Junior Seau

Junior Seau was primed to have a good season as a starting linebacker for USC in 1989.  After sitting out his freshman season in 1987 due to academic concerns (Prop 48) and then co-starting during the Trojans' fine 1988 campaign but being limited by injury, Seau was healthy and inspired.  But Seau's inspiration went beyond the USC locker room as he dedicated the 1989 season to his cousin, Sal Aunese, who would succumb to his battle with stomach cancer in the fall of 1989.  Growing up together in San Diego, the cousins were close and both hoped to use football as a ticket out of an area infested with gangs.  Although Colorado, where Aunese became the starting quarterback, became the story of that season as they used Aunese's fight to inspire a sensational, near national championship, run, Seau transformed himself into one of the most feared defensive players in football.  Little known outside of Southern California and Pac 10 country before the season, Seau quickly became a household name by not only terrorizing conference opponents but playing well versus Notre Dame and three Big Ten teams, Illinois and Ohio State in the regular season and Michigan in the Rose Bowl.  He finished that season with...drum roll please...19 sacks and plenty of additional hurries.
And so Seau was thrust on the national scene, from where he never left.  He became a hugely popular professional player mainly because he was seen as both tough and gregarious and we are a sucker for that combination.  But Seau was much more complicated than that and while his suicide will continue the debate about just how brutal football is and the effects of that brutality on its combatants, what it should do is focus on hero worship and on the lack of care we give big, tough guys for mental anguish.  As the 1989 season laid out for all to see, Junior Seau was uniquely gifted and commonly troubled from an early age.