Junior Seau
Junior Seau was one of my favorite players in the NFL when he was in his prime, his sad passing and the circumstances surrounding it do not shroud his awesome legacy of play…
However, these gladiators who we enjoy battling on Sundays, sometimes battle deep personal demons in the inside and in some cases never beat them…
Rest In Peace Mr. Seau
by Mike Zimmer, Falcons fan
In 1992, the San Diego Chargers were a team on the rise. I took notice, as a Cincinnati Bungals fan, it’s often necessary to take interest in other teams to root for when doomed season after season come to pass. I needed to have another team to cheer for that year considering the David Klingler era was going to be unleashed and home games were to be blacked out. I had liked their coach Bobby Ross while he was a hard nosed head coach at Georgia Tech and their gritty QB Stan Humphries was my kind of signal caller, fat, tough and a true under dog. I liked them also because they played hard nosed football and there was a beast on their defense, a beast named Junior Seau.
As a Big Ten football fan, you’re trained to hate pretty much anything that comes from the Pac-10. A hulking, athletic LB from USC pretty much would qualify for that hatred too, but Seau was too much fun to watch to hate. He was to behold. Seau was fun to watch at USC, and you knew this guy was going to be special. When he was drafted by the San Diego Chargers, they had an instant franchise building block and didn’t disappoint for years to come. By the time that ’92 Chargers team blossomed into a late season darling, Seau was leading them towards something awesome. Their surprising and Cinderella run in the 1994 season before they were beaten in Super Bowl XXIX was something to behold. Seau willed a defense and a team to their pinnacle that year, their final win on the road in the AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh that year was perhaps one of the hardest hitting games I’ve ever witnessed.
Seau was one of my favorites. Even as the Chargers faded from that Super Bowl year and eventually fell into the abyss of the NFL there after, cursed by Jeff Gilbride, Ryan Leaf and a ton of losing, Seau was still respectable and tough as nails. He was still awesome to watch, with his ferocious hitting only out-done by his ability to chase plays as athletically as any defender that ever played the game. His high energy, always high octane motor was something that charged defenses he captained and always were entertaining. I genuinely enjoyed watching Seau over the years, even as he moved on to what was supposed to be a shot at a ring with the New England Patriots in 2008. While I had no love for the Pats that year and thoroughly enjoyed the fact that they were upset by Giants, I felt for Seau. He deserved a ring, but it wasn’t to be.
The tragic end that was his suicide belittles a career that was awesome to behold and a persona that portrayed an enthusiastic ambassador for the game, the San Diego Chargers and his Southern California home. Seau was a charitable guy, someone who was fan friendly, gave back, was available and seemed to have life by the horns. It’s sad to find that in the end, he was hiding something, a depression so deep, a fallibility that went un-checked and un-aided.
Bill Walton this week was moved to tears in revealing that he felt as if he let Junior Seau down. That he had had the same deep depression that went un-checked and that he considered suicide in recent years. Walton was one of many that wished that he could have done or said something for Seau, or encouraged the help that he probably needed. It is now assumed that Seau’s accident a few years ago where he wrecked his SUV and nearly went over a cliff was a vague attempt on his life then. The lack of skid-marks on the road, perhaps were not from him just falling to sleep as he had claimed.
It’s a miserable shame that Seau took his own life and got to that point because he was suffering in silence over whatever demons beset him. The pressure to be Junior Seau, a deep, dark un-checked chemical imbalance, physical suffering or perhaps even the fact that the lack of having the game and being the gladiator any longer having taken it’s toll upon his psyche. It’s sad. We’ll never know, and so many people lost their idol, their champion and their legend.
Seau to me won’t soon be forgotten. I own an old Junior Seau jersey and while it doesn’t fit any longer, I had hoped to one day frame it. Perhaps, get an autograph on it if I were lucky enough in my life to. It would reside as a reminder of one of my favorite players for all time, hung upon my office wall. It’s not to be. The jersey remains, but Seau is gone. It will not demean my appreciation and enjoyment of him as a player.
Rest In Peace Mr. Seau.
