Junior Seau’s younger brother Tony dies

The late Junior Seau’s younger brother Tony has died, according to U-T San Diego.

The family told the paper that Tony Seau, 36, died Thursday of an unknown cause.

Junior Seau, a former All-Pro NFL linebacker, took his own life in May 2012 at his Oceanside home. It was later determined that he had a degenerative brain disease.

Tony Seau was a defensive tackle at El Camino High School in Oceanside, and played defense at Palomar College in San Marcos. He also played offensive guard for the North County Cobras, a semi-pro minor league team in Oceanside.

In 2002, when he was a defensive lineman at Eastern Washington University in Spokane, he was shot in the head during an argument at a party involving college students. The university president called it a senseless act of violence.

Seau pleaded guilty in 1993 to attempted murder for his role in a gang-related shooting in Oceanside according to the paper, and he served time at the California Youth Authority.

Junior Seau talked about his younger sibling’s troubles in a January 1995 interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

“It’s not something you sit and you blame,” Junior Seau said. “I tried to set examples and tried to guide him in the right direction. When you do that, they have choices to make. He definitely made a choice and now he has to live with it. All I can do now is just be there for him.”

Tony Seau is survived by his 11-year-old son, Shilo, parents Tiana and Luisa Seau, brothers David and Savaii, and sisters Mary Seau and Annette Seau-So’oto.

His cause of death has not been released. Friends and family on Twitter tweeted that Seau had a heart attack.

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