Junior Seau’s Family Will Not Be Allowed To Speak At His HOF Induction

With Junior Seau being inducted into the Pro Football Hall-Of-Fame, you’d expect someone close to him giving a speech in his honor. However, with Seau’s final years marred with depression, suicide, and a diagnosis of CTE, that might be uncomfortable for the NFL, especially since his family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit. But no worries for Rog: the Seaus just found out the Hall won’t allow family members to speak at the ceremony. This is extremely disappointing for his daughter, Sydney, who says her dad asked her to introduce him if he ever got in:

“It’s frustrating because the induction is for my father and for the other players, but then to not be able to speak, it’s painful,” Sydney said. “I just want to give the speech he would have given. It wasn’t going to be about this mess. My speech was solely about him.”

The hall will instead run a five minute video with clips from a previous Sydney Seau interview. According to C. David Baker, executive director of the Hall, “Our mission is to honor the heroes of the game and Junior is a hero of the game. We’re going to celebrate his life, not the death and other issues.”

Read more at The New York Times.