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Showing posts with the label Seau's

Tragedy strikes San Diego Charges again

Once again the phones started to ring, former San Diego Chargers from the franchise's lone Super Bowl team calling each other and digesting the news that another one of them was gone. With word that Junior Seau died Wednesday, the number of Chargers who played in the Super Bowl on Jan. 29, 1995, and are now dead, is eight. Eight in 18 years; too many in too little time. The subject is one I discussed, somewhat uncomfortably, with several of the former Chargers in 2008. This wasn't long after Chris Mims, their gregarious defensive end, was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment. Five had died back then. And that seemed like a lot.   I called a professor of actuarial science at the University of Wisconsin to see if she could put number on five men from a 53-man roster – all in their 20s and 30s – dying in so short a time. She said the odds were less than 1 percent.In the resulting story that ran in The Washington Post, many former players and coaches talked abo...