He was an NFL idol…
One of the all-time, best football players ever. Players were in awe of the man who dominated defenses for 20 seasons. And now it appears that Junior Seau, age 43 and sure Hall of Fame football star, took his own life.
His girlfriend called the police and they could not help Seau when they arrived. Junior was gone. Shot himself in the chest with his own gun. The gun was in the room by his lifeless body. The man many consider the best linebacker of all time was dead. Only two years after he left the game.
All this today in Oceanside, California not far from where Seau’s 15 year career with the San Diego Chargers went down.
It’s one of the most surprising suicides in modern sports.
Junior was loved by everyone. He was the face of the Chargers even today after he played for New England at the end of his career, including one more Super Bowl. He had it all – loving fans, children, a foundation, his own show. And we would think, plenty of money. He was still handsome and young at age 43.
Why?
So many players leave the game broke, but not this guy. Many NFL players can’t live without the cheers, but they still cheered Junior.
Pro’s need people to know who they are and trust me everyone knew who Junior Seau was. All the way up until he took his life.
One of his best friends and teammate, Marcellus Wiley was interviewed shortly after Junior was found dead. Wiley said he and almost every player looked up to Seau. Nobody suspected he was in trouble or had mental problems. In fact, they would go to Junior for advice – even recently.
He was the BIG DOG. nobody could hurt Junior Seau.
Many feel Seau was leaving a message to the NFL because he shot himself in the chest, not a normal way to go. It’s thought he may have done this so doctors could examine his head and brain for post career problems due to constant hits and head Trauma.
They call it CTE. There have been a few other recent suicides where a player shot himself in the chest for possibly the same reasons, like Chicago Bear Dave Duerson. The odd thing to me is there doesn’t appear to be a note left. If Junior was so far gone with mental pain and anguish but wanted to help after his death, why no note, no explanation?
Here was a man who worked hard, grabbed the brass ring and held it his entire adult life.
Nobody seems to have a bad word to say about the man. Yet with his career ending on the field, at a time he should have been happy and enjoying life…he ends it all. Again, why?
Personally I think Junior was one of the greatest players ever to put on a helmet and Ihate to see this happen.
Not Really
Shocking except for the fact it isn’t the first time he tried to off himself.
Yes Correct
Yes I saw that with the car thing. My days with Derrick Thomas showed the same issues..but Derricks career was long gone, Miami was likely not going to put him on the team, he was out of shape, over weight, booze, coke etc…it’s likely he was wanting to go as well, leading to his car crash and death…we will never know…in this case we may come to find financial issues, relationship issues….its too early..but that noise is out there as well…so yeah there may be more than just CTE in this case, usually there is…and no note makes me think something more than that was going on..still sad.
Critical Mass
The players are too big, too fast, too strong and too explosive for the human body to handle anymore.
After being hit and doing the hitting with guys that are now averaging 260 pounds and running a 4.6, the force is too much for the body to handle.
We’ll be seeing lots more of this I’m afraid.
Football has reached critical mass.
Being hit with such force for 20 years and (allegedly) doing steriods will fry your brain.
You’re right, dude had it all, except a working brain that couldn’t synapse anymore.
I pray for his family, but wonder how the NFL will react to this. It could be the league’s undoing.
… still too early to know why …
… revisit this in a few weeks, Craig, after more information comes out. It will, it always eventually leaks out.
What’s eerie
Is that Seau is the 8th member of the 1994 Chargers AFC Championship team to die — the 3rd in the last 2 years alone. Hell, one of the team members ( Doug Miller ) was struck by lightning…
Say Ow!
Sad, tragic but I’ll save my prayers and empathy for the soldiers who have dealt with nastier shit in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This will continue ad infinitum in the NFL cause the meatheads who play the game can’t make the kinda money they make any other way and we keep paying to see it. We are just as much to blame.
Like Ive SAID, Smartman, its a GAME!!
These guys who come from nothing, end up with more wealth than a 100 combined people and walk OUT broke are products of their background. And, as you said, we pay to participate and make “idols” of them for throwing a ball. Strikes me odd.
I used to think suicide was a choice you made when all your rational thinking went out the window and you were, more or less, no longer in touch with your faculties. Then… I had a friend take his own life. I talked to him just before it happened. He was a driven, determined, genius level person who faced some issues in life that brought him to the conclusion, “Im done.”. He left letters to all kinds of friends, very rational, said he didnt want anyone to think he was nuts, he was just tired, beat up, had all the tragedy he wanted and was electing to simply no longer live. Cut and dried.
