R.I.P. Sean Taylor

Taylor was a 1st-round pick in 2004.
Credit: Yahoo! Sports

I was saddened yesterday during an airing of ESPN's PTI, to hear the breaking news that Washington Redskins All-Pro safety Sean Taylor had been wounded by a gunshot to his femoral artery. While encouraging signs had begun to develop late last night, including Taylor reportedly waking and responding to doctors following an extensive seven-hour surgery, Taylor passed away this morning.

He was 24.

While memories of names like Drazen Petrovic, Korey Stringer, Patrick Dennehy, Jerome Brown, Reggie Lewis, and countless others will once again be evoked today and for the coming weeks, today is about the passing of a 24-year-old father, not just a football player.

While his past may have been checkered, including a DUI arest and an off-field incident involving armed assault, Taylor was no bad apple.

While he played with reckless abandon on the field, which led to a nickname of "meast" (half man/half beast), reports had surfaced as of late that Taylor had begun to turn his life around. He was beloved by the entire Redskins nation and was enjoying perhaps his finest NFL season, his fourth, in 2007.

Sadly, he leaves behind a young girlfriend and their one-year old child. The same child who slept in the room in which Taylor was fatally wounded following an apparent break-in and attempted robbery.

While the specific details can be left to the appropriate news media outlets (take your pick: CNNSI, ESPN, Yahoo!), we here at PHSports would all like to give our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and community, including the Washington Redskins, who mourn the passing of a man. Clearly, sports must take a backseat during such tragedies.

In the coming weeks, as more details may surface, unrelated banter and debate may sadly engulf this story. Whether it be related to the continued violence surrounding the University and city of Miami, the violence in professional sports or the recent upswing in crime against athletes is irrelevant.

All that truly matters right now is that a family must bury its son, its brother, and its father. Nobody should have to face such an atrocity. Never.

Most of us only knew Sean Taylor as a football player. However, that hardly tells the complete story of a man whose life was taken at far too young of an age. Unfortunately, his death may define him more than any accomplishment he had in life.

All we can do now is mourn his passing and hope that in the future we are spared from such sorrowful events.

"His father called and said he was with Christ and he cried and thanked me," said Richard Sharpstein, Taylor's former lawyer. "It's a tremendously sad and unnecessary event. He was a wonderful, humble, talented young man, and had a huge life in front of him. Obviously God had other plans."

I can't think of any fonder words to remember Taylor and his untimely passing than these:
Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life. ~Albert Einstein