NFL legend Junior Seau was found dead at his Oceanside, California home this morning, at age 43 — of a presumably self-inflicted shotgun wound:
If Seau committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest, it is similar to the way former Chicago Bears great Dave Duerson ended his life. Duerson shot himself in the chest on February 17, 2011 — the method used so that his brain could be examined for symptoms of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), a trauma-induced disease common to NFL players and others who have received repeated blows to the head.
Seau has sounded bitter in the past:
After graduating from high school, Seau attended the University of Southern California (USC). He had to sit out his freshman season because he got only a 690 on his college entrance exam, the SAT, 10 points short of USC’s required minimum score for freshman eligibility. Seau told Sports Illustrated: “I was labeled a dumb jock. I went from being a four-sport star to an ordinary student at USC. I found out who my true friends were. Nobody stuck up for me — not our relatives, best friends or neighbors. There’s a lot of jealousy among Samoans, not wanting others to get ahead in life, and my parents got an earful at church: ‘We told you he was never going to make it.’” This prompted him to apologize to his coaches, teachers, and principal at Oceanside High.