Police: Junior Seau found dead at California home

OCEAN­SIDE, Calif. (AP) — Junior Seau's appar­ent sui­cide stunned an entire city and sad­dened for­mer team­mates who recalled the for­mer NFL star's fero­cious tack­les and habit of call­ing every­body around him "Buddy."

It also left every­one won­der­ing what led to Seau's death Wednes­day morn­ing in what police said appeared to be a sui­cide. He was 43.

"I'm sorry to say, Super­man is dead," said Shawn Mitchell, a chap­lain for the San Diego Charg­ers. "All of us can appear to be super, but all of us need to reach out and find sup­port when we're hurting."

Police Chief Frank McCoy said Seau's girl­friend reported find­ing him uncon­scious with a gun­shot wound to the chest and life­sav­ing efforts were unsuc­cess­ful. A gun was found near him, McCoy said. Police said no sui­cide note was found and they didn't imme­di­ately know who the gun was reg­is­tered to.

Nei­ther Mitchell nor Seau's ex-wife knew what might have led to the for­mer first-pumping, emo­tional leader of his home­town San Diego Charg­ers to kill himself.

"We have no clues what­so­ever," Gina Seau said. "We're as stunned and shocked as any­one else. We're hor­ri­bly sad­dened. We miss him and we'll always love him."

Seau's death in Ocean­side, in north­ern San Diego County, stunned the region he rep­re­sented with almost reck­less aban­don. The same inten­sity that got the star line­backer ejected for fight­ing in his first exhi­bi­tion game helped carry the Charg­ers to their only Super Bowl, fol­low­ing the 1994 sea­son. A fero­cious tack­ler, he'd leap up, pump a fist and kick out a leg after drop­ping a ball car­rier or quarterback.

"It's a sad thing. It's hard to under­stand," said Bobby Beat­hard, who as Charg­ers gen­eral man­ager took Seau out of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia with the fifth pick over­all in the 1990 draft. "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."

Quar­ter­back Stan Humphries recalled that Seau did every­thing at the same speed, whether it was prac­tic­ing, lift­ing weights or harass­ing John Elway.

"The inten­sity, the smile, the infec­tious atti­tude, it car­ried over to all the other guys," said Humphries, who was shocked that Seau is now the eighth player from the '94 Super Bowl team to die.

Seau's mother appeared before reporters out­side the for­mer player's house, weep­ing uncontrollably.

"I don't under­stand … I'm shocked," Luisa Seau cried out.

Her son gave no indi­ca­tion of a prob­lem when she spoke to him by phone ear­lier this week, she said.

"He's jok­ing to me, he called me a 'home­girl,'" she said.

Seau's death fol­lows the sui­cide last year of for­mer Chicago Bears player Dave Duer­son, who also shot him­self in the chest.

In Octo­ber 2010, Seau sur­vived a 100-foot plunge down a sea­side cliff in his SUV, hours after he was arrested for inves­ti­ga­tion of domes­tic vio­lence at the Ocean­side home he shared with his girl­friend. The woman had told author­i­ties that Seau assaulted her dur­ing an argument.

There was no evi­dence of drugs or alco­hol involved in the crash and Seau told author­i­ties he fell asleep while dri­ving. He sus­tained minor injuries.

"I just can't imag­ine this, because I've never seen Junior in a down frame of mind," Beat­hard said. "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. He was an amaz­ing guy as well as a player and a per­son. This is hard to believe."

Seau's ex-wife told the Union-Tribune San Diego that he texted her and each of their three chil­dren sep­a­rate mes­sages: "I love you."

Seau, who played in the NFL for parts of 20 sea­sons, is the eighth mem­ber of San Diego's lone Super Bowl team who has died, all before the age of 45. Lew Bush, Shawn Lee, David Griggs, Rod­ney Cul­ver, Doug Miller, Cur­tis Whit­ley and Chris Mims are the oth­ers. Causes of death ranged from heart attacks to a plane crash to a light­ning strike.

Seau's death also is among a few recent, unex­pected deaths of NFL veterans.

