Junior Seau

by Jim Trotter

  It was not until Mama Seau stepped before reporters and disbelieving fans outside the house that the weight of the moment hit her. She was composed initially, but eventually her emotions took control.

  “I don’t understand, I don’t know anything . . . ,” she said. “I’m shocked. But I appreciate everybody. Show your love to my son.”

  Then came the tsunami of grief.

  “Where’s Junior?” she said between gasps and tears. “Junior never do nothing to you guys. But I say today: Thank you. I appreciate you guys show[ing] your love to my son.”

  Finally, she broke down completely.

  “I don’t understand who do this to my son, but I pray to God, ‘Please, take me! Take me! Leave my son!’” she said. “But it’s too late. Too late . . . He never say nothing to me. Junior! Why you never tell me you’re going?! I pray to God: ‘Take me! Take me! Leave my son alone.’”

  Mama Seau then collapsed in the arms of her children. Later, inside the home, Junior’s family and friends gathered for a Samoan ceremony over the body. Amid the tears and shock, they recited Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want . . .

  Each then had a private moment with the man who had meant so much to everyone. Some reached down and touched him. Bette Hoffman, the longtime director of his foundation, and a woman whom Junior affectionately called Mom, leaned over and kissed him.

  Finally, the coroners placed the body on a stretcher and rolled it out to a waiting white van, where it was loaded into the back. The van drove along the shore before turning inland, toward the highway. There was a hope that he finally was at peace.

  Fans and community members continued to drive, bike, and skateboard to The Strand, as if needing confirmation that Junior had passed. They also made pilgrimages to his restaurant.

  That afternoon Paul Sellers was preparing to head to Petco Park for a Padres game. He had on a Padres jersey and cap and was prepared for afternoon baseball. But instead of spending the day downtown, he found himself sitting outside Seau’s The Restaurant, rosary beads in his hand.

  “I saw the news on TV and said, ‘I’ve got to go down there,’” he said. “I wanted to say a prayer for him and his family.”

  He was joined throughout the day by a steady procession of fans who felt like they had lost a friend. They left flowers, cards, candles, teddy bears, and pictures of Junior outside the restaurant. The scene was much the same at Junior’s home. In the days following his death, people left Chargers “55” jerseys with notes written in black ink on the white numerals. Others tied helium balloons in the shape of his jersey number to the metal barricade that was set up to keep people from getting too close to the house.

  On one barrier outside his garage, someone left a paper coffee cup. Written on the side: 2 PUMP VAN[ILLA] LATTE. A BET’S A BET. Presumably that was Junior’s regular order.

  In the sand across the street from Junior’s home, Jimmy Garcia used small rocks to create a large cross with a “55” and “RIP” beneath it. The public opened its collective heart for Junior because he always gave his heart to them.

  “A little over a year ago, a good friend of mine was stabbed to death outside of a bar in Carlsbad,” Joshua Donahue wrote to the local paper. “The next weekend we held a memorial fundraiser with a raffle to raise money for his 4-year-old daughter. Junior showed up to the memorial with an autographed football he wanted to donate for the raffle. This is just one of the countless examples of the kind of person he was, constantly thinking of others, always reaching out to the community. I don’t think there is a single soul in Oceanside he hasn’t touched in some way.”

  “Like many of you I was a fan of Junior Seau the football player,” Glenn Encarnacion wrote. “But it was a gesture of kindness that really made me a fan of the man. When a friend of mine, a huge Chargers fan, had a terrible accident with severe injuries, I wrote Junior and asked him if he could simply sign a card. He did that and so much more, visiting my friend and showering his family with Chargers and ‘Say-OW!’ related gifts. Thank you, Jr. RIP.”

  “I’m shocked and heartbroken,” said John Carney, a former teammate. “Being a friend and teammate of Junior’s was a highlight of my career. The positive influence he spread among teammates, coaches, fans, and even opposing teams is unmatched. He’ll be greatly missed.”

