by Jim Trotter
Annette did not push it, but three months later she began to put the pieces together during another conversation with him. She had told him her family was thinking about moving out of the house they shared with Mama and Papa Seau because they needed more space. Junior gently pleaded with her to stay.
“You can downsize and buy Mom and Dad a smaller place,” Annette said.
“I need to check my finances,” he responded.
When Annette joked that Junior wanted her to stay because he lacked the money to purchase another place, he shot her a stunned expression. It was as if a deep secret had been exposed, and Annette immediately was concerned.
“Sit your butt down. You and I are going to talk, and you’re going to stop trying to be this prideful man,” she said. “You’re going to file for bankruptcy, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not,” he said.
“Ahhhhh . . . okay . . . I got it now,” Annette said.
“What? What do you got?” Junior demanded. “Who’s talking to you?”
“You’re going gambling to try to win all this money that you’re losing on the restaurants,” she said. “You’re killing yourself because I know your restaurant is hurting. You hardly have people in there, and you have another [competing restaurant] that opened next to it. If you’re dry, file bankruptcy before creditors take you to town.”
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I just don’t want Mom and Dad to get mad. And my kids—I don’t want them to think bad of me.”
Annette reminded him that the worth of a man is not measured by the size of his wallet.
“We grew up without money,” she said.
“But I promised Mom and Dad that they were going to have a better life,” he said. “I just have to make sure that Mom and Dad are taken care of.”
Months passed without Junior doing anything to address the situation. He was slipping into a deeper and darker place as his annual golf tournament approached in March 2012. The gambling, the drinking, and the collisions from a 20-year career were taking their toll on his body and his mind, as reflected in a comment he made about the perception that Commissioner Roger Goodell was making the game “softer” by instituting enhanced player safety rules.
“It has to happen,” Junior said. “Those who are saying the game is changing for the worse, well, they don’t have a father who can’t remember his name because of the game. I’m pretty sure if everybody had to wake with their dad not knowing his name, not knowing his kids’ names, not being able to function at a normal rate after football, they would understand that the game needs to change. If it doesn’t, there are going to be more players, more great players, being affected by the things that we know of and aren’t changing. That’s not right.”
The changes in Junior were becoming more obvious, even if those around him refused to acknowledge them—or chose not to challenge him on them. One exception was former Chargers coach June Jones, who witnessed the excesses in March 2012 after arriving in town for the golf tournament.
“I knew he was a guy who was going to have a hard time with life after football if he wasn’t involved with the game, and I was always trying to get him to come coach on my staff, but he would put me off,” Jones said. “This time we had a long, long conversation about a lot of things. I called him on the carpet for some of the alcohol and some of the things I was witnessing that I knew were not him. For the first time, he kind of put his head down and wouldn’t look at me. He had always looked me in the eyes before. He said, ‘I’m all right, brother. I’m all right. I’ve got it under control. You can count on me.’”
Jones again reached out and extended to Junior a spot on his coaching staff.
“He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘June, I promise. When you ask me this next year, I will come. I will do it. I got some things I’ve got to take care of first,’” Jones said.
That same night, at the annual banquet dinner, a somber Junior did something he had never done before: he started the event by calling his entire family to the stage to perform a Samoan hymn.
“He always started off by recognizing his mom and dad, but this time he brought everyone up on the stage,” said Mike Norris, his longtime personal photographer. “He said, ‘If you’re here, come on up. Let’s do this.’ And they did a big prayer together. It was a very, very touching moment. There was something deep about it.”
A month later, the Bellagio casino called in a $400,000 marker that was returned due to insufficient funds in his personal account. Junior’s financial world was collapsing around him, but he refused to let anyone know. On Sunday, April 29, he went to his local workout spot, The Gym, for a memorial service for Marty Miller, a postal carrier and gym patron who had died of cancer. Junior, long known for his inspirational messages, gave the eulogy and talked about loving life and making a difference.
Afterward, he went to lunch with Mark Walczak, a former teammate who was visiting from Scottsdale, Arizona. Junior had forgotten his wallet and called Noderer, his girlfriend, to see if she could bring it to him.
Noderer was unlike any girlfriend he had had since the divorce. One, she wasn’t blond. Two, she had a college degree and a career as a sales executive for an auto company. And three, she was not in her early twenties; Noderer was actually in her thirties.
She and Junior met in October 2011, at the wedding of Noderer’s brother, Jason Zitter, who went by the nickname JZ. Junior and JZ had been friends for years. They hit it off at a charity golf tournament and started hanging out afterward. For a long time Junior didn’t know that JZ had a sister, and when he found out he was immediately told by JZ that Megan was off-limits.
But Junior was one of those guys who hated to be told he couldn’t do something. It was like putting candy in front of a child and telling him not to touch it. So he kept pushing JZ to introduce him to Megan. When JZ would be on the phone with her, Junior would playfully plead to speak to her.
At this point it wasn’t so much that he was interested in dating Megan, whom he had never met, but about the joy he took in seeing JZ squirm. “Aw, come on,” he would say. “Just let me talk to her.”
