Junior Seau Read online

  “We were in the weight room or something,” Hartsuyker said decades later. “I couldn’t tell you what it was about—certainly something stupid. Back then you’re 20 years old and everything seems important, I suppose. Knowing my personality and knowing Junior’s—and this is not to lay blame anywhere—but he always was an emotional guy. I might have said or did something that set him off.”

  In between working out, attending classes, studying, and knocking people out, Junior longed for Waldrop. She graduated from Oceanside High a semester early, in January of 1988, and loaded up her VW Bug and moved to LA, where she rented a studio with the help of her parents, who also gave her some old furniture. She was able to transfer from her job as a sales associate at a clothing-store chain in Oceanside to a store in Westwood, and later she enrolled at a fashion institute in downtown LA.

  Junior wasted no time moving in with her, unbeknownst to his family. He needed Waldrop’s support, that sense of feeling like he mattered to someone, but he kept the news from his parents because he figured they would disapprove and he didn’t want more drama. “God love her,” Carrier said of Waldrop. “She pretty much took care of him. She was his chauffeur and just helped him get acclimated to being away from home.”

  By the following summer, Junior was like a bear emerging from hibernation. He began to show his face more consistently at home. Football was approaching, and he was eager to get on the field. He had already been a physical specimen when he left for USC, but a year in the weight room had morphed him into something frightening. He had gone from 215 pounds to 245, with much of the new muscle in his neck and shoulders. Said Poumele: “When we saw him, we were like, ‘What the hell have you been doing up there?’”

  The football world was about to find out.

  3

  “There Was Nothing Junior About His Game”

  From the moment he got on the field you knew you had somebody special. He was edgy. It was a difficult adjustment for anybody in college to match up against somebody who already had a professional’s body. And he only knew one speed: fast.

  —FULLBACK LEROY HOLT

  WHEN JUNIOR FINALLY stepped onto the football field for his first practice with the Trojans, he was like a caged animal that had been set free. He had never gone a full year without participating in an organized sport, and it made him realize just how much he missed football. At the same time it also made him hungry to show people what they had missed while he was out: a truly gifted linebacker.

  Success would not come immediately, however. Unlike in high school, he wasn’t joining a losing program that had suspect talent and limited participants. He was joining a program that returned four of its top seven linebackers, in terms of tackles, from a squad that had won the Pac-10 title and advanced to the Rose Bowl the previous season. Further complicating matters for him was that each returnee was familiar with the scheme while he wasn’t.

  After missing spring ball for two years—in 1987 because he was still in high school and in 1988 because Prop 48 rules prohibited him from practicing with the team—Junior’s athleticism, energy, and physicality jumped out at onlookers when he got on the field for fall practice in 1988. Unfortunately, so did his mistakes. He wasn’t sound from a schematic standpoint, and a badly sprained ankle forced him to miss the first three games and slowed his development.

  He was so raw that the coaching staff limited him to special teams and situational pass-rush duties. It was the first time in his athletic life—with the exception of a brief spell in high school, as a sophomore on the varsity basketball team—that he was a backup. Worse, he finished sixth among linebackers that year, with just 35 tackles.

  “He was so physically gifted that he’d destroy guys in one-on-one situations, but we ran a regimented, gap-control-style defense, and he didn’t really fit those concepts,” said defensive end Tim Ryan. “They kind of had him out of position.”

  The lackluster showing ate at him. He was accustomed to being the best player on the field, not just the best linebacker on the field. Hartsuyker wasn’t nearly as physically gifted, but he still finished with twice as many sacks (eight) and forced fumbles (four) as Junior did. Things were so bad late in the year that Junior was benched after five plays in the UCLA game. It was embarrassing and humbling for him. I have to beat myself. I have to beat myself.

