Agent to Seahawks' Griffin Twins Loses Both Parents to COVID-19
The coronavirus outbreak struck close to home for several current and former Seahawks on Tuesday when Buddy Baker, an NFL agent who represents Shaquem and Shaquill Griffin as well as retired receiver Doug Baldwin, announced both of his parents had passed away due to COVID-19.
Baker took to Twitter to announce the heartbreaking tragedy with the message, "In loving memory of my mom and dad, please make the tough and right choice and help stop the spreading of this virus."
"We usually look for a positive thing to be an inspiration," Baker said. "We hope that happened to us, and our family inspires others to start needing and unifying with each other to make the right choice and the challenging choice.
"It's going to take all of us getting together and deciding we're going to stop the spread of this virus."
The president and CEO of Exclusive Sports Group, LLC, based out of Indianapolis, Baker revealed that his parents had been married 51 years and died of complications from the virus over the weekend, according to Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times.
“They passed away six minutes apart,” he said in a video accompanying his tweet. “Just a few weeks ago, they were in perfect health."
Baker hopes going public with the news will make people aware that anyone is susceptible to catching or being affected by the virus. He believes many are still not grasping the severity of the situation.
“I’m not sure everyone really understands the importance of it,” Baker said, referring to government recommendations to stay at home. “Hopefully, this can be a catalyst for some change [to] practice social distancing, wash your hands as regularly as you can and importantly, stay at home, this is an opportunity which was very bad and tragic to my family to prevent someone else’s.”
After learning of the news, Baldwin tweeted, "My agent and friend lost both of his parents to COVID-19 two days ago. He has an important message for all of us."
Our thoughts and prayers are with the Baker family as they navigate through these challenging times.
