Picspam, #55 edition

[sigma7]

I own five, maybe six football jerseys. They're all of the same player: twelve-time Pro Bowler and future Hall of Famer (Tiaina Baul) Junior Seau. I named the main character in my thesis after him. Have his action figures, have a collectible card of him dressed up like a stealth fighter. Calling him my favorite professional athlete is...yeah,

Comments

[reynardine]

So sorry to hear that. It's tough when your heroes pass away, especially in such circumstances.

[sigma7]

There's no part of it that wasn't awful: his mother wailing in front of the press, Wiley, out of reflex, texting Junior and praying it's all a hoax, the grim legacies of his team and his profession, wondering if he shot himself in the chest to preserve his brain for the same study....

It was just a flash of lightning. The long roll of thunder will wash over us for a few days until it fades into memory, and then we proceed with the lost art of surviving.

[foenix]

Now see, in my opinion, that tweet about the press screening being delayed? It should go something like this:

"Press screening resumed after a brief delay thanks to being able to redownload the movie to fix some problems. Welcome to the digital age!!"

[sigma7]

In my imagination, I keep believing they downloaded it from The Pirate Bay.

[vulpisfoxfire]

Would have been easy enough, if their network security is anything like the ESPN pic.. :-)

[beagle1971]

Dr. A. Hedgehog. Awesome.

[rainfletcher]

As you can imagine, the last week and a half has been surreal here in San Diego. Shock. Followed by sadness. Followed by backlash. Followed by backlash to the backlash, turning it into a snake eating its own tail. However, if I hear one more round of "Geez, what did HE have to be depressed about? He was a rich athlete that everyone loved!" -- well, it probably won't be pretty. No one knows another human being's demons, full stop, and these reactions make me seethe. No, you assholes, you can't always just cheer up and feel better.

The lead-up to the one and only Chargers visit to the Superb Owl, where Junior was basically playing with one arm and STILL managed to be everywhere on the field at once -- I feel privileged to have witnessed this.

[rainfletcher]

And I have that card too, along with (the remains of) a Monsters of the Gridiron t-shirt. Good times.

[sigma7]

Even a tiny amount of fame or money comes with responsibilities just to maintain it, let alone maintain it wisely, let alone contribute back to the community efficiently. Money doesn't buy everyting -- it can be a burden or, at best, it can alleviate or relax a few vectors of stress in your life; it doesn't wash the slate clean. And given his apparent propensity to hide concussions, he could had blinding, crippling migraines that could give him the ability to perform just well enough to make competition possible, but through a wall of cranial agony. And I'm sure it got worse on retirement, and the most driven man in football has nowhere to drive anymore. We can't judge the man. I can't judge him for finding a point in his life -- which he knew much better than anyone else ever would -- where he would be better off without it. I just hope that that decision was made in the context of an unbearable physical diagnosis and not from an untreated psychological condition that altered his perspectives and priorities and feasted on his