Where the plan went wrong was at his funeral. I’ve never seen so many agry people in my life at his wake. Friends, family, all totally pissed off that he did what he did. And there in lies what few consider when taking the big, last exit ramp. What and who is left behind? What will be their reaction and for how long will that change who THEY are?
Soo-Wee-Side
I understand how some rational people can consider suicide an option. Particularly if they’ve been diagnosed with a fatal illness and don’t want to suffer through it or put their family through it for emotional or financial reasons. If all our sins are forgiven through Christ’s crucifixion and things are better on the other side then let’s just speed up the process of getting there. As much as stupid people piss me off I’ve got a .357 ready to go. Unfortunately, I find this shithole human experiment called planet earth interesting enough to keep wanting to hang around for one more day. That being said, I would encourage anyone seriously contemplating suicide to seek professional help. If you don’t wanna go that route then fill out an organ donor card and whack yourself at the entrance to an ER so they can harvest your organs and give them to someone with a need, desire and passion to live. Like Will Smith in Seven Pounds.
touchy subject,
guy should have been treated for depression probably not helped by the concussions he sustained throughout his career.
I can understand assisted suicide for the terminally ill to ease pain but to kill yourself over a treatable mental illness?
We are currently going through a depression/mental illness issue with my wife’s brother right now and it is a pretty sticky issue.
He is a grown man with issues and we can’t force him to seek mental help. Tough place to be.
We share similar thoughts, Smartman
I had this discussion with a spiritual friend the other day who LIVES for this “Christ’s Return” idea that its coming within a year. Thinking of myself as a Christain guy, maybe not the literalist some people are, and while understanding the concept of Heaven, theres just an aweful lot I still want to do HERE and NOW! I want more time with my kids, my family, my wife, my grandchild and those to come. Yeah, I understand what is supposed to be on the “other side” (sorry Craig, this is a Gentile conversation here…), but as i told my friend, and pissed her off in the mean time, “…if it happens before I get my BOAT in the water and live on it for a summer, I’m going to be PISSED, I can tell you THAT right now!!”
You and your family are in my prayers, Dude… thats NOT fun
and your situation is about what I eluded to above.
A grown man, in his 40
Freedom of Depressed
Like everything else, we really fuck up when we treat depression. Drugs, drugs and more drugs. A psychotic cocktail of synthetic pharmaceuticals designed to make you crazier than you were before. The human body is pretty fucking incredible. It wants to be healthy and happy. Even when we abuse it, it still gives us the opportunity to allow it to repair before it turns on us. True depression treatment is best started with an osteopath or naturopath, not an MD, psychologist or psychiatrist. In most cases, we all have the inert power to heal ourselves with proper nutrition, exercise and some form of spirituality. Your allopathic doctor won’t tell you that since it’s bad for business.
Smartman, could NOT agree more!!
.
I agree smartman,
I would bet most if not all depression and a good number of other mental illnesses are probably caused by chemical imbalances in the brain and some tweaking of diet along with ph adjusting can probably right the wrongs. I need to do some more research into this myself because I am not sold myself on the Big Pharma solutions to life’s ills.
If anyone has suggestions to some good literature It would be appreciated.
@ the dude
Read the book Side Effects Death by John Virapem. Check out these websites. drkessinger.com. Good non-prescriptive practice in Rolla, Missouri. tahomaclinic.com. Home of Dr. Jonathan V. Wright, leading naturopathic practitioner in US. mercola.com. another good source for info on nutrition and supplementation. I have found a great Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioner and acupuncturist in KC. Google Stephanie Mall. Lots of good DO’s and Naturopath’s in KC. If you are interested I would suggest calling around and asking for an initial getting to know you consultation over the phone or in person. Most don’t charge for this. It’s basically a quick chat about their approach towards “healing” as opposed to treatment. Select someone that you like and that thinks like you do about healthcare
Unlike most MD’s, DO’s and ND’s don’t just take blood, read the numbers and write you a script. They will take a couple of hours in the first visit to get to know and understand YOU. What you eat, do you exercise, stressors in your life, the color of your piss, how often you get laid, the texture and smell of your poo, all of the important details that will allow them to approach you as a unique individual and not just another brick in the wall. Your insurance may or may not cover these practitioners, which is bullshit since DO’s and ND’s just based on the way they practice medicine could cut health care costs by probably 30%, but the the AMA and Big Pharma don’t get their piece of the pie.