Megan was not a big sports fan and knew virtually nothing about Junior beyond what she heard from her brother. She used Google to fill in the blanks. When the two finally met several days before the wedding in the Florida Keys, there was instant chemistry.
“The first night we started talking, I was like, ‘I’m not even allowed to talk with you, let alone be alone with you,’” she said to him, laughing. “When we figured that we might kind of like each other, we were both so nervous. I said, ‘You’ve got to ask my brother, because I’m not telling him.’ He was like, ‘I have to tell him?’”
On the morning of the wedding, Junior phoned JZ and asked him to go on a quick run. At first JZ passed, but Junior insisted he had something to talk to him about.
“Do not tell me you want to date my sister,” JZ said.
“I promise you that I won’t even try to kiss her while we’re in this area code, but I think I like her,” Junior said.
JZ shook his head and said, “You’re killing me.”
Megan was instantly intrigued with Junior because of his smile. It was so real and infectious. But she began to fall for him after seeing how far he went to ensure everything was perfect at the wedding. He had gotten ordained so he could preside over the service, and in the lead-up to the wedding he focused on the smallest details, like trying to learn everything he could about JZ so he could incorporate it into the service.
“My brother and I had lost our parents when we were young, and leading up to the wedding, Junior wanted to know so much about them to bring them into the service to make it special,” Megan said. “It was overwhelmingly touching. He cared so much about my brother and wanted to make it right for my sister-in-law.”
The one thing Junior could not control was the weather, which was miserable. Rain was blowing sideways the day before the wedding and still coming down the morning o
f the day itself. It was so bad that Junior and Megan spent the morning of the service rearranging chairs and speakers three different times, all but firing the wedding planner.
“He wasn’t stopping short of anything; he was going to make it special,” she said of Junior. “One of the biggest things I learned about him was, you want him on your side. I’ve always been a very career-oriented, focused person, and he used to joke when he introduced me to people—‘This is “Red,” and she has a career. And she’s over thirty.’ I wanted him on my side because he was my biggest cheerleader.
“I remember nights where I’d travel and I’d be up late at night rehearsing for a pitch, and he’d call me and coach me through some things. Even my boss, I’d put him on speaker and Junior would give us a pep talk. He would set his alarm, no matter what time zone I was in, to make sure he called beforehand if I had an important meeting. It could be four in the morning and it didn’t matter. He was my cheerleader.”
Megan lived in Dallas, and she and Junior made a pact that they would never go more than 10 days without seeing each other. When that was too long, he would call and ask if she could come early. One such occasion was the final week of April 2012.
“He said, ‘Can you just hurry up?’” Megan remembered. “I’m like, ‘Why? I’ve got work to do. I’m busy.’ And he said, ‘Because when you’re here everyone else leaves me alone.’ It was a constant that everyone thought they were his friend. It was exhausting for him, just flat-out exhausting.”
On this occasion Junior wanted a break after spending a couple of days with Walczak, but he was too nice to say it. Instead of being honest, he did as he typically did and smiled and acted as if everything was fine. He knew Walczak was scheduled to leave that Sunday night, so he put on his mask and played the role of good host.
He took Walczak to lunch, and from there, the two traveled to Hunter Steakhouse in Oceanside, where they hung out until Walczak left by himself around 9:00 PM. Walczak thought he’d see Junior before leaving town in a couple of hours, but Junior didn’t return until much later.
The next morning, with no one at the house but Megan and himself, Junior spent the early morning in the ocean just beyond his front door. The open water represented peace and freedom for him. It was where he got away from everything—financial problems, women issues, family matters. There was only him and the waves.
“He would tell me that the only time he truly felt at peace was when he was with his children or in the surf,” former teammate Rodney Harrison said. “He would say, ‘When I’m on those waves, it’s the greatest feeling. I have no worries, no stress, no problems. I just forget about everything.’”
Later that morning he and Megan made the short drive north to San Clemente, where he was scheduled to participate in a charity golf tournament and she was supposed to meet with a client in Orange County. Junior was Junior to those who saw him at the tournament—happy, effervescent, personable, relaxed.
“He would go up to everybody who worked there and say, ‘Let’s do a photo,’” said Mitchell Sacharoff, his cart-mate for five hours. “So rather than them having to ask him, he’d just say, ‘Come on over here.’ He was constantly in a great mood and taking care of everybody.”
But this time it worked to his detriment.
“When I swung back by the golf tournament to pick him up and finish watching him play, he got in the car and I could tell he wasn’t feeling well,” Megan said. “I asked him what happened, and he said he golfed with this group of guys that was great and normal. He always said that about someone he liked, that they were ‘normal.’ Then he said he didn’t feel well because the team wanted to do a dip and he couldn’t say no.”
By “doing a dip” Junior meant inserting a wad of chewing tobacco in their lower lips. Junior was not a tobacco guy, but he did it anyway.
“We were a team,” he said to Megan. “But I’m going to be sick all night, and I just ruined date night.”
“I was like, ‘You’re kidding me,’” Megan recalled. “But that was Junior. He did everything for others and not for himself. He knew it was going to cost him later—and that I probably wasn’t going to be too happy. But he did it because it was what everybody else did and wanted him to do.”
