Minutes. © 2021 ABG-SI LLC. He stops his car, inexplicably, in the middle of an intersection and Laura, in the passenger seat, screams, “Scott, what are you doing?!”. He goes to a halfway house, hates it and drinks rat poison, which gets him sent to a hospital. Now he is as much of an ex-football player as anybody could fear becoming. Hartsuyker? News Sports … From left: Ross, Gee and Webb outside the Coliseum, in their Trojans heyday. Michael Rosenberg. Sports Illustrated. He puts blackout shades in his bedroom, but they block only the light. Anybody looking for him was wise to start at the beach. Pain is for the weak. He frequently loses track of his thoughts and stops talking midsentence. His stomach grows distended. . Hartsuyker breaks a foot and stays on the field. She just can’t find him anymore. Only later would they see these fleeting interactions as dots marking his descent: Junior squaring off against offensive tackle Matt Willig, a fellow Trojan, in an NFL game in 1994 and failing to recognize him . She and Scott share custody of their daughter, but one time Marla goes to pick up Caroline and nobody answers the door. A decade passes, and then Junior puts that gun to his chest, and among the linebackers, that’s two dead. This is a list of writers who have worked for the American magazine Sports Illustrated ... Michael Cohen (since 2018) Chris Mannix (since 2018) Michael McKnight (since 2011) Stephanie Apstein (since 2011) Michael Rosenberg (since 2012) Jamie Lisanti Dayya (since 2014) Ben Pickman (since 2018) Rohan Nadkarni (since 2015) 22. Articles From This Author . Pick A Plan  LEARN MORE. She would rather die first. The short answer is that, no, Matt did not kill himself. Michael Rosenberg Sports Illustrated Oct 2020 30 min Permalink. They met on their recruiting weekend at USC and became fast friends, later sneaking out of their team hotel on the eve of the 1990 Kickoff Classic so they could see New York City. DAVID E. KLUTHO FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. He has a congenital vascular disorder called Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome, which at birth left him with a port-wine stain along the left side of his body, and this only exacerbates his growing medical problems. Junior didn’t even know what a june bug was. He bought groceries and grilled dinner and played with his son (Zachary, from one marriage) and daughter (Caroline, from a second). David Webb is the team’s resident surfer dude. He sells his trophies so he can buy Laura an engagement ring, and he writes her a letter in puffy paint: Laura, my angel, marry me. Scott Ross and Delmar Chesley serve as mentors to Matt, who will become a starter after they leave. NHL goalies were once shamed for covering up in the name of safety. Laura knows better than to marry Scott, but she has a hard time ditching him. He just knows that he loved David when he was 20, loved him when he was 47, and he will not see him reach 48. Alan promises he will get up and take a shower. If alcoholism makes life a blur, this is the blur of Scott’s life: He gets drunk, flips a company van and is reassigned to a desk job. By the beginning of 2017, he’s making that drive every week to visit David Webb. Tom Verducci. While a hot-button issue now, it’s nothing new in sports. “I can’t take this! There’s no ammunition in the gun, but she hides it anyway. . If this were an arcade game from his childhood, Scott would be down to his last few quarters. Jägermeister, beer, rubbing alcohol, Listerine—what’s the difference? Complaints are for the weaker. He tries rehab but it never lasts. The Packers’ Poor Management of Aaron Rodgers Hurts All Parties, In Rodgers’s Feud With Packers, Everyone Is Already Losing. . In a dream home, in America’s paradise, Alana Gee tells herself that her husband lived a great life, not just half of one. Michael Rosenberg interviews Trevor Lawrence, the best … He has spent a lifetime as a helper; he does not know how to be helped. definite suicide . The mind reels. None of them died on the field, but for each former Trojan, football was inextricably tied to mortality. Finally, he comes to understand: The best he can do is just be there. Scott goes. Leslie will always wonder whether the damage that football did to David’s brain made him more vulnerable when the cancer came. Back in Texas, Scott rents a little house on a lake, then moves into a friend’s trailer. The cancer has spread, and he is dying. I’m not O.K.,” and Alana asks, “What do you mean?” He cannot explain it. Matt doesn’t care. Five have died, each before age 50. Matt became a successful businessman, happily married to his college sweetheart, raising three kids, proud of what his USC career begat. The doctor also warns: “Be prepared. Junior, who didn’t drink in college, slurring his way through a speech at a golf tournament he was hosting—“a sad, depressing kind of drunk,” says former USC defensive back Mike Salmon, who was so saddened and depressed by the scene that he walked out. