Marine veteran to put spotlight on suicide prevention during coin toss at UT v. LSU game

A special guest before the game between the University of Texas Longhorns and the Louisiana State University Tigers will help send a message about an important cause.

Jacob Schick, a Marine combat veteran, will take the field for the coin toss Saturday.

“I’m essentially representing suicide prevention month via my nonprofit 22KILL,” Schick told KXAN Friday. “22KILL was started essentially as a movement in 2013 after a 2012 study from the VA came out saying on average 22 veterans die by suicide every day.”

While serving in Iraq in 2004, Schick’s vehicle hit a mine. The explosion, he said, left him severely injured.

“I did 18 months in the hospital. I had over 50 operations [and] over 20 blood transfusions,” Schick explained. “But the worst of it was being diagnosed with post traumatic stress and a traumatic brain injury because those are the wounds you can’t see.”