INJURIES

 Injuries
Injuries are terrible no matter what school you go to. But going to a school where the miracle cure to anything short of a compound fracture is “ice, stem, and ibuprofen three times a day” to say the least is getting the short end of the stick. Our head trainer, I won’t mention Ricky’s full name....Mr. Mendini is a very knowledgeable guy, he just is never in his office, never answers his phones, acts like it costs ‘him’ a fortune to send a player to the doctor, and always thinks that people are faking injuries. I will be the first to say “quit being a sissy la la”, but when someone could be seriously hurt…why take a chance? It is zero skin off of his back.
I haven’t made it through a season yet without getting hurt in some way or another. I know now that I cursed myself my senior year. My dad told me I should play baseball instead of football because all I would do is get hurt playing football. I just laughed at him and said “Shit Smurf…you can’t hurt this.” The Football God’s have rained on my parade every season since.
Freshman year- Reconstructive shoulder surgery/ scapula, rotator cuff, coracoid process, interior/anterior labrum
Sophomore year- Tore Hamstring
Junior year- Fractured Medial Malleolus
Senior year- Cross your fingers
My freshman year started out with a bang. I was absolutely loving my life, I was the wedge breaker on kickoff, and I was the middle man on the wedge on kickoff return. I only played a couple of plays every game and every practice but I was on cloud nine. If we scored, I got to run full speed (which is not very fast), and hit someone who outweighed me by a hundred pounds, who was running faster than me. Then if they scored, I got to be the middle guy on the wedge ( I replaced a 300+ pound guy for this job), and block a guy who had the job to try and blow my guts out of my spine. I always got nervous as hell for this job. I was worried about missing my block and someone destroying Nick Miller. I could just see it on the headlines “Miller suffers career ending injury due to Arnold’s missed block of the century”. Taking on two jobs like this is not a matter of “if” you are going to get hurt but “when” you are going to get hurt.
When I broke my shoulder it was the worst feeling in my life. The whistle blew, Pulver raised his hand, the ball is kicked. I am running I read the return, it is a 34 right, a four man wedge right at me. I think to myself cross face, take two for one. Then there is a crack twice as loud as any bull whip, going off in my head. Pain shot through me, it was like bolts of lightning cursing through my veins. I couldn’t see I couldn’t hear. It was like I was watching myself in a movie. I tried to push myself off the field. Another burst of lightning rushes to my brain just to erupt and fill my vision with stars of pain. I could hear VanLamb screaming “Good job Brady, Get up!” I got up…I can’t feel my fingers. I went and found Hick’s, I knew she wouldn’t tell Ena that I couldn’t play. My shoulder was dislocated. She sets it. And the next thing I know I hear the whistle, I see Pulver raise his arm, and the ball is kicked. I am running down the field my right arm won’t work, it is just dangling there. I read the return it’s a 34 right, a four man wedge right at me. I think to myself use your left shoulder, cross face, take two for one. No lightning, no bursts of pain, it is beyond this point, I feel nothing, I see nothing, and I hear nothing. Halftime, the pain hits me like Paul Bunyan swinging a sledge hammer into my forehead. Mr. Mendini tells me I just separated my AC joint, he gives me his miracle cure and sends me home. Applebee’s is a disaster. I throw up the whole meal because I am coming out of shock. I threw up three more times in the middle of the night from the pain. The next Thursday Ricky gets me an X-ray after slowing my recover by six months from the workouts he had me doing, the movements were cutting my ligaments with the 9mm fracture (nine dimes wide). I now have two, two inch screws through my shoulder blade.

after surgery

size of my break

The next year I pulled my hamstring running the conditioning test the first day of camp. The conditioning test consisted of a 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 100, 90, 80,……..20, 10 yd. timed sprints with like 20 sec. rest between and if you don’t make the time you fail. Anyway I pulled my hamstring on the first 70 yd. sprint. I finished the test screaming every profanity under the sun at Bennion as I was running. I bet you can guess what I did for treatment.

bruise on the back of my leg/pulled hammy

This last year I broke my medial malleolus…I don’t know what it is other then it is a weight bearing bone in your ankle, and it hurts like bloody hell if it is broken and you put weight on it. There is not a significant story about when I broke it. It was a two minute drill, I came off the line I heard it pop. I went into shock yelling like a girl, “It is broke, I heard it pop!” But thanks to big Keith I hobbled to the training room Ricky said it was a high ankle sprain, told me his miracle cure and sent me home. The next morning is when I knew it was broken I went to stand up out of my bed that is just a mattress on the floor and did a front flip as soon as I put weight on it. Thank god Poot’s had some crutches. Three days later I demanded an X-ray. My wish was granted and I got an X-ray at one in the afternoon. That night I received the news in a professional manner. It was 10:45 p.m. and I got a text saying “Your ankle is broken, don’t walk on it, or do the calf raises we told you to. You will get a hard cast tomorrow at 2 pm.”

broken

This year during the fall of 2011 I hope, pray, and will even make animal/human sacrifices to stay healthy!