This bit of football news is everywhere, so no links, but the reports are that Junior Seau committed suicide earlier today. By all accounts, he was a great locker room guy, player and teammate. He was also divorced, so he obviously had some family issues, and I was also reminded of his strange incident a few years back where he supposedly fell asleep while driving and drove off the road. So while he was by all accounts a great NFL player, his life after football was somewhat more muddled.
It’s certainly a sad day for his family, friends and fans. It’s also a waste that someone with so much energy and capability couldn’t find a worthy pursuit to channel his personal resources towards. So while he can certainly be held up as a model for how to play football, he falls short of the mark when it comes to how to live a life. That’s a shame.
One reply on “Junior Seau- RIP”
I agree with all of this, but my only hesitation is that if anyone has the potential for the negative ramifications associated with CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, it is a guy who played as long and the way that Seau played the game.
While I believe that brain and damage to it affects everyone differently, I can’t pretend to imagine how much trauma he caused his over the years. Shockingly, as I heard yesterday, among all the numerous injuries that Junior Seau had over the years, he was NEVER diagnosed with a concussion.
I think yesterday may result in us learning that he was repeatedly misdiagnosed or he intentionally avoided diagnosis.