears that she was failing at both. To Dolan, she had appeared happy and content.

"I support you, and I want you to be happy and healthy," Dolan said. "The decision is yours. Do you not want to keep training, keep running?"

Ivy League track is demanding. Madison wasn't the first runner to tell Dolan she might quit. He saw a college freshman in transition, struggling to find her place.

Madison folded the letter and put it away.

"Yes, I do," she said after a pause. "I want to keep running."

Later that week, Madison heard that another member of the track team had quit. "I can't believe that," she said longingly. "I really can't."

As they walked out of Dolan's office, Stacy said, "He is one fabulous coach." They walked to Ingrid's dorm room, where Madison told her friend about the meeting, her voice lighter than anyone had heard in months.

"I drove home feeling pretty good," Stacy says. "I thought she was actually getting better, or starting to. She seemed better, in my mind anyway. But now I know that she was putting on an act that week."

MADISON SPENT WINTER break at home, in Allendale.

Over the holiday, she went to her friend Emma Sullivan's house. Emma was one of her best friends; the two spoke more intimately, more deeply, than they did with others, sharing the fears they had about growing up and leaving home.

"Her most pressing thought: If she quit, wasn't she just a failure?"

She sat at the kitchen table with Emma and her mom. Snow fell heavily outside, sheets of white streaming outside the window. The three women sat there for hours.

"Why are you not as happy as you used to be?" Emma asked.

"Tell us how you're feeling," Emma's mom urged.

Madison was unable to identify exactly what had cast her adrift. Was it the disappointment with Penn, once her dream school? Was she homesick? Was track overwhelming her?

And the most pressing thought of all: If she quit, wasn't she just a failure? Wouldn't that be the first in what would become a lifetime of letdowns?

Madison had always struggled to handle even garden-variety failure. She chased perfection. Once, when a track result wasn't what she expected, she broke down in tears. Outsiders thought she was so gifted she could just show up and run faster than everyone, not knowing how hard she prepared and trained.

Madison kept her eyes down while sitting at the kitchen table. Emma remembers feeling that her best friend was lost -- just so lost.

Like everyone in Madison's life, Emma urged her to transfer from Penn.

"Yeah, it's kind of too late," Madison told Emma. "I'm already at Penn."

She said this as if she were locked in a room, the key thrown away.

That winter break, Madison wanted to keep her circle of seven friends close. They watched movies together. They slept over at one another's houses. And on the final night of break, they got together for a potluck dinner. (Madison brought store-bought sugar cookies; typically, she would have baked.) They called the night "The Last Supper" because, in the morning, the first among them would leave for the start of spring semester.

As the evening ended, Madison said, "Love you, see you soon!" as if they'd all see one another in a few weeks, maybe over spring break, maybe sooner.

Later, she sent a text message to Ingrid, a picture of the seven high school friends, arms around one another. "These are the types of friends we need to find at Penn," she said.

THE NIGHT OF Jan. 17 was chilly, but not unseasonably so. Madison walked the streets of the city, wearing jeans, a sweater and a coat. She carried a shopping bag filled with the goodbye gifts for her family. For a while, she responded to friends on iMessage. Then she stopped.

Just after the sun went down, Madison began walking toward the parking garage at the corner of 15th Street and Spruce.

"Madison?" came a voice from across the street.

Lehigh soccer coach Eric Lambinus was standing on the street with assistant coach Amy Hough. The pair had recruited Madison out of high school, but at the last minute she chose Penn. The coaches were standing outside a restaurant. Eric waved to Madison, and she crossed the street toward them.

"How are you?" he asked.

Madison mentioned that she was cutting back on track but said otherwise everything was fine. Eric had heard through mutual friends that she was unhappy at Penn, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

"What's in the bag?" he asked.

"Some presents for my family," she said.

After a few minutes, Eric told Madison: "Just know there are doors open for you still. There are opportunities."