Another fact to consider about allopathic medicine. When you take ER visits out of the equation, allopathic medicine is only successful in resolving health problems about 22% of the time. Do No Harm, me ass.
Glazer, please……….
explain this sentence – Miami was likely not going to put him on the team, he was out of shape, over weight, booze, coke etc…
I’d really like to know how you’re linking up Derrick Thomas and Miami.
Ready, go.
RBA Guy
It wasn’t a secret Chiefs were trying to unload DT…he was done and then some…sorry. Miami was interested, but not sure if would pass physical at that time..he died before we could find out what would happen…I liked DT, but he had let himself go..too far…I saw him weekly at that time, liked him…we watched the Morrison/Lewis title fight together at the Q in Westport…just us..he had Lewis, he won. Nice guy, Derrick, Neil tried to look after him, but in the end DT was just a loner and had too many demons.
Career demise being different than actual suicide, still,
it was nonetheless sad to see Derrick Thomas decline. It was obvious to me he had been slipping on the field for the last 2-3 years of his Chiefs tenure. Still a very good player, just no longer uber-great., the formerlty unmatched (on artifical turf) first tep become but that of a mere mortal all-star.
I saw the same thing happen to the Chiefs of my youth: Buck Buchanan, Bobby Bell, Otis Taylor et al ravaged by time and the affects the gridiron, contact & stress otherwise.
I remember the formerly 300 something lb. (but by then 250 something) Buchanan getting pancaked by SD Chargers OG Doug Wilkerson – that NEVER happened to Buck before. Watching that was like watching Superman get punked by Pee Wee Herman.
Bobby Bell, whose legandary first step (on grass fields) was to my eye even quicker than Derrick Thomas (correcting for the latter’s advantage playing on turf) falling by the wayside, looking like a pedestrian compared his former mercurial self.
And Otis Taylor, injuries, off-season training complacency the era and ongoing under-utilization of his skills by the Chiefs/Hank Stram et al… Otis talent took a back seat to NO ONE, from Alworth to Moss and every Tom, Dick and Jerry (Rice) in between.
Jim Tyrer too whose fate may not have been totally self-inflicted when considering the price that was paid to be in a violent sport for almost 15 years in his case… lineman both offensive and defensive having a shorter life span than not only the average person but shorter stuill than even their fellow footballers who play other positions.
Just lineman who have passed on who played on those Chiefs teams of the late 1960’s to early 1970’s include – Buchanan, Tyrer, Aaron Brown, Ernie Ladd, Jerry Mays, Remi Prudhomme, Hatch Rosdahl & George Daney, the latter guy who reportedly died from carbon monoxide poisoning (or was it something else? I don’t know.)
Thing is, players/’combatants’ other sports like baseball (Don Wilson, Donnie Moore), basketball (Bill Robazine), boxing (Jerry Quarry) etc. too death has visited, cumulative ‘impact’ or inability to handle ‘life’ variously part & parcel thereof.
I’ve known two individuals in my life who commited suicide – BOTH were a shock to me. Despite what ‘experts’ say are warning signs, I saw neither in each case… unless someone is crying for help covertly or overtly, suicide would probably always be a surpirse. Like a dog that knows its time has come, it goes off by itself and prepares to die… even though that may not constitute suicide, were I ever to consider such a final exit, would not trumpet my intentions to anyone likewise, rather, would (to borrow from an former Utah death row killer Gary Gilmore ) just “do it”.
View from afar, personal freindship with a famous person not usually the case & even a very casual relationship an everyman/woman being same, desensitized modern-age renders such stories almost routine… as in, ‘and so it goes’.
Kerouac Great Read
Thank you, enjoyed that.
we know
if it makes you feel better Craig we all suspect you have mental problems
Glazer Lives
Glazer is alive and Junior is dead. Life is not fair. Plus Glazer shares negative comments about his dead “friend” Derrick Thomas. Whats the old saying….with friends like that who needs enemies. Plus he tells us that Thomas was a loner. He got what eight women knocked up and he is hanging out with Glazer. Sounds just like a loner. This is another in a long list of examples that points about Craig Glazer has no clue as to what he is talking about.
Friday Night Lights
There is a debate on May 8 on ending football at the college level.
Buzz Bissinger and Malcolm Gladwell will argue it should be eliminated and Ted Green and Jason Whitlock will argue for the sport.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/intelligence_squared/2012/05/the_next_slate_intelligence_squared_debate_is_may_8_why_buzz_bissinger_thinks_college_football_should_be_banned_.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2