Playing for 73: Caleb Hall is Carrying on His Father’s Legacy

LARAMIE -- Something was very wrong.

His wife noticed it. So did he.

Get our free mobile app

A mild-mannered educator and coach, Justin Hall was becoming more volatile by the day. Violent mood swings often led to outbursts of unwarranted frustration. The fist-sized holes in the walls of the family home served as a visual reminder of an unstable environment.

Jennifer Hall walked on eggshells, often bearing the brunt of the verbal abuse. At least the vitriol wasn’t aimed at the couple’s three young children, she would tell herself.

Why is he being this way? What happened to the kind, loving “teddy bear” she chose to spend her life with?

She urged Justin to speak with a therapist. Medication, she hoped, could help with the crippling depression. When that didn't happen, she took a more drastic approach, removing herself and the kids from the equation.

An eerie, dark conversation soon followed.

"I just remember him sitting there, and he goes, 'there's something wrong with my brain, and if anything ever happens to me, I need you to donate it,'" she recalled. "I think that was part of really what he was battling. Like, he was saying, 'I don't see a way to get better.'"

The ultimate diagnosis was an invisible one, but the result was very real.

On Nov. 27, 2017, Justin was found dead in his garage. He died by hanging, taking his own life after a brief and impactful 47 years on this earth. He didn’t leave a physical note, but this tragic tale played out in slow motion over a number of years. While there were many twists and turns, an unthinkable event eventually expedited his despair.

"For him, the answer was, I think he legitimately thought, for his family, the best thing was for him to not be there," Jen said. "In his mind, he was doing the right thing."

***

The drill: inside run. The task: don't give an inch.

Caleb Hall, lined up on the left edge and rested his forearms on his thighs as he crouched into position. Across from him, defensive end Esaia Bogar had three fingers buried into the turf as he anticipated the snap.

There was no guessing game. The ball was destined for the belly of 210-pound running back Markell Holman. The only question was, which way was he going?

Hall knew -- and it showed.

The 6-foot-5, 305-pound sophomore exploded off the line of scrimmage and latched both hands onto Bogar's jersey. It was a stalemate at first as the senior surveyed the backfield. That's when Hall began to drive his legs, taking Bogar completely out of the picture and revealing a hole for Holman to slip through to the second level.

On this Saturday afternoon inside Wyoming's indoor practice facility, that same scenario played out time and time again.

"It's a developmental position, but Caleb Hall has done a nice job," offensive line coach Joe Tripodi said in the spring. "The more you can do, the better shot you have."

Hall typically sets up shop at the guard spot, meaning he's deep in the trenches, attempting to push around players his own weight. Dante Drake is one of those -- and then some.

He's seen marked improvement from his young counterpart.

"Every practice you see him, he's working on something new," the defensive tackle said. "He's tuning up whatever he's trying to work on. You can see that. He's a great addition to the squad. I mean, I love his effort, love his attitude, just to everything. He's a great worker and an awesome guy."

He also looks an awful lot like a guy who used to wear No. 73 at Notre Dame.

***

Though the official title of Most Valuable Player was bestowed upon Jerome Bettis, that honor could've easily belonged to any of the five guys up front.

The future Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee rushed for a game-high 150 yards, which included a 39-yard jaunt to the end zone through the B-gap to put a nail in Florida's coffin in the 1992 version of the Sugar Bowl.

For the 250-plus pound Notre Dame fullback, that was his third touchdown of the fourth quarter in that eventual 39-28 victory inside the Louisiana Superdome. Two of those were only possible because of the manhandling in the trenches, courtesy of starting right tackle, Justin Hall.

"Coach (Lou) Holtz told us we could move the ball on the ground – and that we would move the ball on the ground -- in the second half,” Bettis told reporters postgame, referring to a first half that produced just 34 rushing yards. "Our line was really opening some holes."

Hall, standing 6-foot-5 and tipping the scales at nearly 300 pounds, bearhugged the school's mascot following the game, hoisting the Leprechaun high in the air. The moment was captured by the student newspaper and plastered on the front page in the following weeks.

The grainy black-and-white photograph represented an exuberance of pure joy, a trait Hall would forever carry with him.