  To the coaches’ credit, they were able to look past the mistakes and recognize that they had a special talent who was capable of making game-altering plays. But how best to get peak performance out of him? They figured it out in the spring of ’89, when they moved him to the weak (open) side of the formation, where there would be fewer roadblocks to chasing down the quarterback. Prior to that, he had been playing on the strong side, where he usually had a blocker directly in front of him and was required to read an offensive lineman’s movement before pursuing the ball. As a result, he played slower than normal because he either got caught in traffic or was thinking too much.

  The staff wanted to find a way to turn him loose, and secondary coach Bobby April saw a means to that end while watching tape at the Los Angeles Rams’ practice facility after the season. The Rams were coached by John Robinson, one of the great field generals in USC history. He had two stints at the school, the first from 1976 to 1982 and the latter from 1993 to 1997. During his initial tenure, the Trojans finished second in the final Associated Press poll three times in his first four seasons and earned a share of the national title in 1978.

  While with the Rams, Robinson had an open-door policy for USC coaches. They could visit anytime they wished, which was all April needed to hear. He was a young assistant eager to learn, and he camped out in the Rams’ video library. One of the things he noticed while studying tape of the Minnesota Vikings’ 36–24 victory over the San Francisco 49ers in a divisional playoff game on January 9, 1988, was that USC essentially was running the same defense as the Vikings, with Junior playing the same position as Minnesota’s Pro Bowl defensive end Chris Doleman. There was one major difference, however: Doleman didn’t have to engage and read blockers at the line of scrimmage before pursuing the ball.

  “He was lined up on an angle to that [open] side and flying up the field two yards behind the tackle and going to the football,” said April, who also noticed that former USC safety Joey Browner was a member of the Minnesota defense. April called Browner and asked if they could meet so he could pick Browner’s brain about how the Vikings were utilizing Doleman. Browner agreed, and they spent an afternoon going over various looks and responsibilities until April and defensive line coach Kevin Wolthausen felt comfortable with what they had learned. The two took the information back to USC, and a new day had dawned for Junior.

  “When they tweaked the defense for Junior, he took off,” Ryan said. “They basically turned him loose and said, ‘Get after the quarterback.’”

  At his new spot Junior had more freedom and fewer blockers to deal with. If there wasn’t an offensive lineman in front of him in passing situations, for instance, he could drop into a three-point stance and play rush end. His sole job: get up the field and find the ball. His quick first step gave him an advantage over many of the heavy-footed tackles trying to block him because he often got past them before they knew what was happening. His presence forced the University of Washington to go primarily with three-step drops that year because the Huskies feared a sack or turnover if Cary Conklin held the ball longer than that.

  “Junior was changing the way teams had to protect because they had no answer for him coming off the edge,” Carrier said. “For us, it was easy to adjust and fit him in because we were a veteran group. We had a lot of three- and four-year starters, and we’d play off of him. I had seven interceptions that year largely because I played on his side. I was no dummy. I knew the ball was going to be coming out fast, so I’d go get it.”

  Junior took to the new defense so quickly that the coaches moved him into the starting lineup during spring practice, ahead of Hartsuyker. Mind you, Hartsuyker
was coming off a year in which Football News had selected him to its sophomore All-America team. He was no slouch. However, he played the final six weeks of the ’88 season with a stress fracture in his left foot, and after a 22–14 loss to Michigan in the Rose Bowl, he wore a cast for three months and missed spring practices. That opened the door for Junior, who was there every day, taking advantage of the opportunity.

  But just when he seemed to be prepared to take off, he suffered a flat tire. On the first day of fall practice he sustained a compound fracture of one of his fingers. He couldn’t help but think back to his sophomore season of high school, when he sprained an ankle on the first day of fall practice and missed three games. Here he finally had earned a starting job, on a defense reconfigured to take advantage of his skill set, and now he might be out again?

  There was no way he was going to let that happen. He had the trainers wrap it up, and he took medication for the pain before and after practice. Then he went out on the field and performed. Performed well.

