"Monday, Tuesday [he was] talking to me, joking. Junior, why you never tell me?" the legendary NFL linebacker's mother, Luisa Seau, sobbed in front of her son's Oceanside, Calif., home on Wednesday – hours after he put a gun to his chest and pulled the trigger in an apparent suicide.
"I don't understand, I don't understand," Luisa cried. "I prayed to God, 'Take me. Take me, and leave my son.' But it's too late. Too late."
Hank Bauer, a former San Diego Charger like Seau, said he was blindsided by the news. "I am in shock. I'm crushed," he told USA Today. "There was zero warning that anything was wrong with him. He seemed happy and at peace. This is when his life should have been great."
Bauer added: "I think the message is this: We all forget that people we idolize are just … people. Do we have unreal expectations of our heroes?"
"I'm totally shocked and very, very saddened by the whole thing," Bobby Ross, who coached the Chargers during the 1994 season, told CNN. "Junior, to me, was the epitome of what a football player was. Tremendous team player. Tremendous leader. Tremendous leader on our football team."
Hauntingly, Seau is the eighth player to die from the '94 Chargers, an overachieving team that made, to date, the franchise's only appearance in the Super Bowl. The other players died mostly in accidents or from heart problems; one died of a drug overdose.
Some acquaintances of Seau's did notice cracks in his otherwise sunny demeanor. "He was troubled trying to find his lot in life after football," Steve Scholfield, sports editor of the Oceanside Blade-Tribune, told USA Today.
"Football was his life. He could absolutely light up a room with his smile, but he had a dark side. He was a conflicted person."
Here is How Hollywood gossip reported their own version of the story about two hours before Fox News screened Junior's grieving mum's heart-wrenching video. Please click on all the words highlighted in purple, to take you to other related stories.
Junior Seau's grieving family does NOT believe the former football great's death was related to on-field concussions he sustained as a player, but his suicide has nevertheless renewed an ongoing debate over the NFL and brain injuries.
Seau family sources tell say the death shocked them even more than it did his many fans, as Junior never complained about concussion-related medical problems, nor did he mention or appear to be suffering from depression.
Seau never spoke, allegedly, about the ongoing legal dispute between the NFL and retired players who claim the league concealed critical information about long-term effects of concussions over the past few decades.
Junior's apparent suicide, from a gunshot wound to the chest, instantly drew comparisons to the death of former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson.
Duerson left a suicide note explaining he shot himself in the chest because he wanted his brain to be sent to the "NFL brain bank" for further study.
The family is unsure why Junior wanted to kill himself, but feel there isn't necessarily a link to concussions and Duerson comparisons are premature.
Neurosurgeon Julian Bailes, longtime researcher into brain damage from concussions, responded with grief and medical questions about what toll Junior's lengthy football career (20 seasons) might have taken on the 43-year-old.
"As both a football fan and a researcher, the news comes with great sadness first of all for such a great player. But I think we have to add him to the list of those that we worry about who could have effects of chronic, repetitive brain trauma," said Bailes. The chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at the NorthShore University Health System in Chicago added, "We don't have any strong evidence (yet about Seau), and we know that people commit suicide for other reasons. But to me it's also concerning due to the fact that he had such a long playing history."
"The emerging research is perhaps pointing to the amount of exposure to repetitive head contacts being like a dose response. The more you're exposed to sun light; you get a higher chance of skin cancer. The more CAT Scans you have; you are exposed to radiation and perhaps side effects."
Source: People & Hollywood Gossip
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