Junior Seau, playing for the New England Patriots, "had an unremarkable medical history,” the medical examiner said. (Elaine Thompson, Associated Press / ) 
 
 SAN DIEGO — Football star Junior Seau had no alcohol or illicit drugs in his system when he committed suicide, and an initial examination of his brain showed no apparent damage from his years of football, according to the autopsy and toxicology reports released Monday by the San Diego County medical examiner. 
 
 Also, his girlfriend, Megan P. Noderer, told police that Seau, 43, had given no indication he planned to kill himself, according to the investigative narrative attached to the autopsy report. 
 
 When Noderer returned to the home in Oceanside on May 2 after a morning workout at a gymnasium, she found Seau in bed, dead of a gunshot to the chest from a .357 magnum revolver. No note or "documents that were suicidal in nature" were found. The San Diego County medical examiner declared Seau's death a suicide the next day. 
 
 The 6-foot, 3-inch, 275-pound Seau, a star at Oceanside High, USC and the NFL, was taking prescription medicines for orthopedic problems and insomnia, and was under the care of Chargers physician Dr. David Chao, according to the documents. The football star drank only "socially [and] did not smoke, and there was no history of illicit drug use," according to the report. 
 
 Seau "had an unremarkable medical history" and had shown no "suicidal ideation or confirmed suicide attempt," Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Craig Nelson wrote. 
 
 At the request of the Seau family, brain tissue was sent to the National Institutes of Health for more advanced investigation. Brain damage among football players due to concussions has become a controversial issue in the National Football League, where Seau was a star for the San Diego Chargers and other teams. 
 
 Nothing in the autopsy report lists concussions or brain damage as related or contributory to the manner or cause of death. Nor is there anything that suggests the mood changes and irritability often associated with concussions and brain damage. 
 
 In its description of the central nervous system, Nelson wrote that features of the brain were symmetrical, showed no signs of injury or lesions, and that the arteries at the base of the brain "have no atherosclerotic changes or aneurysms." 
 
 The autopsy and toxicology results were released after San Diego news agencies requested them as public documents. Officials at the county medical examiner's office, citing respect for the Seau family, declined to discuss the findings. 
 
 Seau's suicide stunned the public and left many seeking desperately for an explanation. He was widely praised as a local hero, known for his upbeat spirit, charismatic personality and community involvement. 
 
 In the news stories that followed, it was learned that Seau's restaurant in Mission Valley had financial problems; the restaurant has since closed. 
 
 Also, suspicion turned to an incident in October 2010, when Seau drove his sport-utility vehicle off the road and down a steep cliff to the beach. He was hospitalized with minor injuries but denied any suggestion that it was a suicide attempt, asserting instead that he had fallen asleep in the wheel. 
 
 At the autopsy, Dr. Bennet Omalu, an expert in the preservation of brain tissue, was present to ensure that specimens were kept for future study by the National Institutes of Health. 
 
 tony.perry@latimes.com ||||| AP Images 
 
 Oh man: 
 
 
 
 
 
 Junior Seau, regarded as one of the N.F.L.'s best linebackers over a 20-year career with the San Diego Chargers, the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots, died of a gunshot wound to the chest Wednesday at his home in Oceanside, Calif. He was 43. The Oceanside police said Seau's death was being investigated as a suicide. 
 
 He was found by his girlfriend in a bedroom of his beachfront house Wednesday morning, and a handgun was found near the body, the police said. 
 
 
 
 
 
 This comes on the day Jonathan Vilma was suspended for a year. The general sense among a lot of players is that Vilma got a raw deal. What's fairly clear to me is that football and its surrounding apparatus--the players, the big media, the NFL--aren't really ready to think about all that brain injuies might mean. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Perhaps it's too much to expect them too. Malcolm Gladwell puts the responsibility right where it belongs: 
 
 
 
 
 
 Slate: Should the NFL be banned too? 
 
 Gladwell: As long as the risks are explicit, the players warned, and those injured properly compensated, then I'm not sure we can stop people from playing. A better question is whether it is ethical to WATCH football. That's a harder question. 
 
 
 
 
 
 I'm not so sure that it's hard at all. The answer, at least for those displeased with pro football's response, seems pretty clear. Doing the damn thing is the hard part. 
 
 
 
 
 
 I now know that I have to go. I have known it for a while now. But I have yet to walk away. For me, the hardest portion is living apart--destroying something that binds me to friends and family. With people whom I would not pass another words, I can debate the greatest running back of all time. It's like losing a language. 
 