  In a season-opening loss at Illinois, Junior had seven tackles. In a 19–0 win over Stanford, he played four different positions and had three sacks. In a 48–6 demolition of Oregon State, he had three and a half sacks. In a 42–3 spanking of Ohio State, he had two sacks. Still, his best outing arguably was a 24–3 victory over Arizona, in which he had one sack and five unassisted tackles for minus-23 yards. “He was an animal,” wideout John Jackson told the Los Angeles Times. “They couldn’t do anything. It was comedy because they couldn’t run a play. He one-man-showed it.”

  The coaching staff was concerned entering that game. Arizona was averaging 32 points over its previous four games while utilizing a wishbone offense. The run-based scheme used a lot of misdirection and sleight of hand, which put great pressure on defenders to be disciplined and sound in carrying out their responsibilities. There were questions about how Junior would handle it, because the Wildcats figured to use his aggressiveness against him—to turn his strength into a weakness.

  “He was everywhere,” April said. “He disrupted everything. They couldn’t do anything. They had an offense that gave you a lot of problems, and Junior solved all of them. He just wrecked it.”

  Tom Roggeman was the Trojans’ linebackers coach at the time. He’s now in his 80s and likes to say that his memory isn’t as clear as it used to be. One thing he’s certain of, however, is that building their defense around Junior was the right move. “If you have a running back who can get you yards and touchdowns, you play him. It’s no different on defense. We had this gem named Junior, but there was nothing junior about his game. When it came down to being a fierce competitor, he had it in bundles.”

  Sometimes too much of it. Just like in high school, he found himself in multiple scraps on the field. He was even ejected from a game against Cal when he and offensive lineman Steve Gordon got into a scrap. “It was just one of those stupid things,” he told reporters. “I’ve got to learn from it. I could have backed out. I should have. I saw two of their guys on one of ours, and I just went over to make sure he was OK. I got into a little [tussle]. A lot of guys were involved, but it seemed like I stuck out. I felt the officials used me as an example to settle things down.”

  Coach Smith also used him as an example to the team. Smith was livid in the postgame news conference, despite his team assuming sole possession of first place with the 31–15 victory. He didn’t like the 12 penalties for 137 yards and barked about it to the media. He also told Junior that if he got into another fight he would kick him off the team or suspend him. An idle threat, perhaps, but Junior took it so seriously that when a scrum broke out the next week against Notre Dame, he was nowhere near the center of it. It killed him too. “He was so loyal and dedicated, like he was with family, that if he saw one of his teammates in trouble, he was going to go defend them,” Carrier said. “But against Notre Dame all he did was pull bodies off each other. He wasn’t getting involved in anything.”

  There was too much at stake. Junior was now thinking about bypassing his senior season and turning pro. The NFL was just beginning to allow underclassmen to enter the draft without first showing some sort of hardship, and Junior wanted to cash in. He and Williams, his roommate on the road and fellow linebacker, would sit on their beds some days and watch NFL highlights on TV. On occasion Junior would point out guys he had beaten the previous year in college, or guys whom he thought he was better than at that point. If those guys could make it in the NFL, why couldn’t he?

  He finished the year with an astounding 19 sacks and 27 tackles for loss. He was named first-team All-America and the Pac-10 “Defensive Player of the Year.” Ryan finished with one more sack, but “mine were of the pull-down-from-behind variety,” Ryan said. “His were ‘wow’ sacks. After that first game he just started smoking people. It was just speed and power. It wasn’t real technical.”

  The weekly grades confirmed as much. According to teammates, Junior often graded out lower after games than every other linebacker when it came to fulfilling his assignments. However, he also was regularly at the top of the list when it came to explosive plays. “He would throw the concept of the defense out the window if he saw something he could take advantage of,” said Williams. “The coaches would be like, ‘What the fuck are you doing, Junior?! That’s not your responsibility!’ The next play he would make up for it and they’d be like, ‘Great play, Junior! Great play!’”

