Obit of the Day

Obit of the Day: Former NFL All-Pro Junior Seau

According to TMZ.com, Junior Seau former linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, and New England Patriots was found dead in his home. The police had responded to call of shot fired at the home. He was found to have committed suicide.

Seau, a six-time 1st team All-Pro and eleven-time Pro Bowler, was the 5th pick in the 1990 NFL draft. A star at the University of Southern California, Seau dominated in the early 1990s. He was named UPI and NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1992 and was the AFC Player of the year in 1994. When the NFL announced it’s All-Decade Team of the 1990s, Seau was listed as a starting linebacker.

Although he appeared in two Super Bowls, XXIX with the Chargers and XLII with the Patriots, his teams lost both games.

In 1992, Seau also founded the Junior Seau Foundation, “with the mission to educate and empower young people through the support of child abuse prevention, drug and alcohol awareness, recreational opportunities, anti-juvenile delinquency efforts and complimentary educational programs.”

Seau was only 43 years old and leaves behind three children.

Additional sources: football-reference.com, wikipedia.com

(Image courtesy of Chargers.com)

Ed. Note: According to sources, Seau shot himself in the chest. Former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson did the exact same thing, in order to preserve his brain for study. Although no one has connected the two deaths (as well as the April suicide of Ray Easterling), OOTD is interested to see whether Seau suffered from neurological problems. Something to watch.

Apparently former Bears’ linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer has some of the same questions about Seau’s suicide. Hillenmeyer was forced to retire from the game after suffering numerous concussions. (He was advised to leave the NFL by the Bears’ neurologist.) Here is the Hillenmeyer interview from the Chicago Tribune.

Obit of the Day: Safety, Or Lack Thereof

Ray Easterling was a great find for the Atlanta Falcons. A 9th-round pick out of the University of Richmond, Easterling would play eight seasons for Atlanta at safety. During his time with the Falcons, the team would make the playoffs once, in 1978, but the season prior Easterling and the “Grits Blitz” held the opposition to only 129 points over 14 games - a record. (The NFL moved to a 16-game schedule in 1978.)

After his retirement from football in 1979, things did not go well for Easterling. He suffered from depression, insomnia and dementia. In August 2011 Easterling and six other former players sued the NFL for “training players to hit with their heads, failing to properly treat them for concussions and trying to conceal for decades any links between football and brain injuries.” (The full article on the lawsuit can be found here.)

Ray Easterling died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 62.

Previously OOTD has documented other former NFL players who suffered from apparent neurological effects from their time on the gridiron:

Dave Duerson - former Chicago Bear who also committed suicide

Forrest Blue - who at the age of 65 suffered from dementia and Parkinson’s disease

And last July the Guardian did an excellent piece on the effects of brain injuries on athletes. (graphic content)

(Image of Ray Easterling, circa 1966-1971, as a member of the University of Richmond Spiders football team. Copyright of the University of Richmond Athletic Department)

Obit of the Day: Giving Dan Pastorini Flak

In 1978, Dan Pastorini, Houston Oilers quarterback broke three ribs just before the playoffs. Sitting in his hospital bed, he became nervous when two men walked in the room. One was wearing a trench coat and carrying a bag; the other held a baseball bat. But they weren’t there to hurt Pastorini. Byron Donzis, the man in the trenchcoast, stood there as his friend took full swings at Donzis’ ribs. Nothing happened. Pastorini was so stunned and impressed that he agreed to wear the first ever “flak jacket” in the playoffs. It is now an essential piece of equipment for all QBs.

Byron Donzis had over 200 patents in his lifetime aside from the flak jacket. His first patent was for an X-ray machine that could detect leaks on oil pipelines. He invented a tennis court made of wood and foam that was cheaper to install than traditional court. (Unfortunately the foam shrank in the winter and he lost all his money in customer lawsuits.) His patent for athletic shoes that you fill with air for a better fit was a first. (When Reebok introduced the “Pump” in the early 1990s, Donzis sued and won for patent infringement.) He also patented additional padding for NFL players and a flak jacket for baseball players to wear while hitting.

Donzis, who was nominated for the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award, died at the age of 72.

(The video is copyright of NFL and NFL Films. I would have shared the original but tumblr “didn’t recognize” nfl.com as a video provider. So this copy is from YouTube.com via 110superdude. You can see pictures of Donzis helping Pastorini to inflate the jacket about halfway through.)

Obit of the Day: Capturing Baltimore’s Sorrow

On March 29, 1984 the owner of the Baltimore Colts, Bob Irsay, packed up the entire organization into Mayflower moving vans to drive one thousand miles west to Indianapolis. Lloyd Pearson, a Baltimore Sun, photographer who captured the ups and downs of Charm City’s history for twenty years, was there. His photograph, above, became the symbol of Baltimore having its heart ripped out by Irsay and the NFL.

Random note: Baltimore got a new team, the Ravens, in 1996. Ironically, the Ravens left Cleveland in the same way the Colts left Baltimore. I don’t think Baltimore fans felt too guilty. Cleveland got a new Browns franchise in 1999.

Pearson, who died at the age of 90, had dreams of becoming an animator. Before serving in the Navy in World War II, he worked on Walt Disney’s Pinocchio but not for very long because “he got tired of drawing raindrops.” He took up photography during the war and never turned back.

You can see more of Pearson’s work here.

(Image is copyright Lloyd Pearson/Baltimore Sun, but is courtesy, of course, of the Indianapolis Star.)