The coach needed to be careful with his words. He didn't want to appear to be poaching another school's student-athlete, but he also wanted to convey to Madison that if she wanted to start the transfer process, to play soccer at Lehigh as she had considered doing out of high school, that option was available. Madison had been one of the best prep soccer players in the state, winning two state titles with Northern Highlands.

Madison thanked him. The two said goodbye. She walked away, toward the parking garage. Eric immediately called his wife to tell her about running into Madison, about what a coincidence it was. Perhaps the meeting was serendipitous, he thought.

A block away, Madison began climbing the nine flights of stairs. When she reached the top, she placed the bag of gifts where it would easily be found. And a few minutes later -- maybe as few as five or as many as 15 -- she hurdled the silver-colored railing. She landed in the bike lane. A woman who did not see her fall stayed with her until an ambulance arrived. The woman believed Madison had passed out, perhaps drunk. Madison did not look like she had jumped from a building. She looked like she was asleep, the only scratch on her a small one, just above her eye.

When Eric walked out of the restaurant a little over an hour later, he heard the wail of police cars and ambulances. Something had happened down the street. He walked the other way to avoid the commotion. "I've gone over that night probably 100 times in my mind," he says. "I wish I had spent a little more time with her, but really nothing seemed out of the ordinary."

More than two hours after Madison jumped, at 9 p.m., Stacy received a call from the 215 area code. Even before she picked up, she felt unsettled.

"Is Madison OK?" she said.

It was Steve Dolan. He told Stacy something was wrong with Madison and he would find out more details and get back to her. Frightened, Stacy called some of Madison's friends at Penn. First on her list was Ingrid.

"Where is Madison?" Stacy asked. "Have you seen her?"

"No, I haven't, but we were supposed to eat dinner together tonight."

"Something is wrong," Stacy said.

Ingrid ran the quarter of a mile from her dorm room to Madison's, calling her friend's roommate on the way. The information to that point was limited: Nobody could find Madison. None of it made sense. Ingrid had just seen her friend that morning, and she had seemed the same as any other day.

Ingrid burst into Madison's dorm room -- her friend left the door unlocked. Every other time she'd been there, Madison's bed was unmade, clothes draped across the chair. As Ingrid looked around, alarm bells went off in her mind.

Madison's bed was crisply made.

Within minutes, campus officials were in the room and Ingrid was back on the phone with her friend's mom, who had received a call from the chaplain.

"She's gone," Stacy said.

No one can say for sure why Madison chose that specific parking garage. Maybe it doesn't matter. Or maybe it does. Maybe comfort exists in believing there is order in the world, even when someone is making the most disorderly decision we know: running toward death instead of away from it.

In their absence, we're left trying to pin meaning to air.

Nine stories of air.

PHILLY IS THE City of Murals. Hundreds of buildings are covered in artwork.

There is art on the parking garage from which Madison jumped. On the south side of the structure, on the wall facing Spruce, is a small installation. Quotes, fragments of thoughts, are stenciled in white against a black background, like chalk on a blackboard. The most evocative phrase reads, "She had wings on."

The wall looks like the rubble, the stacked words from poems never published.
She had wings on.
Madison left a suicide note that began, "I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out, and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in." Previously, in her journal, she had written "Help!" at the top of one page, followed at the bottom by "No, no more help."

She also left a copy of the young adult book Reconstructing Amelia, which tells the story of a devastated single mother who pieces together clues about the death of her daughter, who supposedly killed herself by jumping off a building at her prep school. In the book, nothing is as it seems. And at the end, the mother discovers that Amelia didn't jump; she was pushed.

Jim cannot bring himself to read the book.

"Sometimes it's hard to tell how fast the current's moving until you're headed over a waterfall," the author writes.

Madison seemed to see a version of herself in Amelia, in the perfectly crafted veneer that never felt like an honest reflection of her interior life. As though she could never find validation for her struggle because how could someone so beautiful, so seemingly put together, be unhappy? This is illogical, of course. Like thinking a computer's hard drive can't malfunction simply because the screen hasn't a scratch.

