America at Large: Eyes the shady night has shut, Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears. AE Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young
I didn't know Thomas Herrion, couldn't have picked him out of a one-man line-up. It seems unlikely I'd ever have met him, but over the years I've known hundreds of young fellows who shared his station in life.
When the San Francisco 49ers announced their latest round of roster cuts on Tuesday, the odds are, had he still been alive, Herrion's name would have been on the list of those released, and he would have faded into football oblivion.
He didn't know that, of course. All he knew is that last Saturday night in Denver he'd anchored the left-guard position on a 14-play drive that had produced a touchdown and a come-from-behind 26-21 victory for the 49ers over the Broncos.
It was a meaningless pre-season game, but for a kid like Herrion it was, quite literally, a critical audition. When he trotted off the field he huffed up to his coach and asked, with a grin, "How'd I do?" Seconds later the game was over. On his way to the locker-room Herrion exchanged pleasantries with the Broncos' Aaron Hunt, who had been his team-mate last spring when both played in Europe for the Hamburg Sea Devils.
"He said, 'I don't see how you can play in this altitude,' " Hunt recalled. "He said he had played at Utah, but in that last drive, the altitude was killing him." The altitude might not have killed him, but something did.
In the locker-room, the 49ers huddled around coach Mike Nolan for a post-game prayer. They were still praying when Herrion perched on one knee, toppled over and lost consciousness. By the time they got him to hospital he was dead.
He was 23, even by NFL standards a baby.
Autopsy results were inconclusive (a toxicology report won't be completed for a few weeks). In the absence of hard medical facts, people have leapt into the debate feet-first. The most popular theory questions the NFL's tendency to place a premium on bulk over skill, particularly at grunt positions like Herrion's.
A quarter-century ago no more than 10 players in the entire league weighed as much as 300lb. Today there are hundreds of them. At 6ft 3in and 330lb, Herrion was an average-sized lineman, which, some contend, is troubling in itself.
Three years ago the fitness guru Mackie Shilstone predicted, "In the next three to five years, I hate to say it, but you're going to see a lineman that may stroke on the field in a game before a national audience."
At least half a dozen sports columnists-turned medical experts weighed in on Herrion's demise by blasting away with fat-guy columns.
"Grace is gone, being squeezed out by girth," wrote Mark Kizla in the Denver Post. "In the Supersize-Me Generation, size matters far too much. May the best man win? Fat chance."
Two days after Herrion's death, commissioner Paul Tagliabue said,"It's a time we have to be reflective and try to sort out what happened . . . and we've been doing that and working closely with the medical authorities and team physicians to see if the cause of this player's death can be ascertained."
Herrion is the NFL's first football-related fatality since Minnesota Vikings tackle Korey Stringer was killed by a heat stroke at training in 2001, though an Arena League player named Al Lucas died when his spinal cord was severed as he made a tackle in a game earlier this year.
We still don't know what killed Thomas Herrion, but because of his untimely death we know a bit more about him than we might have had he simply disappeared with the latest round of roster cuts.
He played his college football at Utah, and while he wasn't drafted by any NFL teams he spent last year on the practice squads of the Dallas Cowboys and the 49ers before taking his trade to Europe last spring.
Team-mates say he smiled a lot and owned an enviably large collection of CDs. Nolan also recounted a recent episode that shed some light on his personality.
Veteran players took advantage of a lull before a team meeting for a bit of rookie hazing and ordered Alex Smith, the quarterback who had been the NFL's number-one draft choice last April, to stand at the podium and sing his college fight song. When Smith nervously obliged, Herrion eased his discomfort by bounding up to join him onstage in singing the Utah anthem.
When a player doesn't get on the field until the 57th minute of a 60-minute pre-season game you'd have to say that his chances of making the team are pretty minimal, but Herrion did his best to make the most of his moment in the spotlight.
Assuming possession with 2:28 to play, the 49ers drove 91 yards in 16 plays, two of which were nullified by penalties - including one on Herrion, who reached out to retard the progress of a blitzing Broncos cornerback and grabbed him by the face mask - before quarterback Cody Pickett scored the game-winning touchdown.
Herrion gasped some oxygen following the drive, but so did a lot of his team-mates. He also asked McIntyre about his performance.
"He was working hard and doing all the right things," recalled McIntyre. "I think he just wanted to get a little reassurance that he was doing all right."
Some play in search of fame, others for money. Thomas Herrion's motivation in wanting to play for the 49ers was simple. A week before his death he had boasted to a reporter, "I'm going to make this team so I can buy my mom a house."
The finger-pointing has only begun, but it strikes us that the real issue - no, the only issue - should be whether this latest tragedy was preventable, and if so, what might be done to prevent it happening to somebody else.
