Korey Stringer's impact on Randy Moss

[dead_poet]

Interesting. I guess I never knew this (or recall seeing Moss lose it).

welve years ago today, Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Kory Stringer died of complications from heat stroke. His death is no less stunning now than it was then, and each year it provides us an unfortunate opportunity to remind the thousands of football players across the country that heat stroke is real, it's deadly and it's now entirely preventable.

Here is a link to a comprehensive guide to heat safety from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Make sure you read all three pages.): http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/extreme ... _guide.asp

On a related note, I thought I would pass along a relevant excerpt from a new book published by former Vikings receiver Cris Carter and ESPN's Jeffri Chadiha. In it, they suggest that Stringer's death -- and the subsequent legal fallout -- was the original spark for Randy Moss' distrust of the team's authority figures. (The portion of the passage in quotes is attributed to an interview with former Vikings defensive end Lance Johnstone.)

Randy's bond with Kory made it all the more difficult when Kelci [Stringer] filed a $100 million lawsuit against the Vikings for not doing enough to prevent her husband's death (that suit started a long legal battle that ended in 2009, when the NFL reached a settlement with Kelci). "Randy has never told me this, but I believe that entire situation affected how he looked at management," Johnstone said. "He started to put up a wall at that point. Korey was Randy's best friend on the team and a lot of things were said after he passed. It was alleged that the Vikings could've done better when he started complaining about his [health] problems, and I know his wife wasn't happy about how the team responded after his death. Randy wound up in that camp as far as fighting the team."

My own sense of Moss' makeup is that if it weren't Stringer's death, he would have found personal affront in something else in the team's operation. But anyone who witnessed Moss bawling on national television the morning of Aug. 1, 2001, knows how profoundly Stringer's death impacted him.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_ ... randy-moss

[losperros]

Thanks for the link. Stringer's death was shocking. I still remember how stunned I felt when I first learned about it. I hope the NFL never sees that happen to another player. Very, very sad.

I remember Moss breaking down during an interview with he and Cris Carter regarding Stringer's death. It was obvious that Moss was absolutely grief-stricken. Carter tried to carry the rest of the interview himself.

[Mercy Percy]

Watching Randy break down like that gave me chills... so sad.

[jackal]

Moss was maybe the most physically gifted
reciever to play the game... It will be interesting
To see how history judges him. I think some of his
Comments like I will play when I want to will keep
Out of the hall of fame

[Funkytown]

Out of the Hall? I think his play cancels out his mouth. Well, it used to. By the time it's time for all that, hopefully people will remember him for the athlete he was--and not that immature man we sometimes think of.

[Mothman]

Out of the Hall? I think his play cancels out his mouth. Well, it used to. By the time it's time for all that, hopefully people will remember him for the athlete he was--and not that immature man we sometimes think of.

He'll get in the Hall of Fame. If his attitude and off-the-field issues have an impact, it may be that they'll keep him from getting in on the first ballot but even that would be a little surprising.

[Funkytown]

He'll get in the Hall of Fame. If his attitude and off-the-field issues have an impact, it may be that they'll keep him from getting in on the first ballot but even that would be a little surprising.

True story. That sums up how I feel about it.

[headless_norseman]

ESPN has a good insightful article on Randy, and it seems this thread was the best one to post it in instead of starting a whole new thread.


Excerpted from "Going Deep" by Cris Carter. Copyright © 2013 by CC80 Enterprises, Inc. Published by Hyperion. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 9: Randy, T.O., and the Points of No Return

I always tell people the same thing when they bring up my four seasons with Randy Moss: I never saw him play bad football during the time we spent as teammates. He kept himself in tremendous shape. He devoted himself to improving his craft every year. He also never stopped producing jaw-dropping numbers or game-changing plays.

What I did notice after Randy's spectacular rookie season was a shift in how he conducted himself. Case in point: An NFC divisional playoff game held in January 2000, the end of his second year. We were playing the Rams in St. Louis and everybody expected an exciting contest. We still had most of the key components from an offense that set a league record for points scored a year earlier. The Rams were doing amazing things of their own during that 1999 season, so much so that their aerial attack had been dubbed "the Greatest Show on Turf."

The game didn't disappoint, either. They hit us with a couple of long touchdown passes to go up 14-3 in the first quarter. We came back with two scores of our own to lead 17-14 at halftime. After that, the game got away from us, with the Rams building a 35-17 lead heading into the fourth quarter. That's when frustration got the best of Randy.

Randy was already on his way to a monster game -- he would finish with 9 receptions for 188 yards and 2 touchdowns -- but he kept complaining that the Rams defensive backs were holding him. Since the officials never threw any flags in those situations, Randy's anger simmered as the game went on. Then, after a pass play in the fourth quarter, Randy jogged to the sideline to take a break. I knew he was tired because he'd been running long routes all game. I just didn't realize he'd reached his limit.

As Randy sipped on a water bottle, he noticed one of the officials sprinting by him on the field. Instead of simply accepting that he was having one of those days, Randy took things a step further: He pointed the water bottle at the official and squirted it at him. Randy did it so quickly that most people probably didn't even see it happen initially.

More: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/95105 ... -receivers

[HardcoreVikesFan]

I was all but of 9 when Korey died. I remember crying though. I couldn't stand watching Randy cry on TV. Cris looked like he had been punched in the gut.

[NextQuestion]

water bottle thing was hilarious.