I've Been Transfixed...

with this entire Sean Taylor story. I'm not really a football fan. Really, I'm not a any kind of sports fan. I watch them, but that is about it. But since the story broke about the Redskin's Safety being shot and then later dying of his injuries; from an apparent burglary gone bad scenario, I just can't seem to get enough news about the whole thing.

Maybe, it is all of the out-pouring from the fans. Or, the fact that I live in the Washington, DC area, so I see & read the news. I mean, I will sadly admit that a young black man getting shot and killed is not really news to me. I mean hundreds of them die everyday. They die at the hands of other men, they die by the hands of the state, they get killed fighting in wars, they die in car crashes, they die from disease. Black men do death well.

But this Sean Taylor thing...he is different. It isn't his age (he's 24), that he had a family (a one year old daughter), it wasn't that he had issues with the law (not unusual, in my book). He made millions playing professional football. He was good at it. He was getting married (to the mother of his daughter). He was going back to school. He died defending his home. Maybe that is it. Maybe it is that he died doing something honorable - defending the home and family that he created with his own hard work. Yeah, that is what is tripping me out.

I was watching Jim Brown's report on NFL Today last Sunday. He was talking to a few of the players that seemed to know Sean the best. The players all talked about how the press had treated Sean unfairly in his death by referring to his criminal past. They were complaining that the insinuations that Sean's criminal past perhaps contributed to his death wasn't right. They attempted to paint Sean better. They talked about how he had matured. They talked about how he had become a man in the months before his death. They talked about his humbled demeanor. How he had let a $500,000 truck (a gift from someone) sit not driven for over a year in his parking space at the Redskin's workout facility. They did all the things that love ones do when they have lost someone they love. They recall the best. They recall the good. They recall the honorable. They try to get out the magnitude of the pain they feel. They try to comprehend what is incomprehensible.

During that interview, I heard Clinton Portis (in response to the negative press coverage and in defense of his slain team mate) utter 10 words that has left me speechless and deep in reflection. He asked, "What does the past have to do with right now?"

I wonder if someone should tell Clinton that the answer to his question is: everything.