 
 
 
 
 UPDATE: I was just listening to Chris Berman's response to Seau's death : I was just listening to Chris Berman's response to Seau's death in which he said 
 
 
 
 
 
 No one will ever know what happened on the football field that may have caused what happened today. We have no idea.... 
 
 
 
 
 
 I cut it off once Berman started discussing what Seau meant to a defense. I understand. That's his job. But listening to this made me ill. When Berman started in on tactics, I had that old feeling of Lost Causers discussing "tactics" and flanking at Petersburg and Shiloh. 
 
 
 
 
 
 I'm not here to dictate other people's morality. I'm certainly not here to call for banning of the risky activities of consenting adults. And my moral calculus is my own. Surely it is a man's right to endanger his body, and just as it is my right to decline to watch. The actions of everyone in between are not my consideration. 
 
 
 
 
 
 I'm out. ||||| Linebacker Junior Seau all but said that the San Diego Chargers, at a press conference Friday March 14, 2003 at Seau's the restaurant in Mission Valley. — John Gastaldo 
 
  Former Chargers linebacker Junior Seau died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his beachfront home in Oceanside Wednesday. The hometown icon who rose to stardom in the NFL was 43. 
 
 Seau’s girlfriend called 911 at 9:35 a.m. reporting a possible suicide, Police Chief Frank McCoy said. Officers found Seau in a bedroom with a gunshot wound to the chest. Efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. 
 
 A handgun was found near his body, and police are investigating the death as a suicide, McCoy said. No suicide note was found, police said. 
 
 An autopsy is expected to be completed Thursday, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office. 
 
 Hundreds gathered behind police tape around Seau’s two-story home on the south end of The Strand and reflected quietly about the immense impact he had on the community. About 40 to 50 friends and family arrived in waves, hugging one another and crying. 
 
 Seau’s mother, Luisa Seau, sobbed in front of reporters as she cried loudly, “Junior! Why didn’t you tell me you were going?” 
 
 “I don’t understand, I don’t know anything,” his mother said. “I’m shocked. I appreciate everyone, show your love to my son.” 
 
 Junior Seau's mother reacts to death 
 
 One of Seau’s sisters, Annette, asked for privacy for the family. 
 
 “My brother was a loving brother and a caring citizen,” she said. 
 
 As the medical examiner’s van carrying Seau’s body pulled away from the home about 1:20 p.m., supporters had to hold back his mother as she started running after it. Other mourners sobbed as the van passed, and one knelt down to pray. 
 
 Flowers and tributes began to pile up nearby as family and friends struggled to explain a motivation for Seau’s suicide. 
 
 On Monday, he appeared to be in high spirits at the Tim Brown celebrity golf tournament in Dana Point, said California Highway Patrol Officer Jim Bettencourt. He said Seau stopped by the CHP’s booth that afternoon on the 11th hole and traded jokes and laughs with the officers. 
 
 His ex-wife, Gina Seau, of Fairbanks Ranch, said that on Tuesday he texted her and each of their three children separate messages: “I love you.” 
 
 “We’re all in shock,” she said. “We’re beyond sad and beyond shocked. The kids and I are just huddled together at home. There is no way to make sense of this. “I hope and pray everyone remembers what a wonderful man he was.” 
 
 Chargers President Dean Spanos said in a statement: “We all lost a friend today. Junior was an icon in our community. He transcended the game. He wasn’t just a football player, he was so much more.” 
 
 Other accolades poured in from around the county. 
 
 “Junior Seau was one of the most electrifying athletes in San Diego sports history,” San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said. “He was a passionate figure who gave the game of football — and Chargers’ fans everywhere — everything he had.” 
 
 U-T San Diego had been working this week with Seau for a planned feature on his philanthropy. On Tuesday morning, he canceled an afternoon photo shoot, saying he didn’t feel well.
– The medical examiner in San Diego confirmed today that Junior Seau committed suicide with a gunshot to the chest, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. The family has not decided yet whether to donate his brain to researchers to see if he suffered damage from football. Seau's former wife told the AP that he sustained concussions as a player, but she didn't know whether they contributed to his death. The suicide, though, is enough for Ta-Nehisi Coates to call it quits as a longtime football fan. "I'm not here to dictate other people's morality," he writes in the Atlantic. "I'm certainly not here to call for banning of the risky activities of consenting adults." But he says it's clear that football isn't ready to confront what's happening to its players. "I'm out." (Click to read another writer's view that this could become a common refrain.)