  Junior was so good that, after he turned pro, the USC coaches started assigning the “55” jersey to incoming linebackers whom they believed could be great leaders and dominant players for them. It came to be known as the “55 Club” and was an incredible gesture considering that Junior had started only one season and played just two overall. USC also wasn’t some gimmicky program. It ranked among college football’s blue bloods, producing future Pro Football Hall of Famers like running back Marcus Allen; defensive back Ronnie Lott; offensive tackles Bruce Matthews, Anthony Munoz, and Ron Mix; and halfback/flanker Frank Gifford. None of them had had his jersey number ordained in such a fashion.

  “I was ecstatic,” said Ryan. “I thought it was something that should’ve been done, something that needed to be done.”

  Junior also had another reason to turn pro: he was a father. Melissa Waldrop had given birth to Tyler Christian Seau in June of that year, before the season.

  “He was proud when Tyler was born,” said Waldrop, who moved back in with her mother early in the pregnancy and remained there after the delivery. “He was excited to have a son. He said all along he was going to have a son. He picked out his name. Why Tyler? It’s what he wanted. He never gave a specific reason. I picked Christian.

  “I tried to make it really easy for him during the year [Tyler was born]. Junior’s place for our future, for our family, was to stay in school. There was never the option to leave school and get a job to be a provider. That was my job at that time. His was to do those things later.”

  Later suddenly meant now. But instead of life getting easier, it became more complicated. A new woman was about to enter his life.

  4

  Ferdinand the Linebacker

  ONE OF THE hallmarks of a good agent is his ability to close deals, and Steve Feldman has closed more than he can remember over his career. But this one was different because it had nothing to do with incentives or bonuses or annual salaries.

  “There’s this great kid I have who’s coming out for the draft, and I think you should meet him,” Feldman said to Gina DeBoer, who was working in the Chargers’ executive offices as an account executive.

  Feldman and DeBoer had developed a professional friendship from his frequent visits to the Chargers’ offices. He was the gregarious, older, playful type, while she was a slender, attractive blonde with big hair, freckles, and a welcoming smile.

  “I think you’d really like him,” Feldman said. The kid to whom he was referring was Junior.

  DeBoer chuckled and shrugged it off as playful Steve being playful Steve. Lat
er, she walked out of the office and saw a muscular young man in shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops being interviewed by the media. It was Junior. He stopped midsentence and called out “Hi” to her.

  Slightly embarrassed, she smiled and kept moving. When she returned, Junior was still being interviewed; again, he stopped midsentence and called out “Hi” to her. She smiled again and kept walking, but wondered if he was the guy Feldman was talking about. End of story—or so she thought.

  A month or so later the Chargers assigned her to attend a corporate NFL event in Palm Desert, where one of their major partners, GTE, was among the sponsors. It just so happened that Junior also would be there, though she didn’t know it. This time he wasn’t going to let her get away when he saw her. He invited Gina and a close friend who had accompanied her on the trip to join him that evening at Pompeii’s, a local club. She was intrigued but still had her guard up, because, well, he was a big-time athlete and they were known to be womanizers. Junior sensed her reluctance, but he had a smile and a personality that could melt an iceberg.

  When she showed up that evening, he quickly made his interest in her known—even though he had a girlfriend and a child back home. He’d hold her hand and put his arm around her shoulder. He looked into her eyes and made it seem as if they were the only two people in the room. He even got in a fight for her, knocking out a guy when he spotted him being too forward when he and DeBoer were separated.

  Feldman immediately rushed Junior out of the club. He feared negative press could cause Junior to fall in the draft and told Gina and her friend to take off and meet them at his place later that evening. Once there, the group of five or six cooked tacos, listened to music, and hung out at the pool. Later, at around 11:00, Junior pulled DeBoer aside and told her he wanted to get to know her one-on-one. She wondered if he was running a game on her. The attention was flattering, but was it genuine?