The late, great Junior Seau.

Junior Seau was a tough man.  Every day for decades, he battled other massive men on the football field with the reckless abandon of a kid playing his favorite game.  (He also survived a 100-foot fall down a cliff in his car in 2010.)  He did some wonderful things on and off the field, but now his life is over.  Junior Seau died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Oceanside, California.  He was only 43 years old; just last year, he was inducted into the San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame.

“It’s a sad thing.  It’s hard to understand,” said Bobby Beathard, the former Chargers GM who drafted Seau.  “He was really just a great guy.  If you drew up a player you’d love to have the opportunity to draft and have on the team and as a teammate, Junior and Rodney (Harrison), they’d be the kind of guys you’d like to have.  He was a leader emotionally and he played that way.  He was great to young kids.  I just can’t imagine this, because I’ve never seen Junior in a down frame of mind.  He was always so upbeat and he would keep people up.  He practiced the way he played.  He made practice fun.  He was a coach’s dream.”

Junior Seau played 20 seasons, 12 of them with San Diego.  He played in 268 career games, second-most out of all linebackers to suit up in the NFL.  He recorded over 1800 tackles and 56.5 sacks as the fifth overall draft pick in 1990 out of USC.  He made 12 Pro Bowls, was a 10-time All Pro, was the defensive player of the year in 1994, the AFC player of the year in 1994, a member of the 1990’s All Decade team, and a two-time player in the Super Bowl with the Chargers and Patriots.  In 2015, Seau will be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, without question.

It’s just a shame he won’t be there to see it.

Tags: junior seau, san diego chargers, new england patriots, nfl legend junior seau dead, junior seau suicide, junior seau gunshot, self-inflicted gunshot claims junior seau, junior seau dies from gunshot to chest, oceanside, california, nfl, football, professional football, national football league, hall of fame, bobby beathard

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