The day after Madison jumped, Jim walked to the top of the parking garage. He read the phrase, She had wings on. He spoke with Madison's friends. He compiled clues.

Then he stopped. He could spend his life trying, in vain, to make his child whole again, he thought. Or he could work to keep others from breaking apart.

The Hollerans are trying now to deliver a new message: It's OK to not be OK. It's OK to show people you're not OK.

ASHLEY MONTGOMERY IS now a sophomore at Penn, and she still runs track. When she was a freshman, she and Madison would train together; the two were also close away from the sport. For Ashley, sophomore year has gone much better than freshman year, and she often thinks to herself, If only Maddy were around to feel this, to be here.

Freshman year of college can be like running an obstacle course wearing a blindfold. Nothing prepares you for how hard the workouts will be, how long they last, what each class will be like, which events are fun and which should be avoided.

Once, as she and Ashley ran through the Penn campus, Madison spotted a quote on the side of a building, part of a mural. She stopped to take a picture. Then she uploaded the image to Instagram.

A few hours later, when Ashley went to Instagram to see the picture, the image was gone. Madison had deleted it.

After Madison died, Ashley went running, hoping to find the mural that had caught the attention of her friend.

She couldn't.

"We all shared what we knew, and some things were answered," Ashley says. "But we could only do so much. The puzzle will never be complete."

THE TOP OF the parking garage slopes upward. There is a wall, then a silver-colored railing. Because Madison landed out in the street, her friends and family are convinced she took a running leap over the side, clearing the barrier just like she once cleared hurdles on the track.

At first glance, a running leap off a nine-story building makes little sense. Why not something that seems gentler, easier? (Whatever that means.) Maybe this is because all we can think about, standing at great heights, is the moment of impact, the violence of a falling body hitting concrete. This is exactly what Jim thought of when he went to the top of the parking garage on Jan. 18, 2014, the morning after -- peering over the railing and wondering what that final moment, the impact, must have felt like for his daughter.

Emma hasn't made sense of the act, or the method, but says if forced to make sense of it -- and Madison has forced her to do so -- she can maybe understand why Madison chose jumping. "If you run and jump, it's freeing -- to just do that. You just jump and it happens. And it's over with. And you don't have to struggle. I can picture her walking up there and just setting her mind to it and knowing it could happen -- that's something I can see her doing. When she gets on that line in track, it's like, 'I'm doing this.' She was always so determined, with everything that she did. Maybe even too determined sometimes."

"With Madison, it feels like one day she was happy, the next she was sad and the day after she was gone."
- Carli, Madison's sister
In high school, Emma and Madison talked about what life would be like as they grew older. (Most of Madison's friends said she rarely spoke of the future with them.) What it would be like to get married, have a family. Both were scared of growing up. Madison never even got her driver's license.

"We were both so fearful of what was to come," Emma says. "The way her mind worked, it threw her off when she didn't know what the next step was, or what the future would hold. Knowing the end result was something she always wanted."

But maybe Madison had stopped projecting into the future. Maybe picturing the concrete at the base of the parking garage was as impossible as imagining herself in old age.

Maybe she could only imagine the freedom of flying.

EVERY YEAR, MORE than 40,000 Americans die by suicide. Among young adults, ages 10 to 24, suicide is the second-leading cause of death, with more than 4,500 young people taking their lives each year. The suicide rate among NCAA athletes is lower than the general population (0.93 per 100,000, versus 10.9). Between 2004 and 2012, 35 student-athletes took their own lives.

Young adult suicide profoundly shakes us. Such promise, gone so soon.
What happened? Why? What did we miss?
Survivors search for answers. At first, those left behind are detectives. They are chasing clues. Over time, friends and family begin looking instead for peace, and for some kind of purpose.

"What happened?" becomes "What now?"

