Taylor's Death Is Tragic but Not Surprising

My colleague, Post columnist and ESPN broadcaster Michael Wilbon was asked about Taylor during his weekly internet web site discussion Monday and said, "I've known guys like Taylor all my life, grew up with some. They still have shades of gray and shouldn't be painted in black and white.

"I know how I feel about Taylor, and this latest news isn't surprising in the least, not to me. Whether this incident is or isn't random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. He ain't the first and won't be the last. We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later. It's sad, yes, but hardly surprising."

In the wake of his shooting, we are now hearing about a so-called new Sean Taylor, a guy who seemed to be getting his life back in order, perhaps because of the birth of his child. Maybe a light bulb finally went off in his head. He was even enjoying arguably the best season of his career until he was derailed by a knee injury two weeks ago.

After a loss to Dallas two weeks ago, everyone around here, and in the Redskins locker room, was saying there was no way Terrell Owens would have caught four touchdown passes if Taylor had been patrolling the middle of the field, prepared to pounce and pound the yappy receiver any chance he got.

And on Monday, a stream of Redskins players and coaches were paraded in front of the cameras and microphones at Redskins Park to testify that Taylor had truly turned his life around for the better.

"The man changed his life," said running back Clinton Portis, his best friend and a former Miami teammate. "That man changed his mentality, changed his attitude. He came to work with a defined happiness."

But now, Sean Taylor will never come to work again. Never mind the impact of his loss on the football team, the last thing anyone ought to be thinking about at the moment. Instead, we need to focus on why this unspeakable tragedy happened and how we can keep it from happening to so many other young men soon to be attending rookie symposiums of their own.

If everything we're hearing about his life turnaround is true, surely Taylor would have been a marvelous speaker to show up at the 2008 session this spring. Maybe this time, when the man off stage shouts "FREEZE!!!!" everyone in the room will be thinking about truth, and consequences and surely paying a lot more attention.

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at badgerlen@hotmail.com or badgerlen@aol.com.