  “I’m sorry to say, Superman is dead,” Chargers chaplain Shawn Mitchell said. “All of us can appear to be super, but all of us need to reach out and find support when we’re hurting.”

  Junior’s death sent a current of depression through the county. Questions outpaced answers by a significant margin. Everyone wanted to know how someone so outwardly happy and positive, so universally beloved and respected, could take his own life. Some even refused to accept that he actually did it, going so far as to speculate that someone else pulled the trigger.

  Conspiracy theorists wondered why the memory card in his phone was missing. And where did Junior get the .357-caliber Magnum revolver? He wasn’t known to like or own firearms.

  Others wondered if drugs might have been a factor, although autopsy and toxicology reports showed no alcohol or common drugs of abuse in his system. They did detect 0.14 milligrams of zolpidem, the drug Junior took to treat his insomnia, and a trace amount of naproxen, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory, that was “consistent with therapeutic use,” according to deputy medical examiner Craig Nelson. But there was nothing else out of the ordinary.

  However, a study of his brain did show that he was suffering from CTE, the degenerative brain disease that’s brought on by repeated head trauma. Duerson and Easterling also were found to have suffered from the disease, whose symptoms include mood swings, impaired judgment, and struggles with impulse control. The family was so alarmed by the findings—and mounting allegations that the NFL hid the dangers of concussions from players for decades—that they sued the league in hopes of forcing it to fully disclose what it knew and when it knew it regarding the disease.

  Why did Junior Seau kill himself?

  “No one is going to know but Junior,” said Leonard Mata, an Oceanside native and a member of the city’s police department.

  The truth is that the answer is much more complicated than A + B = C. In addition to suffering from alcoholism, depression, prescription-drug dependency, financial issues, family strains, and brain trauma—a Molotov cocktail of ingredients by themselves—Junior also suffered from a broken heart. He often seemed troubled that he couldn’t consistently be the man everyone perceived him to be, or that he wanted to be.

  On his kitchen counter following his death, authorities found a piece of paper on which he had written the lyrics from one of his favorite country songs, “Who I Ain’t,” cowritten by his friend Jamie Paulin, a Nashville-based songwriter. The lyrics spoke to the internal struggle of a good man who regrets having done bad things.

  As much as some viewed Junior as a myth, he was merely a man. He bled when cut, cried when sad, and succumbed to temptation even though he knew it was wrong. He would give all that he had to teammates and friends, yet neither ask for nor accept anything in return. He was a humble kid with a special gift, simultaneously pushed by his family and driven by himself. His shoulders were broad because they needed to be. He carried a lot of responsibilities on them.

  “I often think about how Junior was the leader and the captain of the team, the face of the franchise, and how there was so much pressure on him,” said LaDainian Tomlinson, who likened Junior’s passing to the loss of an older brother who teaches you how to be a man. “People can say there isn’t a lot of pressure that goes along with that, but there is. You’re the one that not only the public is looking at to be perfect, but also the people in the organization and your teammates. Junior was always that guy.

  “Nobody does this if everything is just fine or things are going great. I feel awful that Junior didn’t feel he was close enough to anybody that he could say, ‘Look, something isn’t right.’ We all need someone we can go to and sa
y, ‘There’s something going on with me.’ But that’s who Junior was—he didn’t want us to know he was hurting on the field, so off the field he certainly wasn’t going to say anything.”

  The struggle to transition out of football is real for countless players. Following Junior’s death, several of his teammates admitted that they had also considered suicide, because their lives suddenly seemed to lack purpose or direction. Orlando Ruff, the undrafted linebacker whom Junior took under his wing, was one of them.

