Another middle-aged former NFL player committed suicide on Wednesday. His name was Lawrence Phillips, and he was found unresponsive in his cell at Kern Valley State Prison in California. He was taken to a local hospital and died soon after. It was a long way from college-football stardom and NFL dreams, and could have perhaps been prevented if only someone had taken a moment to give a damn, not only before but after his incarceration.
Lawrence Phillips started his life as a target of constant physical abuse by the men in his mother’s life. In the words of a former teammate, he “went to school in sixth grade and never came back.” Phillips was shuffled through group homes before his football skills got him plucked out of poverty. Then, when off-field issues outpaced his on-field production on the NFL’s ledger sheet, he was cast aside.
The one-time Cornhuskers star was serving 31 years for driving his car into three teenagers and assaulting an ex-girlfriend. It was the latest in a long, ugly, and almost certainly under-documented history of violence against women. This was learned behavior. Phillips mother was repeatedly beaten, battered, and abused. In the words of a teammate, he grew up “seeing things no child should see.” Before his 12th birthday, Phillips was knocked unconscious by a man she was seeing while trying to defend her. As his former teammate said, “He was a hurt person. And hurt people… hurt people.”
[For more of this story, written by Dave Zirin, go to https://www.thenation.com/arti...d-lawrence-phillips/]
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