One Week later, more on Sean Taylor

[dlgood]

Last week, Washington Redskins safety, Sean Taylor, was murdered in his Miami home at the age of 24.

I know that being a fan of sports and entertainment, as much as I love them, is often an exercise in frivolity. And a lot of terrible things happen in the world. Sean Taylor was just one man - lots of people die every day from violence, disease, war, etc...

And I know I didn't know him personally. But it's affected me. I don't know what it means. Whether it changes anything in my day. But I do care.

On a basic level, I feel saddened for his family, for a father who lost a son, for the little girl who lost her father. For his siblings, friends, and loved ones.

And I think about how this story was covered. How stories about Taylor were framed. Mike Wilbon's "I'm not surprised" and the now-familiar meme of "he'd changed since he became a father."

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And more than anything else, what I think about is this - I didn't know Sean Taylor. And I feel cheated.

We knew him on the field. Football fans knew Taylor as a hellacious hitter, an intimidating physical presence, a guy with a nose for the ball who made interceptions, pounced on fumbles, and occasionally missed a tackle or got caught out of position in coverage. But who was an absolute star presence on the field.

We never knew what kind of guy he really was. He was painted as being a kind of a thug. He was painted as being a little crazy. He played kind of thuggish and crazy. He never talked to the press or the public. But maybe he was just intense and shy.

There must have been something good about the guy, to see so many people so heavily shaken by his loss. Not just the fans. That happens. But the team.

I've seen teams have to play after a teammate dies. I don't know that I've seen a team of grown men play a game, visibly crying. It was there on the first defensive snap, when the defense took the field with ten men, leaving a hole where Sean would have lined up. Throughout the half, tears were visible. Fans. Teammates.

I expected to see that from Clinton Portis. I was a bit more surprised to see Fred Smoot collapsing in puddle and having to be dragged off the field when the team blew the game. And I followed some of the tributes from his funeral.

And I couldn't help feel cheated. And not just because my favorite team just lost the man who was going to be their best player for the next ten years.

I felt cheated because I learned more about the man Sean Taylor was in the four hours after his death than I knew in the four years he played for my team. That he never let us see what his friends and teammates saw in him.

That he never moved to our town. That he never had the ten years that would have turned him into the face of the team; that would have brought that side out of him.

And I feel cheated because sports is the place I turn to escape. Where, no matter how depressing our politics are, society may occasionally be... our team will field invincible heroes and where no matter the drama and battles nobody dies.

And then I remember that Sean Taylor didn't want to be an entertainer, just wanted to play, and I have to think he probably wouldn't have wanted my tears. I didn't know him. And that my sadness is probably more about me than him.

It's disquieting.