Michael Smith/Associated Press
As the University of New Mexico football team endured another losing season last fall, Nahje Flowers, a defensive lineman, began complaining to friends and counselors about his coaches forcing him to play, even though he had injuries, severe headaches and depression.
On Nov. 5, he sent an early-morning text message “like he is saying goodbye” to friends, saying that his antidepressants “were not helping him.” By the time a friend raced to his apartment, Flowers was dead, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to an Albuquerque Police Department report. He was 21.
Last week, Flowers’s parents, in their first public comments since their son’s death, announced at a virtual news conference that they had filed a federal lawsuit in New Mexico alleging negligence by the university; Bob Davie, the team’s coach at the time; and the N.