  “It’s a big adjustment,” he said. “It’s one of those things that since you were a little kid all you’ve known is football. Sure, you’ve been exposed to other things, but your focus has been narrowed on football, and your focus is what gets you to the highest level. Everyone always talks about life after football and how you should plan—and that’s very true. But when you’re in the heart of it, you’re not thinking about what’s after it. You’re thinking about being the best at what you can do right now. Part of what makes you who you are is your feeling of invincibility, that it’s never going to end. But the reality is that not many of us get to write our own ending and how we’re going to go out. When it happens, you’re like, ‘Okay, I’ve got to move forward. I’m okay with this. I can deal with this.’ But oftentimes we’re not ready.

  “We’re good with the X’s and O’s over here in football,” Ruff continued, “but now we’re in unfamiliar territory. We’re in the real world. We don’t necessarily have all the comforts around us that we once had to get us through whatever dilemma we might be facing. We’ll follow our passion, but we may not have all the details and information and training necessary to succeed. We say it’s okay and that we’ll learn on the go, but then we go out and we fail, something that has never happened to us before. Then we start to question ourselves . . . You’re kind of left out in the cold, and you don’t have a support staff, someone you can call. You’re used to being up here and now you’re down here. It’s a tough adjustment. A lot of us don’t make it out of that.”

  Ruff keeps private the details of his situation, but in hindsight he could see himself slipping gradually into an abyss of uncertainty. “I’ll put it this way,” he said. “I saw some dark places in the three years it took to find my direction.”

  His guiding light flashed while fighting the NFL on a worker’s compensation claim. The attorney representing him was going over the case, and after a while Ruff asked him how he became a lawyer. Suddenly, he discovered his purpose for carrying on.

  “I said, ‘Wait a second, this sounds like something I can do,’” Ruff recalled. “My case was resolved, and later that day I went and got an LSAT book. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but figured I had tried everything else and it hadn’t worked, so let me give this a try. Signed up for the LSAT, took it, went to law school, and graduated. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but then I realized there really was a purpose for me to help others. That’s when I said, ‘I’m supposed to be here.’”

  During the two-and-a-half-year span from February 2011 until September 2013, at least five active or former NFL players committed suicide: in addition to Duerson, Easterling, and Junior, there were Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher, who killed his girlfriend before taking his own life, and former Chargers defensive back Paul Oliver. Only the individuals know the reasons for their actions, but the national attention led the NFL to launch a crisis support line in July 2012. It was established to help active and retired players and their families and is supposed to operate independently from the NFL, with all calls being confidential.

  “There is no higher priority for the National Football League than the health and wellness of our players,” Commissioner Goodell wrote in a letter to team personnel and fans, even as the NFL was being sued by thousands of players for allegedly hiding the potential long-term dangers of concussions.

  Before Junior’s death, Aaron Taylor had not heard from his former teammate for more than a year—not since they last attended a 12-step program together. On the morning of May 2, 2012, he was at the Pacific Athletic Club in San Diego when his cell phone rang. A mutual friend was calling to ask if he had heard the media reports that Junior might have killed himself. Taylor could only shake his head. He was sad but not shocked, because he’d had a sense that the worst could be coming—like an offensive lineman who whiffs on a block, then turns and sees the defender closing on his quarterback. He knows that, with few exceptions, the outcome is a fait accompli. The only question is, how long before the sack occurs?

  “I do a lot of work with retired players now, trying to help them transition,” Taylor said. “I know what the cycle is and all the dynamics that contribute to it. It’s a perfect storm of enabling that ends up slicing our throats. When we get in the real world, we defer and revert to all the things that helped us as professional athletes, and they just don’t work: Don’t think—react. Never admit weakness or ask for help. Push through, suck it up, fight on. It’s all those things that allow us to do what we do. But looking back at Junior, he had enough strength and toughness to be able to deal with and to play with broken bones, but not enough to deal with his emotions and life on life’s terms.”

  Even today some of his former teammates and friends remain angry that more was not done to help Junior. Rodney Harrison is among those who scoff at the notion that it was impossible to see the life-threatening road on which Junior was traveling.

