After reading Sydney Seau's tribute to her dad, Junior (Tiaina Baul) Seau, realized I'm honor-bound to share it, to shout it from the rooftops, to everything in my rather limited but committed power to take it viral. Her dad, her family, every football player past present future, deserves nothing less.
Excerpt:
But blaming league officials and the media, while fun and easy, stops short of identifying the true culprits here: the fans.
It’s the fans who turned to men like my father to carry out savage feats they could never hope to enact. It’s the fans who have elevated football into our national religion, who ooh and ahh at the biggest hits, who pretend that such violence can be enacted with no mortal consequences.
My father’s life had great meaning to us, his family, and to the millions of fans who were inspired by his fearless play.
His death has meaning, too. It was the direct result of that fearless play. He pretended none of it was hurting him, and we took him at his word. Just as he chose to play, we chose to watch. We never stopped to ask ourselves what it meant that our chosen form of entertainment required men to risk their lives. Or that we cheered loudest for those moments of impact in which that risk was made manifest.
My father dreamed of this day for most of his life and gave his life in pursuit of that dream. The question we should be asking today is this: Now that we know how and why my father died, will any of us have the moral courage to turn away from the stirring highlight reel and question our own role in his death?
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