Luke Falk pulls out of Senior Bowl to attend Tyler Hilinski’s funeral

Luke Falk and Tyler Hilinski were close. Not only were they teammates at Washington State, but they spent countless hours working together as fellow Cougars quarterbacks.

This past week as he attended Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, Ala., Falk has donned Hlinski’s No. 3 jersey instead of his own No. 4 as a way to honor his late teammate. Now he’s made the decision to withdraw from the Senior Bowl itself so he can attend Hilinski’s funeral, per Stephanie Loh of the Seattle Times.

Earlier this week, Falk opened up about how he remembers Hilinski, who took his own life on Tuesday of last week, and his desire for more dialogue on suicide.

“I want people to remember Tyler as an amazing person he was, his bubbly attitude, the draw he had to people and people had to him,” Falk said this week, per Loh. “I want people to start talking about suicide. I think us as men suppress our emotions and feel like we can’t express what’s really going on and how we feel. I think that we need the resources and have the trust that we can do that.”

Ryan Hilinski, who recently poured out his heart talking about his older brother on Twitter, shared that Hilinski’s funeral service will be held on Saturday afternoon at Damien High School.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Hilinski’s family and friends as they mourn his passing.