Football season is over

When the late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson killed himself almost exactly five years ago (February 20, 2005), he entitled his suicide note, "Football Season is Over."   Although the famed writer was obviously in an extremely depressed state that led him to end his life at the age of 67, the fact that the hardcore football enthusiast had mentioned in his last written statement that there would be no more games for 8 more months was not insignificant, as Rolling Stone magazine noted when they published the note later that year:

February was always the cruelest month for Hunter S. Thompson. An avid NFL fan, Hunter traditionally embraced the Super Bowl in January as the high-water mark of his year. February, by contrast, was doldrums time. Nothing but monstrous blizzards, bad colds and the lackluster Denver Nuggets. This past February, with his health failing, Hunter was even more glum than usual. "This child's getting old," he muttered with stark regularity, an old-timey refrain that mountainmen used to utter when their trailblazing days were over. Depressed and in physical pain from hip-replacement surgery, he started talking openly about suicide, polishing his .45-caliber pistol, his weapon of choice. He was trying to muster the courage to end it all.

Then, on February 16th, Hunter decided to leave a goodbye note. Scrawled in black marker, it was appropriately titled "Football Season Is Over."

This article appears in Feb 3-9, 2010.