Junior Seau was a proud USC hero, frequently sporting the familiar cardinal and gold #55, but players and coaches from the Trojans’ bitter rival shared in their sorrow this week after Seau’s passing.
Seau’s contribution to the game went far beyond simple college rivalry – though Seau treasured his match-ups with UCLA – and that was not lost on the Bruins’ coaching staff, including linebackers coach Jeff Ulbrich, who addressed the team in the wake of the reported suicide.
“Coach Ulbrich talked about him with us yesterday, about being able to know him, and I knew all the great things about him – I watched him play – so it even hurt me,” UCLA senior running back Johnathan Franklin said. “It hurt me, and I didn’t even know the guy. He was a great player and a great man, and this is a sad day for the football world.”
Seau’s death is hitting Ulbrich especially hard.
He hesitates to comment on the issue simply because so much remains unknown about Seau’s final days, minutes, seconds, but as a former longtime NFL veteran, and a linebacker, he was very much affected. He knows what he went through after his retirement, his own darkest days.
“Being a former player who retired from the game – if it happens to be a suicide – all former players know kind of what that felt like,” Ulbrich said. “It’s hard. You think of yourself as more than a football player, and you think when you walk away from the game it’s going to be an easy transition into whatever business … and it’s not. It was such a big part of your life. It’s how you defined yourself. It’s where you got your self-esteem. Your identity. Even if you have other things going on and you have a business or a great wife or great kids, when football gets taken from you…you have to almost mourn it, I think, to get over it. Especially if it’s that important to you. Most players, they don’t take that opportunity. They don’t let themselves feel anything, really.
“And then all of a sudden you just…you’re down and you don’t know why.”
As so much of the discussion following Seau’s death has been the role that football – and head injuries, in particular – played, the topic of concussions was sensitive on Thursday.
Ulbrich retired at 32 after sustaining a particularly devastating concussion and he knows all too well the affect they have on the mind and body. UCLA head coach Jim Mora has handled the issue with care throughout spring ball, including the case of offensive lineman Wade Yandall. The redshirt sophomore offensive guard suffered a concussion in late-2010 and participated in spring ball for two days before symptoms returned, including headaches. Yandall was immediately shelved.
“You just don’t play with that stuff,”said Jim Mora, who served as defensive backs coach with the San Diego Chargers in 1990-91, Seau’s first two professional seasons.
“I’m not playing with that. I see what’s going on around the NFL with the head injuries – Junior Seau was a good friend of mine. Junior Seau was a good friend of mine and I believe that what transpired (on Wednesday) most likely can be traced back to head injuries.”
Ultimately, it seems Seau’s death reminded UCLA players and coaches be thankful that they’re still around the game, still touching it, tasting it, feeling it. Still living it.
“You have two choices,” Ulbrich said, “You either change, which is really, really hard. You become someone that you weren’t, someone you haven’t been your entire life. That’s extremely difficult to me. Or you refocus that into something else. I did it with coaching. I have the same sort of passion and same sort of intensity, focus and drive that I had as a player. That helps me. Some guys do it with business.
“It’s the guys who don’t have that outlet and are unable to change and adapt to the real world – and it really is an adaptation to the real world because playing is a fantasy world almost – and that’s where guys get in trouble. Guys make so much money that they’re given the opportunity not to have to do anything the rest of their lives, and that can be dangerous.”