No Holds Barred: Coach George Hero; Suicide of Former NFL Star Junior Seau and the Combat Sports

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with Coach George Hero, the legendary coach and founder of the Midwood High School wrestling team in Brooklyn, New York.

At MidwoodMania III on April 21, the 54-year-old Coach Hero returned to the mat once again and scored a third-period pin over an opponent three decades his junior, former NYU wrestler and current high school coach Mark Shirian. We spoke with Coach Hero right after his victory.

We open with commentary on the suicide this past week of former NFL star linebacker Junior Seau. Just 43 years old, he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. The actual reasons for his suicide are not known at this time. However, according to news reports, his family has agreed to donate his brain to researchers who are studying the links between blows to the head in contact and combat sports, concussions, and the degenerative brain disease CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

With more of these tragedies and suicides of former athletes in contact and combat sports becoming publicly known, and with the science of understanding what head blows do to the brain becoming more precise, what will this mean in years to come for these sports? We lay out some historical analogies to how dueling and smoking have become socially unacceptable and even banned in whole or in part, and ask if these may provide clues as to the future prospects of these sports. We also note how the combat sports without striking, such as the various styles of grappling and wrestling, need to promote themselves better in light of what may happen to these other sports.

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Holy shit, I had no idea about Junior Seau.

He's a guy I remember watching a lot as a kid.

I disagree with your examples, Eddie. The obvious example is of course what happened in boxing in the 1980s, but the duels and the smoking examples were unique; where I beg to differ though is that in American sports culture, we will continue to pay marginalized populations to put their bodies and lives on the line for our entertainment. Where I give myself cause for pause though is in the fact that American football is the #1 mainstream sport. I don't see it happening, but it could go the way of boxing maybe. However, you raise very important issues.

What I mean is that with the dueling and the smoking examples you are reaching too far. I personally don't see any connections. I understand what you were trying to do, and in fact the smoking example was closer to catching the point. I think you are talking about cultural acceptability actually, and I understand this. I just think that dueling to football was a bit of a stretch. But, at the end of it all, you may be right in your analysis irregardless.

I think Junior had been dealing with severe depression for quite a while. I remember hearing that he drove his vehicle straight of a cliff a couple of years ago. He said he fell asleep but there was some controversy around what really happened.

It seems Seau may have had some impulse control and may anger issues surrounding all this. He was arrested for domestic violence sometime prior to this accident/on purpose.

I saw some recent interviews of pro athletes that were friends of Juniors and they said he had a very tortured life in the last years. This speculation but we may be dealing with a Chris Benoit-type situation without the murder part. Benoit's brain look like swiss cheese when they studied it.

I think what the masses don't understand about the brain trauma issue and sport is you don't just get hurt from a KO'd cold concussion. It is also the cumulative effect of getting hit in the head. Not that every single head contact causes real damage necessarily... but for sure every time you get you're bell rung that's not good.

This is a complicated issue. Especially for Boxing & MMA. IMO - MMA needs better standard to help do the most it can to keep the fighters safe as is realistic for the sport. I don't think things are quite there yet. I cringe every time I see guys sparring with no head gear. I know it is a sports culture thing, but it's lunacy. I'm sure when boxers come in to train fighters that they think these guys are nuts.

Junior Seau injured after car plunges off cliff in Carlsbad
Oct. 18, 2010 - utsandiego.com


Junior Seau's car is pulled up from the bottom of a cliff in Carlsbad Monday morning.


CARLSBAD — Former Chargers star Junior Seau drove his SUV off a 30-foot coastal bluff in Carlsbad and was hospitalized with minor injuries Monday morning, hours after being jailed for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend.

Seau, a 12-time Pro Bowl linebacker, told police at the hospital that the one-car crash happened when he became sleepy.

The story about one of San Diego’s most popular athletes lit up the Internet and led to speculation he may have tried to commit suicide.

Seau’s ex-wife, Gina Seau, said those reports were false. She made her comments soon after she and the couple’s three children visited him in the hospital. She repeatedly said the crash and arrest were not related.

“He would never try to harm himself or anyone else,” Gina Seau said. “He’s fine. He’s emotionally upset. No, he’s not even emotionally upset. He’s going to get through this, and he’s going to move on.”

Oceanside police arrested Seau, 41, about 12:20 a.m. Monday after his 25-year-old live-in girlfriend reported that he assaulted her at their home on the south end of The Strand, Lt. Leonard Mata said.

