Junior Seau On Sports Illustrated Cover
Junior Seau Sports Illustrated Cover
It’s now been a week since the tragic passing of future hall of fame linebacker Junior Seau, and like a earthquake, there is still some aftershock from the original blow. It’s something that’s so shocking that it’s hard to get completely over it. Similar to the Steve McNair situation, it takes time when good/great players leave us in shocking fashion. Not trying to discredit the other fallen athletes who have left us too soon, but when you are connected to someone you have seen and cheered for over a decade, it hits a little harder.
Sports Illustrated decided to honor Seau, giving him the cover of their most recent issue. The quote by LaDainian Tomlinson on the bottom of the cover is what jumped out at me. The “he didn’t want us to know he was hurting” speaks volumes. It was clear that Junior Seau was troubled individual, but I’m assuming he was a prideful human being as well. He probably wanted to handle this his way, with no help from others, it’s just too bad his way was the most heart-breaking way possible. This might be why Junior Seau wanted his brain studied.
Another tidbit from the cover that caught my eye was the “depression and football”. As fans, I don’t think we realize how hard it is for some of these players to stop playing the game they love, especially players who dominated in the phyiscal aspect of the game. All those hard hits and concussions add up, and Junior Seau possibly had 1,500 concussions. While I think that number is probably far-fetched, Junior Seau still had multiple concussions that kept hurting his brain over time.
Player safety is something that is two-fold. One, we have a worst game to watch on the field, which is the position former Washington Redskins’ and New York Giants‘ linebacker Lavar Arrington took. And two, it allows players to stay safer, so we hopefully avoid incidents like Junior Seau in the future.
What’s your opinion on player saftey? Feel free to make a comment at the bottom.
Bryan is a featured writer for Rant Sports. Although he concentrates mostly on the game of baseball, you can find him covering things all over the Rant Sports Network.
