Underwood pops bubble as nation turns head

The Michigan Daily/September 30, 1999
By Josh Kleinbaum

A stadium shuts its doors after 88 years. A football team shuts down one of the nation's top rushers, staying undefeated and keeping its national title hopes alive. A baseball team dashes the hopes of its fans with a late-season collapse of Titanic proportions. In the midst of all this, something has slipped through the sports world much too quietly. Dimitrius Underwood attempted suicide.

The former Michigan State defensive end took a kitchen knife to his throat and slashed. He now lies in a Lansing hospital, about as far as you can get from Miami, where he should be practicing football with the Dolphins.

Apocalypse Now

We live in a bubble that is known as the sports world. We watch people win and lose, we create memories that will last forever, we cheer and we boo people we've never met before. We give our hearts for a team, a school, a city. But we do it all within the comfort of the bubble.

Occasionally, the bubble pops. It did on Sunday.

Underwood is 22 years old. Just five months ago, he was a college student. Drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, he opted for religion over football. The Vikings released him, the Dolphins picked up his rights and Jimmy Johnson convinced the young man to give football another shot.

He now lies in a Lansing hospital.

His former coach at Michigan State, Nick Saban, said he's always been a strange one. There have always been problems with Underwood, Saban said.

But we didn't see it. Not in the comfort of the bubble. Instead, we worried about what he could do to get to the quarterback quicker, what he could do to stop the run, when his ankle would get healthy again so he could play again. But did anyone really care about him?

There have been signs that something was wrong over the past few months. He entered the NFL draft after his junior year at Michigan State, then, when drafted, said he wasn't going to play football. Why enter the draft at all? People laughed at him. No one took him seriously.

He said it was for religion, and his mother has called his church, Immanuel's Temple Community Church in Lansing, a cult.

He now lies in a Lansing hospital, and no one really knows why.

He was arrested this past weekend for refusing to pay child support. At some point after the arrest, he went to the house of his ex-girlfriend and daughter. The next time he was seen, he was wandering down the street, seven blocks in all, blood rushing from his throat.

Did football drive Underwood to this? Doubtful, but it probably contributed.

Football, like any sport, is a game, and sometimes we lose sight of that. It's supposed to be fun - for both the fans and the players.

When athletes lose sight of this, the bubble pops, sending a jolt through the sports world.

Latrell Sprewell chokes his coach. Pop!

Roberto Alomar spits on an umpire. Pop!

Tonya Harding, jealous of Nancy Kerrigan, has someone take out her rival's knee. Pop, pop, pop!

So what can we do? How can we prevent the bubble from popping? Should there be a bubble at all?

The bubble is a result of hero worship. An athlete can do something that we can't. They can run faster, throw harder or hit farther than we can. They can move with the grace of a ballerina, and they can crush with the force of a Mack truck. We, as sports fans, live vicariously through them. Somewhere along the way, we start considering them role models.

We're so concerned with what their bodies are doing, we don't even think about what's going inside their heads.

Dimitrius Underwood now lies in a Lansing hospital. He is finally getting the help that he needs. It shouldn't have taken a kitchen knife to get that help.

Let's learn from his example. Let's make sure the bubble doesn't pop again. Let's start by popping the bubble ourselves.