Greg Ellis deserves credit for his candor. He could have said nothing. He decided instead to share his regrets for not keeping in contact with Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland, who dies this week in an apparent suicide.
In 2024, Ellis — who spent 11 years with the Cowboys as a player — served as the team's assistant defensive line coach. He lobbied for the team to draft Kneeland in round two. Kneeland reminded Ellis of himself. And Ellis wishes he'd done more to keep in touch with his former pupil.
“For me, I should have known,” Ellis told Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. “But the moments that I pay attention to him when he would withdraw, he would get quiet, and then I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ But his number one answer: ‘I’m straight coach, I’m good.’ So, yes, to that again, a lot of things are hindsight. I did see it. But I didn’t think it would lead to this. But I did feel compelled to stay in contact with him, and that’s the one thing that I didn’t do well enough in my opinion.”
Ellis's tenure with the Cowboys ended after the 2024 season. He's struggling with the fact that he didn't continue the relationship.
“I feel like, I wish he would have reached out to me,” Ellis said. “But it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind, and that’s where I feel like I needed to have been calling him, and the last time I talked to him by text. Then I just should have been texting him on a consistent basis. Hindsight, I wish I would have been reaching out to him a lot more and maybe that would have helped him to say, ‘Oh yeah, G let me talk to you. Let’s go and get something to eat X, Y and Z.' It doesn’t have to be about football. I didn’t do it."
Ellis bears no blame. The Cowboys moved on, and Ellis moved on. His willingness to share his feelings on the matter can have a positive impact on others.
The lesson is clear. Make the time to check in on your family, friends, colleagues. Watch and listen to them. Help them if you can. Urge them to get help elsewhere, if you believe they need it.
We're all under varying degrees of stress. If anyone has no problems at all, it's a temporary condition at best. Serious problems also can be temporary. The right message at the right time can prevent someone from resorting to a permanent and irreversible solution.