No reason for Trickett to play in bowl game

Then they found him lying dead in a dumpster, an apparent suicide victim.

Darryl Talley was a College Football Hall of Fame linebacker and All-American at West Virginia in the early 1980s, a long-time star of the Buffalo Bills whom many believe belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

It came to light the other day that Talley is suffering from depression, memory loss, has trouble sleeping, severe pain from 14 operations and has considered suicide.

Both stories hit you like a blow to the head, which may be what is behind each situation.

And that has meaning right here and right now, important meaning to the current West Virginia football family and situation.

Quarterback Clint Trickett is recovering from what is, at least, his third concussion. He missed the victory over Iowa State last Saturday in which Skyler Howard stepped in and performed admirably.

Coach Dana Holgorsen says Trickett is still WVU’s starting quarterback, that if he is healthy — and he expects in a month he will get clearance and practice — he will play the game.

It’s a nice gesture on his part, going with Trickett, a senior, one who suffered so much criticism for his play last season when he played hurt, throwing despite a painful labrum and rotator cuff injury that would require postseason surgery.

A nice gesture — but enough is enough.

Trickett is not NFL bound. His future lies in coaching quarterbacks, not playing quarterback.

One’s heath, one’s future — it must come first.

Ask the question, how many concussions is too many? Two? Four? Twelve?

No one really seems to know. The fact is, no one really knows when you have suffered brain damage, for it may stay there hidden for years.

Take Talley. He’s 54 and made his living hitting people, head first, over and over, hard.

It took its toll. He suffered a heart attack in his 40s and discovered after that he had played professional football with a broken neck.

He is married to his college sweetheart, Janine, but his business has failed and his house has been foreclosed on.

“I never thought this would be our life, but this is the reality of it,” Janine Talley told The Buffalo News. “I don’t see it getting any better. This’ll kill him one way or the other.

“His mental issues have accelerated a lot in the last year. I don’t know what the future holds for either one of us. I don’t know if in a few years dementia will set in. I don’t know if I’ll be able to care for him.”

Karageorge’s mother saw trouble coming for him.

Susan Karageorge told police after he went for a walk dressed in black from hat to boots and never returned, that he had had several concussions and a few spells of being extremely confused. The last she heard from him was in a text message that simply read “I am sorry if I am an embarrassment.”

The coroner, as part of the autopsy, is going to go the extra step and look at his brain to see if there are any abnormalities, which one suspects are sure to show up.

In fact, it would be almost abnormal if it didn’t.

Think back to West Virginia’s bizarre, troubled wide receiver Chris Henry, perhaps the best receiver ever to play at a school that has recently produced the likes of  Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey and Kevin White. Henry went on to become a standout with the Cincinnati Bengals, but acted stranger and stranger before dying after falling from the back of a pickup truck while engaged in a domestic dispute with his girlfriend.

A study of his brain showed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — a form of degenerative brain damage caused by multiple hits to the head — at the time of his death, according to scientists at the Brain Injury Research Institute, a research center affiliated with West Virginia University.

“We would have been very happy if the results had been negative, but multiple areas of Chris Henry’s brain showed CTE,” said Dr. Julian Bailes, director of BIRI and then-chairman of neurosurgery at West Virginia.

In Trickett’s case, enough is enough. Why risk anything worse?

If Holgorsen wants, start him, play him the first series maybe, then get him out of there, shake his hand, give him a hug and send him off into what promises to be a successful life with a good head on his shoulders.

Follow Bob Hertzel on Twitter @bhertzel