JIM STANDS IN the kitchen of the Holleran family home, looking into the backyard. He and Stacy played college tennis and still play. All their kids play the sport, or played at one time, including the two youngest, Mackenzie and Brendan, both of whom are still in high school. Mackenzie is packing a bag now, about to walk out the door for a lesson.

Jim makes a joke about the "friendly" rivalry between Mackenzie and Brendan on the tennis court. Everyone laughs.

A worn soccer goal sits in the backyard. Jim gestures out the window and says, "Madison used to run laps around the yard."

A shrine to Madison, with a sketched portrait, a dangling cross and the card from her funeral Mass, sits on a ledge over the dining room table. The Godiva chocolates Madison left for Jim were eaten. He doesn't remember when. The gingersnaps are gone too. Jim and Stacy seem much more interested in sharing Madison's life -- a DVD of her soccer highlights, a binder of newspaper clippings, her senior yearbook filled with notes from adoring classmates -- than the items she left before ending it.

On the refrigerator is a 2013 holiday card that reads, "Happy New Year. With love, the Holleran Family."

Madison is in the back row. She looks happy.

A week after Madison died, on Jan. 23, 2014, the family launched a Facebook page, "In Memory of Madison Holleran," which has more than 52,000 likes. The site is dedicated to suicide prevention and ending the stigma attached to mental illness. Included on the page are stories of Madison, and stories from people struggling with depression, looking for a community.

"Sometimes we are all a little broken, but there is always someone to help, always someone who cares," one post reads.

"Please seek help," another reads. "You are not alone."

And there's this one, from a runner, dated Oct. 6:

"I run because it's therapeutic for me. Because every time I run outside, around my home, I am reminded of the beauty of the world, of which I often forget. Yet at the same time, I am fully aware of beauty -- it simply saddens me because of reasons I have not yet conjured up. I suppose I am sad. But at the same time I am happy; and miserable; and joyful; and stressed out; and calm, and everything in between. I am everything. Every emotion, rigged in every format, and developed through every machine. I am numb but I am not."

A little over a year before she died, Madison posted on Instagram a snapshot of a quote from Seventeen magazine:

"Even people you think are perfect are going through something difficult."

The image had been put through a filter.
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From The Mag: Penn runner's depression masked on social media

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As part of the stories of the year collection, this piece is being resurfaced along with others in the coming days as ESPN Digital and Print Media closes out the year. Check out the full list here. ON THE MORNING of Jan. 17, 2014, Madison Holleran awoke in her dorm room at the University of Pennsylvania.

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1) "This book's presence on the roof of the parking garage remains confusing to her family and friends...Did Madison want them to comb through her past to try to piece together the different versions of her, to come ot some logical solution for why she had jumped off the building? And that final twist at the endof the book: Was that just an inconvenient detail that didn't fit into Madison's story, but since so much else about the book did fit- Amelia was even Madison's confirmation name- she was willing to overlook the ill-fitting ending? Or was she figurativley trying to say that Madison felt she, too, had been pushed? Maybe all Madison was trying to say was that she saw a version of herself in Amelia, in the perfectly crafted veneer that could never feel like an honest reflection of her interior life. Just as Madison worried that she could never find validation for her struggle, because how could someone so beautiful, so seemingly put together, be unhappy? This is illogical, of course, like believing a computuer's hard drive can't break simply because the screen hasn't a scratch" (268).

2) "Nobody understood, Ashley especially, how one of their favorite people in the world had decided, so swiftly and suddenly, to leave them...She felt she was working against a clock; that something could still be done to rewind what had happened. She had to find the thing that set all this in motion so she could fix it, so she could say or do exactly what Maddy needed" (293).

3) Maybe, even at the end, she wanted to control her story. She was sharing some thoughts - in the notes, in the choice of gifts - about why she had made this choice. Her family didn't need to know the desperate thinking that had gone into what looked like a tidy ending. This thinking was, in a striking way, similar to the concept of the Penn Face, the idea that most students at Penn aimed to project a calm, collected, placid exterior, while beneath the surface they were furiously pedaling to stay afloat. Even in her suicide, which seemed to convey the message that life had overwhelmed her, Maddy apparently still cared about projecting a collected, determined message" (294).