  “I was surprised that he would do something like that because I knew how much he loved life and how deeply he cared for his kids; he always talked about his kids,” Harrison said. “But it didn’t surprise me in that I knew his pain ran deep. Junior couldn’t be here and have people laugh at him or look at him for not being able to take care of his family. So it didn’t surprise me in that sense. Based on the last few years of his partying ways and the [emotional] distance and just him not returning calls—he wouldn’t call me back, or the conversations were always short. I knew things weren’t right just from the stories that I heard from a distance that he was on a destructive path. He was hurting, he was hurting real bad.

  “Junior carried such a facade, but there was so much pressure on him that he always had to be Mr. Perfect, that he always had to take care of people, that he always had to present himself as being something. He could never relax and be at peace. At one point it seemed like he was at peace, and I think that divorce really, really hurt him. The two things that he told me that really gave him peace were his children and that surf, to be able to go out there and surf those waves. They gave him that peace for that moment. But outside of that, he was struggling with a lot of demons.”

  Demons that those in his San Diego–based inner circle should have been able to see, in Harrison’s eyes.

  “There were a lot of people around Junior that knew Junior was going through certain things, but they didn’t care,” he said. “They cared about Junior because he gave them something. He gave them a sense of importance, a good time: I’m hanging out with Junior Seau. The people close to him who say they didn’t see the signs—you’ve got to be joking, you’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t even hang out with Junior and I could see the signs, I could see the depression. I tried to reach out to Junior, and that’s the problem; he surrounded himself with people that . . .”

  Harrison didn’t finish the sentence. Then again, he didn’t need to. Is it a coincidence that some of Junior’s closest party buddies declined to be interviewed for this book, most notably Jim Barone and Ken Ramirez? They said it stemmed from a pact they made to keep their memories private and protect his memory. But could it also have been because they felt some guilt about not having challenged him on the behaviors they were witnessing?

  For instance, instead of demanding that he seek help after driving off the bluff, they followed Junior’s lead and made light of the situation. They even took to calling him “Cliff” instead of “Bug” or “June.” Another time, while playing golf together, Junior suddenly turned angry and threate
ning toward Barone, but was back to being fun-loving Junior in the relative blink of an eye. The change in personality frightened Barone, who told him: “You need to get your head checked out.” It was said in such a way that everyone laughed, but the reality is that Junior did need to be checked out. But none of his party friends pushed him to do so, perhaps because they knew Junior might view that as negative energy and distance himself from them.

  “If there were negative people around him, he would be through with them,” Harrison said. “He would not have them around him. For people to sit there and say they didn’t see the signs, it’s a crock. He had people that enabled him. He had people that laughed at his jokes, people that partied with him and wanted a good time with Junior Seau. But the people close to him knew he was hurting. No one drinks like that. No one beats themselves down like that, into oblivion. No one gets into fights. That’s not the Junior that we know. But they turned their head to it because he gave them a good time. He made you feel special. He was endearing, engaging. He made you feel important. You could be the guy working at the post office and he’d make you feel like you were making a million dollars. That’s the special quality that he had.”

  19

  Gone but Not Forgotten

  THERE’S NOTHING THAT distinguishes the house from others on the block. It’s a two-story stucco with a three-car driveway and a brown welcome mat at the front door.

  It’s not until you step through the double doors that you realize the home belongs to Junior’s parents. On one wall is a large posterlike painting of Junior in his Chargers uniform, crouching low, running forward, mouth open, preparing for contact. The caption reads: “When Lightning Strikes.”

  Upstairs, on a shelf above the double doors that lead to the parents’ bedroom, sit two game balls and a helmet with a Super Bowl logo. On a table downstairs, there’s a framed picture of Junior and his father entering Qualcomm Stadium the night the Chargers beat the Steelers to earn a trip to their only Super Bowl. Papa Seau is wearing a Chargers pullover, a Hawaiian lei, and a pride-filled smile in the picture. Junior is wearing a dark pullover and an AFC Champion hat. He isn’t smiling, but there is a look of contentment on his face.