He was once known for keeping more-athletic edge rushers at bay in the backfield. He mowed over linemen, paving the way for the likes of future NFL stars Dorsey Levens, Ricky Watters and Bettis. He was the first player to ever win five monogram letters in South Bend. His teams appeared in the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar Bowl.

Hall even won a national championship during his freshman season in 1988.

The hardware that comes with that ultimate accomplishment now sits in his son's vacant bedroom in northern California.

The interlocking "ND" dons the face of that golden, diamond-encrusted ring. "Trust, Love and Commitment" are engraved into the sides.

Hall featured those attributes, too.

He was a little on the wild side, too.

"When 296-pound tackle Justin Hall feels sorry for himself, he pounds his head against the wall," a story titled "Those Crazy Fighting Irish" read in the 1989 Courier-Journal.

***

Jay Sawvel earned the opportunity of a lifetime in 1996 when he was named a graduate assistant at Notre Dame. The Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus, the Four Horsemen: It still seems like a surreal experience today for Wyoming's third-year head coach.

He still tells tales of what it was like playing gopher for Holtz, which included taking recruits to the airport in Chicago and driving the Hall of Famer to speaking engagements. The wiry head coach with the notorious lisp also had a special disdain for rivals, mainly Southern California.

He handed out written tests about the Trojans. Fail, and you weren't dressing, let alone playing.

His most-fond memory, though, might just be playing the role of "third-wheel" with his new roommate and his beautiful, spunky red-headed girlfriend.

"The three of us would hang out quite a bit and do stuff," Sawvel said, referring to Justin and Jen Hall. "We were all good friends. Justin and Jen ended up getting married and, you know, they're just great. I love Justin Hall. He was a great guy to work with and a great guy to to live with. Jen is salt of the earth. I mean, she's tremendous."

Gordie Haug, Wyoming's former running backs coach, used to recruit the Sacramento area. At Jesuit High School, he couldn't take his eyes off an athletic offensive lineman with major upside.

Sawvel knew all about Caleb Hall, but excused himself from the room with one simple, unbiased request: "Is he good enough to play here?"

By now, you know that answer.

"There would've been favoritism to it," Sawvel admitted with a smile. "I would have just been like, 'Yep, OK, we're doing this.'

"... I don't think Jen would have him anywhere else except for where I'm at, you know? And I think that he appreciates this program so much. I'll always take care of him because of that background."

Jen echoed those sentiments, adding the family has learned the hard way, this isn't just a game.

"I know he's going to have Caleb's best interests at heart, especially with Justin's injuries coming from football," she said. "You know, that's a real fear. As a mom, you want to make sure someone sees your kid as a human and a person in a life after football."

***

Justin Hall was dedicated to community service.

He not only worked with the local youth on the football field, he took his role in the classroom even more seriously.

Simple yet powerful, his wife said he just wanted to make a difference.

That didn't go unnoticed.

"While he was diligent in reviewing the x's and o's he never neglected the Johnny's and the Joe's ... The world is better because Justin Hall was here," former player and student Justin Meko penned on a memorial tribute.

Justin did that, in part, leading service trips through Jesuit to places like the Dominican Republic, hurricane-torn New Orleans and numerous Native American reservations around the country.

"Caleb has a lot of the same characteristics of how people just kind of gravitate toward him," she added.

Though there were subtle signs of an unspoken torment inside her husband, Jen said, it wasn't until 2013 that the deterioration of his mental health really took center stage. That came on a July afternoon at Camp Sacramento where family friend, 13-year-old Natalie Giorgi, died after an anaphylactic accident.

A peanut allergy left the young girl fighting for her life.

Justin, along with her father, was giving her aid in those final terrifying moments.

"I think the effects of that trauma, essentially, broke him," a somber Jen added. "After that is when, you know, just trying to recover from the trauma, his brain just couldn't get back to a stable state. Then it kind of just progressively started to go down from there."

Ironically, Justin's death date was Natalie's birthday.

Jen said her husband progressively fell into despondency. His daily activities trended toward the bizarre, too, like scavenging for aluminum cans -- bags and bags of them, she added -- and irrationally preparing for the end of times like a survivalist. A talented woodworker, that hobby, among others, fell by the wayside.