4) "More than two years after Madison's death, Ashley still can't quite wrap her mind around the dearth of answers. 'I kept thinking there was definitley more to this,' she says. 'I just felt like there was a secret or something, like someone must have known, that one specific thing happened, that she had told someone about her plan. I just kept wishing I knew the extent of everything, but obviously I can't ask her. So now I know that I'm not going to know. And I guess I've just kind of accepted that'" (297).

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#20- Improvement and Learning From Situations

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#20- Improvement and Learning From Situations

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Penn State University has improved its counseling system since 2014, because six students, including Madison Holleran, had taken their lives in the span of thirteen months, from 2013 to 2014.

Quote #10
"The tragedies led to a task force, which led to the hiring of additional counselors and the ounseling center moving to a bigger space. The improvements allowed the school to cut its wait time for an initial appointment from 13.2 days (the average from 2012 to 2013) to just two to three" (118).

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About a year after Madison’s death, one of her teammates decided to quit track.

Quote #9
"...She sent the following explanation to her teammates and included Maddy's e-mail address among those who received the message...And if there is any positive message I have taken away from the tragic weekend with Madison, it's that we need to do what makes us happy" (297-298).

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Ashley Holleran was incredulous that no one knew that Maddy was thinking about suicide. She thought that out of all people, she should have had some kind of clue. Madison’s friends thought that maybe a boyfriend would have seen some warning signs, because he would know her on a more intimate level. One of Maddy’s ex-boyfriends from high school was the only person who she told that she started to go to church because it comforted her. Even Ashley didn’t know that because he was the only person who Maddy told.

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Jim came home at the same time as his daughter Ashley(she was coming home from college in Alabama) and she was thirsty for answers so she went on Maddy’s computer(the authorities had given Jim Maddy’s phone and computer because they thought they might want them). Ashley couldn’t find any answers, Maddy had deleted her Internet history and Ashley had assumed she did. Ashley believed that Maddy was researching different methods of suicide and didn’t want her family to know what she was thinkning about.

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Early the next morning, Jim’s good friends drove him to the medical examiner’s office where he was shown a photo of Madison’s body to confirm that there was no mistake. He also received the gifts that Maddy had left behind for her family. Then Jim and his friends went to 15th and Spruce because Jim was still in denial, didn’t believe everything happening and he needed to see the parking garage.

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Steve Dolan called Stacy Holleran, Madison's mom late on that Friday night, and she answered because she felt something was wrong. Steve Dolan thought she already knew about what happened to Madison, and said that he would find more details about Madison and call her back. Stacy then called her husband, Jim Holleran. Then, she called Ingrid Hung, Maddy's friend at Penn and she didn't know where Maddy was. Ingrid then called Maddy's roommate, Emily. Jim was calling Ashley Holleran (Maddy's sister) who said that she had just talked to Maddy that afternoon. Ashley called Maddy who didn't answer, but that was usual for Maddy. She went on her Facebook account that said that Maddy was active a couple of hours ago. A few minutes later, Stacy called Ashley because she had gotten a call from Penn Chaplian. Meanwhile, Ingrid called Emily and told her to come down to the lobby. She asked Emily to call her coach and she spoke to him on the phone and started crying. Stacy and Jim called Shley and told her that Madison was gone. Then, Steve Dolan sent out an email, Sat, Jan. 18,2014 at 12:14 AM to the Track and Field team, informing them that Maddy had died. Emma, one of Madison’s best friends who was at Boston college was the last one to know when she woke up and read the messages.

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The three coaches, Eric, Amy, and Mike noticed police cars blocking the street when they were leaving Fado, about an hour and a half after they ran into Madison. That was not unusual in Philadelphia though, so they didn't think about it too much.