During the short drive home the conversation turned from sickness to sadness. As Megan steered the car down the highway, Junior steered the conversation toward his future and why he stopped pursuing the TV career he always envisioned himself having when he left the NFL.
“He told me he didn’t feel he would ever recover his public image from that domestic violence allegation,” Megan remembered. “He said that ruined it. People saw him differently. It was a raw conversation . . . He was upset. He felt as though that ruined his chances.”
Junior and Megan could have these types of conversations because theirs was an “adult” relationship based on respect and transparency, unlike his other postdivorce unions.
“When you’re long distance, you’re kind of forced to really talk a lot—if it’s going to work,” she said. “I’m 38 years old, I’m not one of those young people. I wanted a partner that I could talk to and tell my highs and lows of the day to, and he was that person. He would share with me as well.”
Junior’s mood was much lighter the next day, May 1, when longtime friend Joey Stabb phoned him. The two had been workout partners for eight years, beginning in the mid-1990s. They’d meet at 6:30 each morning at Gold’s Gym in San Diego. They fined each other $20 for being a minute late and $50 for failing to show up.
“Joe Joe! What’s going on?!” Junior said. “We’re having a big party at the restaurant on Saturday. Let’s meet at 12 o’clock. I got the fight [Floyd Mayweather versus Miguel Cotto], and we got the Kentucky Derby going.”
“He was Junior,” Stabb said.
The rest of the day was spent lounging and hanging out with Megan. Junior also sent text messages to all his kids and to Gina telling them that he loved them. He also made plans to meet his father at the restaurant the following morning. Sadly, he never made it there.
18
“9-1-1 Emergency”
TYPICAL OF MAY mornings along the San Diego coastline, the second day of the month began with marine layer clouds that blotted out the sun and suppressed the temperatures. The morning was lazy and tranquil, with gently crashing waves providing a soothing soundtrack.
Megan awoke around seven o’clock and headed to the gym 45 minutes later. Junior was still in bed in the master bedroom. He didn’t join her because he had plans to meet his father.
At about 9:15, Megan left the gym and phoned Junior four or five times. He didn’t answer, so she drove by the gym where he typically worked out. His car wasn’t in the lot and there was no sign of him through the windows, so she headed back to the house and entered through the garage.
It was eerily quiet inside. She called out to Junior, but he didn’t answer. When she got upstairs, she noticed Rock, Junior’s 125-pound pit bull–mastiff mix, in the living room. That’s unusual, she thought to herself. Rock wasn’t normally in the living room by himself.
After walking down the hallway, past two spare bedrooms, she didn’t see Junior in the master bedroom and turned around to retrace her steps. That was when she noticed that one of the bedroom doors was shut. That was unusual as well.
The room belonged to Sydney, and when she entered she saw Junior slumped on the queen-sized bed. His body was limp, and there was a gun next to it. She immediately picked up the phone and called the police.
9-1-1 emergency!
“My boyfriend shot himself! Oh my God! Oh my God! My boyfriend shot himself!” a crying and gasping Megan screamed.
“Do you know if he’s breathing?” the operator asked.
“I don’t think so . . . What do I do?! Oh my God! How do I tell if he’s breathing, ma’am?”
“Can you check his pulse? See if his chest is rising?”
“It’s not rising.”
“Where did he shoot him
self?”
“I can’t tell, ma’am. It looks like in the heart.”
Megan was frantic. But her mind quickly turned from Junior to his kids.
Oh my gosh, she thought to herself. The kids. I’ve got to get to the kids and Gina.
She had never met Gina, but she respected her because “Junior respected her.”
Within an hour, TMZ reported that Junior was dead from an apparent suicide. It was the third time in 15 months, and the second in two weeks, that a retired NFL player had killed himself with a bullet to the chest. But the suicides of Duerson and Easterling did not carry the same impact as that of Junior. They were good players; he was an icon. And his death buckled the knees of the National Football League, from San Diego to New England.
“We all lost a friend today,” Chargers president Dean Spanos said in a statement. “This is just such a tragic loss. One of the worst things I could ever imagine.”
“He may have been one of the most charismatic Patriots players in franchise history,” said team owner Robert Kraft. “Today, the fans of the teams for which Junior played—San Diego, Miami, and New England—lost more than a legendary football player. We lost our ‘Buddy.’”
As the news spread that morning, Papa Seau had no idea of what had transpired. He had gone to the restaurant, but was driving home after his son failed to show. Along the way one of his daughters called and told him to come by Junior’s house. No reason was given—just get there as fast as possible.
Mama Seau was in church when she received a similar call. Again, no reason was given.
When she arrived at his home, a crowd of cars, people, and TV crews lined The Strand outside and above Junior’s house. She knew something wasn’t right, but what?
The news that he had taken his life didn’t fully register with her when her daughters told her. It was almost like that day in the Chargers’ meeting room when Jim Vechiarella, the linebackers coach, warned everyone that things weren’t going to end well for Junior. You hear it, yet you still have a hard time processing it.