Caleb, who was just 11 years old at the time of his father's death, never witnessed the violent, angry side. Forever frozen in time, luckily, Justin was very much the father-figure who was quick to play catch or go on an adventure.

***

Class, basketball practice and an overnight stay with dad. That's what Caleb Hall remembers about that fall day.

A wellness check changed all of that.

"My best friend and his dad took me to this yogurt place after basketball practice and I was confused. It was a school night," he recalled. "Then I get home and my whole family's there: my uncles, my aunts, my grandparents. OK, something's up.

"... My mom sat us down on the couch and broke the news."

The tears and confusion that followed are still hard to comprehend. It wasn't easy to process. For Caleb, that's still an ongoing challenge.

Jen, who was on a work trip to Seattle that day, texted her husband in the morning to confirm the plan: All three children would be dropped off at his house after school. No response.

"I just felt like something was off," Jen recalled.

Jesuit eventually called, letting her know Justin never made it to school that morning. Administration at the school, Jen added, also knew their beloved colleague of nearly two decades was not in a good place. A coworker borrowed a house key from Caleb's older brother, Jacob, and made his way to Justin's home.

That's when their worst nightmare became a reality.

"I'm thankful they did, because Abby and Caleb would have been dropped off at his house that afternoon," Jen said. "Their world was never going to be the same. It's like their last moment of childhood innocence."

What would she say? How would she describe this, especially to her younger children? How would she weave in the beliefs of their strong Catholic faith and the topic of suicide?

That's when Jen said her "angel" sat next to her on that Southwest flight home.

"It was a child psychologist, specializing in traumatic death," she said. "So she told me, basically, here's what you should do when you go home. Here's how to tell them, here's the support you need to give them when they find out and here are what the first few days are like. She gave me recommendations on what kind of help to get them to be able to talk to someone right after, so I just went through her playbook."

Community was at the top of that list.

More than 1,000 people attended Justin's funeral. Family and friends were a constant presence. So were priests.

"Justin was really loved in the community," Jen said.

Sawvel, rapidly tapping the wooden lectern in front of him, slowly shook his head. His voice got soft.

"It was a very, very hard situation," he said. "When I found out about it, so many times good people go through things that we just don't understand.

"I'm always going to do everything I can for that family."

***

Jen granted her late husband's dying wish, sending his brain to be studied at Boston University. The Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy -- or CTE -- is a degenerative brain disease that is caused by repeated blows to the head. That was the ultimate culprit.

There are four stages of the disease. Justin's brain, doctors confirmed, was at least a three, if not four.

"The fact that he was even functioning with as bad of a condition as his brain was in was pretty incredible," Jen added.

Justin grew up in football-mad Texas, earning a scholarship to one of the most-prestigious football programs in the country. In the end, his passion, unbeknownst to him, cost him and his family dearly.

Now his youngest son is following that same path. If not for injuries, his oldest was headed that direction, too.

Yes, Jen keeps all of that in mind, but it's admittedly trumped when she sees Caleb run out of the tunnel at War Memorial Stadium, wearing her husband's number, doing what he loves. She isn't letting fear dictate direction.

"What a blessing to see your kid live their dream," she said. "This is something he has always wanted to do. I'm just so proud to see he's hitting those goals. I'm just so grateful that he has this opportunity."

Caleb bears a striking resemblance to his father. He was blessed with Division-I size and an All-American smile, just like him. Slipping that 73 over his chest is a constant reminder of why he plays this game.

"Sometimes when I'm kind of feeling like football is not going too well and I'm not playing my best, then I'll talk to him," he said. "And, you know, it feels real, too. I kind of just feel like I would know what he's going to say."

Jen said he'd be critiquing Caleb's techniques and making sure his hands and feet are in the right spots.

That's not all.

"I think he would be genuinely proud that his son was kind of following in his footsteps," she added. "I think he would have been really proud, and I think he would be really happy that Caleb was under Jay's eyes, too, and just knowing that he was in good hands. I think he'd be really grateful."

Caleb hears two words: "Keep working."

"He'd definitely tell me that he's proud of me, but he would want me to keep fighting and do more than what others would do. Do all that extra work.

"He would believe in me, too, I think."

(If you or anyone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please seek support at Wyoming Life Line at 988.)

- University of Wyoming’s Top 50 Football Players