Sydney Seau Speaks Up About the Dangers of Football
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Friday, August 14, 2015
Hank Stern, GoLocalPDX Contributor
The Late Junior Seau
Football fans should remember one name this season as they flip on the TV or fill their teams’ stadiums to cheer for the Ducks, Beavers, Vikings or yes,
even the Seahawks.
And no, that name is not Tom Brady, whose innocence or guilt over deflated footballs is of very little import unless of course your name happens to be Tom Brady or Roger Goodell.
The name to remember instead is Sydney Seau, the eloquent daughter of the late Junior Seau.
At her father’s induction last week into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the pigskin poohbahs ham-handedly invoked some bizarre rule that prevents relatives of new inductees from giving speeches at the ceremony.
The “split the baby” solution of having Seau’s daughter be interviewed on stage for a shorter stretch than her planned speech should not placate anybody. That’s because her full speech – as published in The New York Times and videotaped on the Times’ website – should remind us all throughout this season, and in future seasons, as football fans of the game’s costs.
As the Times and others have noted, Sydney Seau’s speech never mentions her father’ suicide by gunshot in 2012 nor that the Seau family has alleged in a wrongful-death lawsuit against the NFL that the Hall-of-Fame linebacker’s death at age 43 was linked to the brain injuries he suffered from football.
Instead, she took the high road in the speech she never got to give at the induction ceremony in Canton, Ohio.
Here’s part of what she did say on that high road -- as if speaking to her dad: “I know at times it seemed as if everything you accomplished in life wasn’t enough, but today and every day since you held me in your arms for the first time, you weren’t just enough; you were more than enough. In fact, you were everything.
“There’s nothing I want more than to see you walk up on stage, give me a hug and tell me that you love me one last time, but that isn’t our reality,” she said.
Painful words when you realize her reality is the loss of the father she loved.
And our reality as football fans is that we love watching a game that we too often forget can leave players like Junior Seau with physical and mental scars that shorten their lives dramatically.
Football is not war, but the toll it takes on bodies and, at times, minds is undeniable.
Yes, many of the sport’s pro players go on to live long and productive lives after being well-compensated for their free choices as adults to risk their bodies and minds.
And yes, college players get an opportunity for a free education (albeit while risking their bodies and minds without any other compensation at the same time that coaches and administrators are milking millions off players’ Saturday sacrifices).
I don’t suspect Sydney Seau would want an end to football. Certainly, her remarks gave no indication of that. And even if she felt that way, the sport’s growth has proven impervious to medical concerns -- or, for that matter, to an ever-expanding rogues’ gallery from Ray Rice to Richie Incognito.
But as fans, the least we can do is advocate for college players to receive some taste of the money cascading into adults’ coffers from television rights, merchandise and tickets.
And at the high school, college and pro levels, we can demand that proper concussion protocols are followed, doctors making decisions on returning players to the game are not employed by the teams, and that no player is shortchanged in high school when it comes to proper equipment.
Perhaps revisiting one other part of Sydney Seau’s speech will be a helpful reminder about how we can continue as fans to enjoy football while remembering that players are worthy of decent physical, medical and mental care after their playing days.
“What keeps coming to mind when I think of him is the fact that he was basically superhuman,” Sydney Seau said of her dad. “But I think what we tend to forget about our favorite invincible, unstoppable, indestructible superhumans is the minor detail that they are also human.”
A native Oregonian, Hank Stern had a 24-year career in journalism, working for more than a decade as a reporter with The Associated Press in Oregon, New Jersey and Washington, DC. He worked seven years for The Oregonian as a reporter in east Multnomah County, Washington County and Portland’s City Hall. In 2005, he became Willamette Week’s managing news editor and worked there until 2011.
Related Slideshow: Oregon’s Most Devastating Sports Injuries
Here is GoLocalPDX's list of Oregon's most devastating injuries that have occured within the past 10 years.
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James Rodgers
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Sean Mannion
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Marcus Mariota
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CJ McCollum
Oct. 2013 — Broken fifth Metatarsal In Left Foot
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Alex Morgan
Oct. 2013 — Stress reaction in talus bone
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Bralon Addison
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Ifo Ekpre-Olomu
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Wesley Matthews
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