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The note that was left inside the shopping bag with the gifts for her family that explained which gift was for whom read:

Quote #8
"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out, and I thought how it is worse to be locked in. For you mom...the neckalces...for you, Nana and Papa... Gingersnaps (alwasy reminds me of you) ... For you Ingrid...The Happines Project. And Dad...the Godiva chocolate truffles. I love you all...I'm sorry. I love you. The first sentence of Madison's note is a quote from Virginia Woolf, who drowned herself at the age of fifty-nine" (270).

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Madison Holleran jumped off of the parking garage of Spruce and 15th in Philadelphia, on January 17th, 2014.

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Madison went to the parking garage at the corner of Spruce and 15th right after running into Eric. It was a block away from a restraunt called Fado. It also had nothing that was extraordinary or eye catching about it. On January 17, Maddy made her bed, which she never did. She also cleaned her side of the dorm and left a scribbled note there.

Quote #7
"'I don't know who I am anymore. Trying. Trying. Trying. I'm sorry. I love you...sorry again...sorry again...sorry again... How did this happen?'" (266).

In the parking garage, Madison left a shopping bag that had gifts for her family. Among those gifts, was the book Reconstructing Amelia, and inside it was the picture of herself as a kid, holding a tennis racquet.

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Fagan, Kate. What Made Maddy Run. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.

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Going from Middle school to High school, Madison was nervous becuause many people already knew her, and expected her to be the freshman who makes the varsity soccer team, and get straight A’s.

Quote #1
"This was the first time any of Maddy's friends had seen her unsteady, doubting. The transition to high school was the frst major challenge for all of them - the first life change they faced with concerns beyond who they might sit next to on the bus...She began crying. MJ and Trisha said all the right things: that she would be great, that everyone would love her, that everything would work out. But their words couldn't make it better. Words meant little. Only excellence helped chip away at self-doubt. And so she excelled" (53).

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During her sophmore year of high school, she started running track to stay in shape for soccer, but she was a natural and kept getting faster. She became one of the best athletes and many professional colleges started looking at her for soccer and track.

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#3- Decide. Follow the Name or the Heart?

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#3- Decide. Follow the Name or the Heart?

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The Penn soccer coach stopped recruiting Maddy after one game she played poorly in. On the other hand, the soccer head coach of Lehigh University, Eric Lambinus, offered Maddy an official scholarship. In April of her Junior year, she gave Lehigh  a verbal commitment, which was a promise that she would sign a national letter of intent to play soccer for them in November of her senior year. Also, Maddy had recieved har acceptance letter from Penn State University to run for them. Madison was battling between her dream, and the one she thought she was supposed to have. She didn't know if Penn was what she wanted or what she was supposed to want. Ivy Leage school, name recognition, Division I sports. Madison chose to go to Penn the month after her senior soccer season. Eric beleived she was making the wrong choice because she was giving up her passion and her first love, soccer.

Quote #2
"When she spoke of soccer, her voice was rich, humming with excitement. When she spoke of running, something clinical happened, all hard edges" (59).

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#4- Doing Too Much, or Not Enough Preparation?

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#4- Doing Too Much, or Not Enough Preparation?

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On November 2, 2013 Maddy collapsed after her race. The weather was hot and she was running 6,000 meters. Before the race, Maddy didn't say much to her mom, Stacy, because she was nervous, but Stacy noticed that Maddy was "less radiant, dulled." Maddy beleived that people collapsed at finish lines because they weren't prepared and didn't train enough, not because they did too much. Madison recovered quickly after her race, at least physically. The color was drained from her face and she told her mom that she wasn't happy and that something wasn't right.