Duerson's fam­ily has filed a wrong­ful death suit against the NFL, claim­ing the league didn't do enough to pre­vent or treat con­cus­sions that severely dam­aged Duerson's brain before he killed him­self in Feb­ru­ary 2011.

For­mer Atlanta Fal­cons safety Ray East­er­ling, who had joined in a concussion-related law­suit against the league — one of dozens filed in the last year — died last month at age 62. His wife has said he suf­fered from depres­sion and demen­tia after tak­ing years of hits.

Seau is not known to have been a plain­tiff in the con­cus­sion litigation.

How­ever, his ex-wife told The Asso­ci­ated Press that Seau sus­tained con­cus­sions dur­ing his career.

"Of course he had. He always bounced back and kept on play­ing," she said. "He's a war­rior. That didn't stop him. I don't know what foot­ball player hasn't. It's not bal­let. It's part of the game."

Gina Seau said she didn't know if the effects of con­cus­sions con­tributed to Seau's death.

When Humphries joined the Charg­ers in a 1992 trade, he said it was obvi­ous Seau was "the per­son who had the most energy, the most excited, the guy who tried to rally every­body." Humphries said Seau "brought out a lot of young­ness" in older players.

He also helped younger players.

"So sad to hear about Jr Seau," tweeted New Orleans Saints quar­ter­back Drew Brees, who was with San Diego from 2001-05. "Junebug. Buddy. The great­est team­mate a young guy could ask for. This is a sad day. He will be missed greatly."

Seau called many of those around him "Buddy." He often referred to team­mates as "my players."

Seau was voted to a Chargers-record 12 straight Pro Bowls and was an All-Pro six times.

"We all lost a friend today," Charg­ers Pres­i­dent Dean Spanos said in a state­ment. "This is just such a tragic loss. One of the worst things I could ever imagine."

Seau's great­est game may have been in the 17-13 vic­tory at Pitts­burgh in the AFC cham­pi­onship game in Jan­u­ary 1995 that sent the Charg­ers to the Super Bowl. Play­ing through the pain of a pinched nerve in his neck, he spread out his 16 tack­les from the first play to the second-to-last. San Diego was routed 49-26 in the Super Bowl by San Francisco.

Seau left the Charg­ers after the 2002 sea­son when the team uncer­e­mo­ni­ously told him he was free to pur­sue a trade. He held a farewell news con­fer­ence at the restau­rant he owned in Mis­sion Val­ley, and later was traded to Miami.

Seau retired a few times, the first in August 2006, when he said, "I'm not retir­ing. I am graduating."

Four days later, he signed with the New Eng­land Patri­ots. He was with the Patri­ots when they lost to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl fol­low­ing the 2007 sea­son, which ended New England's quest for a per­fect season.

Last fall, finally retired for good, Seau was inducted into the San Diego Charg­ers Hall of Fame.

His last sea­son was 2009.

Patri­ots owner Robert Kraft recalled the tight hugs he got from Seau in the locker room fol­low­ing games.

"He may have been one of the most charis­matic Patri­ots play­ers in fran­chise his­tory," Kraft said. "Today, the fans of the teams for which Junior played — San Diego, Miami and New Eng­land — lost more than a leg­endary foot­ball player. We lost our 'Buddy.'"

More than 100 peo­ple gath­ered out­side of Seau's home, only hours after he was found dead. Fam­i­lies showed up with flow­ers and fans wear­ing Charg­ers jer­seys waited to get news.

Sev­eral hours after Seau was found, his body was loaded into a med­ical examiner's van and taken away as fans snapped pic­tures and raised their hands in the air as if in prayer.

Fam­ily friend Priscilla Sanga said about 50 friends and fam­ily mem­bers gath­ered in the garage where Seau's body lay on a gur­ney and they had the oppor­tu­nity to say goodbye.

"Every­body got to see Junior before they took him away," Sanga said. "He looked so peace­ful and cold. It was dis­be­lief. We all touched him and kissed him."

Posted by Scott Mahoney on May 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.