Tyler Ulrich, a college football player who died from injuries sustained in a game earlier this month, suffered a traumatic brain injury and a brain bleed, according to a coroner’s report obtained by ESPN. Ulrich was 21.
Ulrich, who played safety for Division II’s Southern Nazarene University in Oklahoma, was hospitalized Oct. 10 and died five days later. The Garland County Coroner’s Office report said that he was “hit helmet to helmet causing the subdural hematoma.”
The school previously described his death as the result of a “traumatic injury” but declined to provide further details. A spokesperson for the university said Friday they had not yet received the coroner’s report. Ulrich’s family did not respond to an attempt to reach them.
“Our university president, football team and coaches participated in a Celebration of Life service for Tyler last Sunday afternoon in Azle, Texas. The report you mentioned has not been provided to us,” the spokesperson said in a statement provided to ESPN Friday. “Our campus community is faithfully remembering his family, teammates and coaches in our prayers.”
Ulrich was injured during an away game against Ouachita Baptist University while involved in a group tackle, according to head coach Dustin Hada. Paramedics on site attended to Ulrich for nearly an hour on the field before he was transported to a nearby hospital.
Dave Myrick, the team’s radio play-by-play announcer, said he did not notice anything unusual about the hit until he saw several players waving for athletic trainers to come help. He said the medical staff was quickly joined by a county sheriff and Ulrich’s mother.
“There was nothing in the run of that play that made you go, ‘Oh man, that looked horrible,'” Myrick said. “Just a normal football play. And while I’m saying we got a player down, I see our players’ reaction to what they see, and that is when it kind of changed the tide, you know, in my tone. They were jumping up and down yelling for our medical staff to come on the field.”
Ulrich is one of two football players to die from a traumatic head or neck injury during a game in the past nine years, according to data collected by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research.
Ulrich is the second college football player to die this season due to a game-related incident. MicahJo Barnett, a running back from William Jewell College, collapsed on his team’s sideline during a game in early August. William Jewell College did not disclose Barnett’s cause of death.
Southern Nazarene finished the game but decided not to play the following week. The team returned to play last Saturday in a 60-37 win over Northwestern Oklahoma State University.
Ulrich was a redshirt sophomore who was one of the team’s top three tacklers. Hada, who has been SNU’s head coach since 2019, said he and his team are “doing the best we can” in the wake of Ulrich’s death.
“Tyler was an outstanding football player and a tremendous man of faith,” Hada told ESPN. “He was a great example of quiet strength and a leader in our locker room for sure.”