Police had been called to the house about 10:15 p.m. Sunday after the woman said Seau assaulted her during an argument, Mata said. She suffered minor injuries and did not require medical treatment, he said.

Seau was not at home when officers responded to the domestic violence call, but he returned after talking to them on the phone. He was arrested and booked into the Vista jail on suspicion of spousal assault with injury. At 3:20 a.m., he was released after posting bail.

At 8:42 a.m., he was driving a 2004 Cadillac Escalade south on Carlsbad Boulevard near Solamar Drive just past Palomar Airport Drive when the SUV veered toward and plunged over the cliff.

The front end of the Escalade hit the rocks, flipped around and ended some 30 feet down the embankment, said Carlsbad police Lt. Kelly Cain.

Seau was alone and conscious when rescuers arrived and helped him out of the vehicle, Cain said. It’s unclear how fast the SUV was traveling, but Cain said it appears to have been moving at a “significant speed.”

Officers did not observe any symptoms of drug or alcohol use, but they requested a blood sample be taken for testing, said Lt. Paul Mendes. Investigators do not suspect Seau was suicidal, he said.

The morning rain had subsided and the street was dry at the time of the crash, Mendes said.

Gina Seau said she didn’t talk to her ex-husband at the hospital about how the crash happened, but she said he wouldn’t hurt anyone, including himself. The couple divorced in 2001. Gina Seau said he had never hurt or threatened her during nine years of marriage.

A lawyer for two San Diego women who sued Seau in 2006 for taunting and throwing drinks at them at the downtown Side Bar said the weekend allegation against Seau wouldn’t surprise his clients.

Attorney Steve Wickman, who represented the women who reached an undisclosed settlement with Seau in 2007, called the new allegation against Seau “a sad situation.”

Seau played 13 seasons for the Chargers, starting in 1990. He then played for the Miami Dolphins for three years and the New England Patriots for four. He was active for seven games last season, recording 14 tackles as a 40-year-old backup linebacker and is not playing this season.

Former Oceanside Mayor Richard Lyon, who lives two houses down from Seau, said he was shocked by the news reports about his neighbor.

“I walked up past Junior’s house a couple days ago,” Lyon said. “Junior was out in front. We had a good chat. He’s just an absolutely great guy. I love him.”

Lyon said Seau has lived in the neighborhood three to four years but didn’t know how long Seau’s girlfriend had lived there.

Seau was inducted into the Oceanside High School Hall of Fame on Saturday.

“I’m just stunned by what has happened,” Lyon said. “He’s a really, really good friend and a class guy, and he’s done so much for Oceanside.”

Pat Kimbrel, a member of the Oceanside High School Foundation’s Hall of Fame Committee and the school’s retired athletic director, said Seau’s speech Saturday was heartwarming.

“He talked about how dear the campus was to him,” Kimbrel said. “How much he thought the school was a lot about family and love and unconditional love. … The thing that he repeated over and over again was the unconditional love he felt at Oceanside High School.”

In 1992, Seau founded The Junior Seau Foundation. It has raised about $4 million in 10 years for programs aimed at inspiring young people, according to its website.

He also owns two sports-themed restaurants, Seau’s The Restaurant in Mission Valley and Seau’s of Temecula.

matthew.hall@uniontrib.com; (619) 293-1335; Twitter @SDuncovered

debbi.baker@uniontrib.com; (619) 293-1710

Staff writers Kristina Davis, Don Norcross and Brent Schrotenboer and librarian Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this report.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/oct/18/junior-seau-injured-car-accident-tmz-reports-it-fo/?page=2#article

^^

The driving off the cliff thing could have been a suicide attempt, or it might have been true, like if the falling asleep was a side affect of the brain injuries.

I think it's clear already, but what I said was intended as nothing more than my frank reactions from a constructive criticism standpoint. I thought Eddy handled a difficult and complicated issue very well.

As for the sparring with no headgear thing, you have a good point and could be right, although I always considered headgear as good for stopping cuts. Of course it's stupid not to wear it in training, but I don't think it really stops the impact of the shots so much.

I never even heard of him up until this point as I don't follow the NFL, but it's pretty gut wrenching
seeing his pictures all happy and all with his involvement in his sport, and his mother crying on tv.