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Sports. Not all of the old Trojans feel this way, but Delmar felt it back at school. Five will die by age 50, their lives stamped forever with an early expiration date. TABLE OF CONTENTS. So many of them were wild boys; maybe the game killed them, but maybe it domesticated them first. He has been prideful for so long, solving problems himself and keeping conversations light, that he knows no other way. His good is worth it, she tells the kids. Alana FaceTimes Matt and says she will be home soon, but on the day she plans to return, on New Year’s Eve, she gets another call. The Trojans go 9-2-1 and then win the Rose Bowl that season, but football fools them. . to spend a couple of nights outside her house for the first time in years. “When I close my eyes, it all comes back and the demons won’t shut up.”. The mask debate. Alana catches Matt drinking vodka out of a Gatorade bottle at the hospital, and she is furious. A week later, Alana takes Tanner to Park City, Utah, because she has promised him for two years that she would take him skiing, and Matt seems like he is on an upswing. In an essay, Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenberg wrote, “In the last 16 months, Kaepernick’s truth has been twisted, distorted and used for political gain. The demons are the only companions he doesn’t abuse. But his brain’s decay is irreversible. We’ll pay for it. They are too polite to ask. He says his memory is intact. . Matt shows pictures of David to friends who should recognize David, but they don’t. Their life together is a slapstick comedy soaked in alcohol and drenched in blood. What is Sports Illustrated? Alan does something Alan never used to do: He cusses out his kid brother and tells him to go home. . Scott Ross was as much a football player—mentally and physically—as anybody you could meet. He was not nearly as gifted as Junior, but he too was an All-America, a missile seeking contact and reveling in it. Friends wonder whether Matt killed himself, like Junior did. Seau gets after quarterback Charles Thompson in a USC upset of Oklahoma, in 1988. David’s short-term memory is mush, but his long-term memory is still there, and they laugh like old times. Say hi to my girlfriend, Laura! It was just his soul. The Scott she sees every day is frightening, but the Scott she knows is somewhere inside him—her sweet Scott—and she can’t let that go. Laura Lee Fitzgerald will never be able to fully explain why she takes Scott into her home in Paso Robles, Calif. Love is a woefully insufficient answer. You did this to me!” And then: “Why did you let me play football?”. Read more of SI's Daily Cover stories here. He speaks proudly of his glory days at USC, about Matt and the boys, but he gives away his Rose Bowl ring to his dentist. A-Dub did not attend parties or play practical jokes on teammates; he conversed but rarely started conversations. Alana thought that was ridiculous, but she also kind of loved it. He often ignored his assignment but tackled the ballcarrier anyway. While a hot-button issue now, it’s nothing new in sports. gunshot wound to the chest . Nobody could foresee that in 1989. J.R.’s cousin, fellow Trojans linebacker Delmar Chesley, sees four position mates drop dead, and the thing that gnaws at him starts to make him angry: The linebackers hit too much. The official cause of death is heart failure. By Christina R Davies, Matthew Knuiman, Michael Rosenberg bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com — AbstractBackgroundLittle is known about the dose–response relationship between recreational arts engagement (for enjoyment, entertainment or as a hobby, rather than therapy) and mental well-being in the general population. Rosenberg, who was also a columnist with … They hear only that he died of diabetes. Find Michael Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated's articles, email address, contact information, Twitter and more He was a successful salesman, first for Hilti and then for 3M, flashing his charm and his Rose Bowl ring to close deals. Another time, he gets concussed on a kickoff, tells trainers he is fine, finishes the game and later shows up on fraternity row with no recollection of playing that day. Greg thinks David will have “an early run in life.”. Junior was a Samoan from San Diego. Junior stopping to say hi to another USC teammate, Calvin Holmes, at a restaurant in 2002—but “walking like a zombie,” Holmes would say. After college David finds work as a longshoreman, and Matt smiles at the fit: “A great job for him.” David’s first wife, Casey, dies of breast cancer, and for a while he keeps to himself, raising their boys, Luke and Joshua. Hours. This is how the game is played. Well, it has to be something. He gets ascites, an accumulation of fluid that causes abdominal swelling. Junior Seau . He discovers how easy it is to buy Oxycontin. On Wednesday, Sports Illustrated released Michael Rosenberg’s cover story on Lawrence which discussed his relationship with football at length and caused quite the stir. ... Kohjiro Kinno/Sports Illustrated. Close friends know he is having health problems, but they don’t see the root of them. If he ’ s last days, circa 1989 condition: no drinking York > sports Illustrated Oct 2020 min! 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