There was a time I thought 43 was old. Ancient even. The older I got, however, the more I realized that just like Alan Jackson says 40 is just a stepping stone.
That hit home today when I read about the death, presumably by suicide, of Junior Seau. He was a year older than me so as I came up through my twenties and thirties Junior was a guy I could relate to. I remember when he finally retired after stopping and starting for the better part of 5 years and realizing then that even though you reach a certain point where you can't do what you used to you still live on.
Today that ended for Seau.
I don't know if concussions played a role in Seau's death and it's likely we won't know for several weeks. What I do know is a relatively young man with three kids, money and a very giving charity that he ran that greatly impacted the San Diego area decided, apparently, to take his own life.
He played in the "steroid era" for sports and played with what can generously be called reckless abandon. For 20 years as a PROFESSIONAL he played a violent game in a violent manner which doesn't take into account his years in college at USC, High School, Jr High, and Pee Wee. With all the recent deaths of retired football players at a young age who committed suicide or died of heart ailments at a time they should have been enjoying retirement and playing golf I can't help but wonder if that contributed to this tragedy.
The ironic thing is on the site where I first read about Seau's death right below it was an article about Roger Goodell suspending Jonathon Vilma for the entire year next season for his role in the bounty scandal.
The only thing I know for sure about all of what I've written is this.
My two sons, if I have anything to say about it, will stay as far away from a football field as humanly possible.
Rest in Peace, Junior.
2 comments:
Its interesting to note that literally no where was steroids mentioned as a potential cause for any of this. Concussions is the Buzz word of today and no one wants to place the blame on the NFL for rampant steroid use through the 80s and 90s.
If this were a werestler the key topic would be how dangerous steroids are and no one would mention the fact that the dude likely had upwards of 15 concussions in his career.
A sad day none the less, I feel horrible for Junior's Mother and the family he leaves behind.
I thought the same thing which is why I mentioned it. That era in football should be looked at like they do MLB but for some reason gets a pass.
His mom crying broke my heart.
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