Sunday YouTube: Garrison Hearst 96 yard TD run to beat the Jets

*Do

The guy was an absolute monster on the field. He was also an outspoken verbal team leader and locker room hero that acted like an extra coach – even (and especially) when he was injured.

It pisses me off when people call him “injury prone” – for several reasons. A) I don’t think that such a thing exists. There are players who play through injury and there are players who allow little nagging things to keep them off the field. G never let any tiny little thing keep him from playing. B) The idea that some players are simply more “fragile” than others is (for the most part) bunk. Hearst’s big injuries were freak accidents and they were things that would have destroyed the limbs and joints of cast-iron frame robots. If anything, the fact that G had one of the most impressive seasons I’ve ever seen a RB put up in 1998 (over 2,000 total yards as the focal point of a stellar 49ers offense) on re-built knees should show you that the guy was less “fragile” than most human beings. And then to come back after two years out of the league from the ankle injury – where doctors described his bone as having “the consistency of jello” – to carry the 49ers back into the playoffs is just a testament to his toughness and importance to that team.

why you believe that Hearst is THAT much better than Gore

I realize that a lot of this is emotional entanglement, and I’m totally okay with that. In G, I saw a beast – a guy who ran as low and quick as Barry while going as hard and ruthless as Jim Brown. I’m not trying to go out and say that G was worlds better than Frank (though I do believe that he was, indeed, the better back) – just that If I were building a team, I’d have him on my board a hell of a lot higher than Frank – who I also have a lot of love for.

huh?

I too remember being pretty disappointed when I heard him say that, but I’ve kind of pushed that memory aside and I have a very positive memory of Hearst overall.

Haha, I was being sarcastic. I love Hearst as a player almost as much as say, Steve Young. These days, I tend not to worry about that off-color comment he made in the locker room.

He wouldn’t know a duck when he saw one. What he was basing his opinion on was never established. Total here say. Nothing is surprising these days, but Garcia married a Playboy Playmate (burning hot I must say) for crying out loud. I’d be very hard pressed to believe he’s gay.

I remember rumors about him when he played for the Steelers.

but he came out after he stopped playing.

I’m sure there are plenty of gay professional athletes. It’s statistically impossible to have 0 gay men in the NFL. There are 1696 players in the NFL in any given season (that’s the 53 man roster), plus another 256 on the practice squad, plus dozens brought in as players are cut or go on IR.

I think that 2000 players over the course of an NFL season is not an unreasonable guess. 1.7% of male members of the Armed Forces are gay. At a minimum you should see 1% of men in the NFL being gay, or 20-25.

There’s not a single one who’s come forward while playing and only a couple after they were done.