Right in the middle of the Cowboys/Seahawks exciting finish, mere minutes before Tony Romo would go on to place himself in the undeniable history of sports immortality, an entire family was feeling the miserable enduring effects of mortality.As the Daily Breeze told it first in their paper,

“The body of a man found at the bottom of the Point Fermin Park cliffs in San Pedro late Saturday was confirmed by family members to be that of standout USC kicker Mario Danelo.”

His father, Joe Danelo, a former NFL kicker, was on the scene as the body was strapped onto a gurney and,

“He asked fire officials if the body had a shaved head and was told that he was wearing a beanie and then added, a USC sweatshirt.”

In speaking with Danelo’s former teammate at USC and current Raiders LB, Darnell Bing had this to say about Mario on Fox Sports Radio:

“When you see Mario you always have a smile on your face because you see a smile on his face.  He always brought that light and that joy to you.  He was a nice young man.  I actually think it’s going to mess up the whole SC family, I believe, because that was a good kid.”

There are already 13 facebook groups in his memory with well over 2,100 people having joined them.   

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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 7th, 2007 and is filed under College Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.