They say every athlete dies twice.   For Alexander Douglas [Douglas?] Smith, this is the first of three.

First comes the death of Alex Smith the name.   The name of a famous person, after all, is more than just a name. Montana.  Rice.  Lott.   These are names that carry with them the emotions and memories of an entire era.  Names that unite both friends and strangers with a common passion.  It's not jerry rice, but HALL OF FAMER JERRY RICE, the vowels bellowing from the pit of your stomach, the consonants burnished with spit and FFFFF and drool.  Alex Smith once had such a name. 

Now Alex Smith is the name of a bust, the kind that hurts to say and tastes just as funny going down.  J.T. O'Sullivan represents not so much his own success but Smith's failure, the death of potential, of Alex Smith Superstar.  It is a death in name only, because he's STILL HERE, looming over your shoulder holding a bag of money and a clipboard.  

From this point on the very sight of this name will cause you to rage.  You can no longer even repeat it without finishing with a long, obligatory groan.   You start to rehash the past three years, the $49.5 million, your mind stuck in a neverending rollout to the right followed by a hurried toss in the dirt.   Suddenly you are overwhelmed with the urge to break something. 

Now imagine if that name was yours. 

Imagine if you walk into a bar and everyone recognizes you.  Things would be different if you were Steve Young, hell, if you were Jeff Garcia, but you're Alex (groan) Smith, and you have just died for the second time.   With retirement there is no longer a chance for redemption.  Your name is carved on the obelisk of sports failure, under Shuler, Couch, and Leaf.  You are rich beyond your wildest dreams but the money cannot protect you from your own shame.  Worse yet the money is the reason they resent you.  It doesn't matter that you were capitalizing on market conditions, that any of these fools would gladly suck your dick for a million dollars.   You represent their crushed hopes and dreams.  It is THEIR money that THEY paid with TIME and FOAM FINGERS and RAGE and DEVOTION.  It is blood money, and you are the reason why they are so miserable.

You see one of the drunks reach for a bottle.

Dissent is the seed of violence.  Everywhere you go, the mob is waiting.  HEY AREN'T YOU THAT TERRIBLE QUARTERBACK?   WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE BEEN AARON RODGERS?   I SPENT MY ALLOWANCE ON THIS WORTHLESS JERSEY.   The words echo in your head.  Loser.  Fraud.  You try to tell them you did your best, that one glorious season you threw just as many touchdowns as you did interceptions, SIXTEEN of them in fact, but there's no reasoning with lunatics.  They want your bobblehead on a stick.  To burn you in effigy.

The pocket's collapsing.  Your knees buckle.  Your feet start to quaver.  Instinct tells you to run to the right like you always have, run right to the sweet safety of the sideline, but they follow you out into the street.  You see a police car patrolling by.  If only you could get its attention.   You pick up a rock and throw it as hard as you can, but it skips inconspicuously behind the rear bumper.  Damnit.  If only it wasn't moving.  Now it's too late.  You feel the hot breath of the mob flush the nape of your neck.

You turn around.

As the bottle cracks down on your skull, as the blood cascades from the hole on your face, your mind drifts toward your happy place.   In your dreams you are Tom Rathman.   You're not the richest man, you're not the biggest name, but you are respected.  You go out on the town just to show off your Super Bowl rings.  People rave about the good ol' days, your days, when you were a man's man, a ladies man, a man of the gridiron.  A football man.  Some come with pens and thank yous and handshakes, others stand awestruck in the background just to soak in your indomitable aura.  Children flock, chicks dote because everyone recognizes a winner.   In your dreams you are beloved.  You don't pay for adulation, you don't pay sex.   You're on national TV, taking pot shots at Dan Marino instead of hanging out with Tony Eason. 

And as the light fades from your eyes, you embrace your third and final death.  While your career may be history and your corpse belongs to the vultures, in your delusion you will live on.  On the back of jerseys, in black and white photographs, on the inebriated breath of an old fan, there it lies.  Alexander Douglas Rathman.  Fullback.  A name that will never die.