Posted on 17 October 2013.
Football players can try their hardest not to think about injuries, but they know they’re lingering. They know their next play could be their last.
All it took was one play for Josh Huff to realize this.
During the first half against Washington last Saturday, the Oregon wide receiver caught a short pass from Marcus Mariota and tried to avoid oncoming tacklers. Huff’s attempts failed as he was tackled after a short gain.
But Huff didn’t get up right away like he normally does. In fact, he didn’t get up for minutes.
Multiple players collided with Huff on the play, hitting him at an awkward angle below the knees. That’s when he heard his ankle pop.
“I just thought of the worst possible scenario,” Huff said after the game.
Huff thought his ankle was broken. That likely would have ended his senior season, possibly his college career.
As Huff was carried off the field by linemen Tyler Johnstone and Mana Greig, he couldn’t avoid those pessimistic thoughts — Huff burst into tears.
“He’s a tough guy,” Johnstone said of Huff. “When I saw that, I kind of expected the worst.”
Doctors took X-rays of Huff’s ankle after the play. Everything came back negative. He even returned to the game and made some big plays, including a 65-yard touchdown pass on Oregon’s first drive of the second half that gave Oregon a 28-14 lead.
The Ducks won 45-24.
Huff knows what it’s like to think his career is over, but he doesn’t know how that actually feels. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be Joe Theismann.
Theismann is a former NFL quarterback who played his entire 12-year career with the Washington Redskins. He won a Super Bowl and played in two Pro Bowls, but he might be known best for the gruesome injury he suffered during a game against the New York Giants on Nov. 18, 1985.
At the start of the second quarter, Theismann dropped back to pass but was quickly tackled by two Giants players. One of the tacklers, linebacker Lawrence Taylor, landed squarely on Theismann’s right calf. Theismann, like Huff, heard a sound on the hit. But it wasn’t a pop.
“It sounded like two muzzled guns shots,” Theismann said.
Theismann’s right calf bone had broken through his skin in what’s known as a compound fracture. Due to the severity of the injury and his age — 35, which is considered relatively old in the world of professional football — Theismann’s long, successful career was over.
At the moment of impact, Theismann said the pain was excruciating, but he didn’t go into shock.
“I can close my eyes today and still see the faces around me and feel the moisture on my back and the smell of the stadium,” Theismann said. “It’s all very vivid in my mind.”
The aftermath was almost as unbearable as the injury itself. After he got the career-ending prognosis, Theismann said his only thought was getting back into playing shape. He just couldn’t accept the hard truth that he could no longer play football.
“Maybe it’s the athlete in us,” Theismann said. “We don’t like to accept someone telling us we can’t do something.”
Since his injury, Theismann has counseled many injured players, such as Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware, who suffered a compound fracture in the 2013 NCAA tournament. Theismann said he tries to guide young athletes like Ware through the toughest aspect of their injuries, which isn’t physical.
“It’s the mental part of the game that’s toughest to deal with,” Theismann said. “It’s lying in bed at night wondering if you’re going to be yourself, if you’re going to be able to do the things you did before.”
Theismann has been through several other severe injuries, such as a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a twice-broken right hand and lost teeth. He figured his compound fracture was just another injury he’d have to overcome. Realizing the hill was too steep to climb devastated him.
“They’re always plying to have a long future,” said Michael Posner, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Oregon. “They don’t really think much about this. So it’s a big life-changing thing if they have to give up some sport.”
Posner has mainly studied traumatic brain injuries from bicycle and automobile accidents, which he said are exactly like concussions suffered in football. Despite the subtle, sometimes hard-to-detect nature of football concussions, there’s no questioning the effect they have on players later in life.
“There can be pretty strong consequences from these types of injuries,” Ponser said. “We’re coming more and more to understand the connectivity of the human brain, so it’s easy to see why this is going to cause a lot of problems.”
As people come to better understand concussions, Posner said, they realize that football can be more than just a game. It can restructure players’ lives in painful, tragic ways.
Nate Costa didn’t have major concussion issues during his playing days but tragedy has consumed his life. And football is directly to blame.
The former quarterback and current graduate assistant at Oregon tore his anterior cruciate ligament, commonly known as an ACL, four times during his football career. The last one on Nov. 6 , 2010, against Washington ended his football career.
Less than a year later, Costa was forced to quit his other dream job in law enforcement. Costa was two months into his career as a Springfield, Ore., police officer when doctors told him that it was unsafe to work in that field with his unstable knees.
“It was tough because almost my whole college career I was working on getting into law enforcement,” Costa said.
Four ACL tears. Two careers ended. And countless dreams squashed.
While Costa believes the injuries have actually helped him become a stronger person, dealing with all of the pain, rehab and dream killing has been anything but easy.
Oregon’s wide receivers coach Matt Lubick, who works directly with Costa, completely sympathizes with these players. Lubick didn’t experience any major injuries during his playing career, but he’s seen plenty of them. He can hardly bear seeing an injury turn all of a player’s hard work turn into nothing.
“To see all that stuff go up in smoke when a serious injury occurs, it’s disheartening,” Lubick said.
As long as people play football, injuries will happen.
Injuries often redirect the course of players’ football careers, sometimes even their lives. Costa’s life forever changed due to the injuries he’s suffered on the field. Theismann said his compound fracture in 1985 still causes knee, hip and back problems today at age 64.
Several players have been left paralyzed after hard hits. Concussions are widespread and can inflict such severe damage on players’ brains that they lose some of the most basic cognitive abilities.
Players will always deal with these threats. They’ll always be one play away from an injury that damages their life forever.
“At the end of the day, we’re not promised tomorrow,” Lubick said. “There are a lot more important things than football.”