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Jim, Maddy's dad, and Ashley, her sister, drove to Philadelphia to pick up Madison for the holiday. By Thanksgiving break, Maddy's anxiety and unease were turning into something she didn't quite know what it was. She was already dreading going back to campus before the week even started. Madison was always silly, goofy, always laughing, always smiling. That was not the version of Maddy that showed up to Thanksgiving break. Her siblings noticed it too. Although, her family wasn't overly concerned with this and thouhgt it normal, that a challenge was good for her. She was transitioning to college. Madison didn't think what she was going through and what she was feeling was normal though. Before break, she had scheduled a meeting with a counselor at Penn and she felt hopeful, because maybe the therapist would be able to help her get through whatever she was going through. The meeting did not go as she expected at all because the counselor could not grasp the depth of Madison's struggles. She did not tell her family about this meeting over break because she thought it was pointless. Madison did try to tell them that something significant was happening though. Jim and Stacy (parents) recognized that she needed professional help and they found her a therapist near Allendale and she didn't use Penn counseling again.

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December 12, around finals week, Maddy texted her dad that she needed to come home because of how bad the thoughts of suicide had become. Both her and her parents were wondering the same question: when did it get this bad? She also wanted to sign up for a gym since she was staying home for a month and needed to stay in shape. She used running and cardio as an escape from her mind.

Quote #3
"Maybe she could churn out the darkness, force it to seep out of her, like sweat, if she just ran fast enough, long enough" (130).

Quote #4
"Everything had escalated so quickly in her mind. How had that happened? She had been fending off the worst thoughts for weeks...the worst thoughts had actually calmed her. They were reassuring, like knowing that there was a secret escape route in case the room lit on fire...they were offering something clear cut: a way out. Suicide... Where had all this darkness come from?" (123-124).

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On the afternoon of December 28, Maddy and one of her best friends, Emma went shopping for New Year's Eve outfits. Emma had noticed that all the dresses Maddy was trying on were too big on her, even though they were in her normal size. When the friend group got together, they all noticed that the dress Maddy had bought didn't fit her and that she had lost weight. There wasn't any evidence to support this theory, but it was a possible and logical guess that Maddy might have been developing an eating disorder. She was an athlete, she had to think about what she was eating. Her friends weren't overly concerend though, because she had been losing weight before she left to go to college, so the change they noticed wasn't extreme.

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On January 17th, Maddy was walking on a downtown Philly street corner, intead of at track practice. She ran into the soccer recruiter/coach at Lehigh University, Eric. They talked a little bit and caught up. Madison told him that Penn wasn't anything like she expected and that she wasn't enjoying it. Eric thought that running into Maddy was meant to be and that it wasn't just coincidence and Maddy could transfer and play soccer for Lehigh after all.

Quote #6
"...felt he knew Maddy, what drove her, and he had alwasy believed she loved soccer. So he wanted to convey a simple message to her without saying the actual words: she could still come play soccer at Lehigh...too thrilled at the idea that they might have a second shot at Madison" (263-264).

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Before returning to Penn in January, Madison was preparing to follow through with a plan that she told no one else about. To do that, she took some things to her dorm room from home.

Quote #5
"...Maddy asked if she could take with her a picture of herself as a kid, holding a tennis racquet...And eventually, at some point before she left her dorm room on January 17, she opened her MacBook and wiped her Internet History. She was preparing for what had been simmering on the back burner; she was moving it to the front" (242).

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Madison knew that something had to change, or she at least had to try to change something, in order to start feeling better. The options she was considering were: quitting track, transferring schools, or both, The first option she wanted to act upon was quitting track and experiencing Penn like a normal student. Therefore, she scheduled a meeting with Coach Steve Dolan. Before she went, she had been planning what she might say to him and she ended up writing a two page letter because she expressed herself best in writing. The letter made her have hope, and she was more convinced that quitting was the right desicion. At the meeting, she read the letter aloud and Coach Dolan offered her solutions other than quitting, like taking a break, changing the training plan, pick the events she wanted to run, train and not compete, and more. He offered for her to change her training plan and if she still didn't like it, she could quit. Naturally, Maddy felt obliged to stay since Coach Dolan had been so nice and she felt she would be disappointing him if she quit. Fastforward, the new training plan didn't help at all, but Maddy just couldn't bring herself to quit track because she felt she would be letting down her parents, Coach Dolan, and her teammates.