As far as head gear, I think it's possible it makes the problem worse as it could potentially add some
bounce, or at the very least wont protect the brain from being bounced from boundary to boundary.

Also it makes the target bigger and easier to hit and could potentially make fighters not worried so much
about getting hit cause they would feel protected. I read somewhere that's the reason Tua doesn't like to
wear head gear in sparring.

I gather the reason to wear headgear is to protect from cuts and broken noses and cheek bones,
leading up to a fight.

Thanks for the comments. My point about dueling and smoking was this: Dueling is now considered crazy. 200 years ago it wasn't. Smoking has become socially unacceptable and is banned in many public places. 50 years ago a lot of people thought it was the epitome of cool.

Can that happen to combat sports? Will what is considered acceptable risk today be widely viewed as madness, or at least socially unacceptable, in the next 50, 100, or more years? I think as we learn more about this, just as the public learned more about the effects of smoking, that may be a realistic possibility.

My conclusion was that, if this happens, we will still need real combat sports. And that is where wrestling and grappling come in.

Well, I'm a wrestling guy (I don't mean fake wrestling of course) so I have no objections.

Maybe you've seen my sumo threads

global-mma is your destination for sumo coverage, haha

Obviously, pro sumo in Japan is pretty corrupt. Attempts outside Japan at creating a pro sumo league a few years ago failed. They even had a nice event at Madison Square Garden but then overreached with a worldwide tour and no good TV deal, so the tour was never completed.

I also said that the various styles of grappling and wrestling have to be better run than they are today. That, of course, includes good governance and eliminating corruption, but those problems are also part of the culture and history of these sports.

nhbnews wrote:Obviously, pro sumo in Japan is pretty corrupt. Attempts outside Japan at creating a pro sumo league a few years ago failed. They even had a nice event at Madison Square Garden but then overreached with a worldwide tour and no good TV deal, so the tour was never completed.

I also said that the various styles of grappling and wrestling have to be better run than they are today. That, of course, includes good governance and eliminating corruption, but those problems are also part of the culture and history of these sports.

Oh yeah, it's corrupt. I think that sumo has been fighting for its life to at least project an image that they are dealing with the corruption. We saw what happened with Pride, and we know how hot and cold Japanese public opinion can be (alternatively, have a look into recent Prime Minister Hatoyama, or generally the rate at which prime ministers are recycled in Japan recently). Sumo likes to parade itself around as an ancient sport, and the art is truly ancient and it has been practiced as a sport for hundreds of years, which is very unique. But the current form of sumo is very much a modern professional sport, and it use to be organized quite differently, until about the 50s (for example, there were regional circuits distinct from one another, the biggest being in Tokyo and the second biggest in Osaka).

As far as the bout fixing scandals, they sort of threw some lower guys under the bus on that, and tried to claim it was confined to the lower level wrestlers. I'm sure it's bullshit, but they're fighting to survive, I guess. They need to claim something which is both plausible and least damaging, trying to make lemonade out of lemons as the expression goes.

As far as official involvement in the fixing, it's just a matter of speculation, and I don't know. All of the wrestlers know each other very well, and they train together. So it is certainly not inconceivable that they could organize fixed matches amongst themselves (this is the argument that the pro sumo commission put forth, in essence). I don't really know, although I think the corruption is much more widespread and systemic then they are letting on. Again, they are fighting for their lives.

I hope that in the end, this is written down as a dark chapter in sumo history and little more.

And I'm clearly being sympathetic in favor of the sumo org, but it is only that I want sumo to survive. I do find their conduct entirely shameful. I hope that cooler heads have prevailed, and I hope they are working stuff out. I like Takanohana, who is one of the key officials currently. His father was also a Yokozuna, and his mother wrote a book detailing among other things bout fixing. I think she ultimately withdrew the book, or refused interviews on it or something, because of the damage that it was doing to her son (who is one of the most famous former wrestlers, and a current executive). His father/her husband had already passed before all of this.

I already corrected it with the edit button, but I accidentally wrote 'Takanoyama' before when I meant to write 'Takanohana'.

Also to set the record straight, Takanohana's father was actually an Ozeki, never having achieved the rank of Yokuzuna (his father also went by Takanohana).

His older brother, Wakanohana, was a Yokozuna (I was well aware of that, but didn't mention it). I believe they had an uncle who was also a sumo wrestler who went by Wakanohana as well, but I don't know for sure.