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Chapter 10: House of Pain
 By Jim Caple |
State College’s Kenan Hill, one of the best linebackers in the nation, recently suffered a concussion on a helmet-to-helmet play. . . .
What would you do?
You’ve spent most of your life playing football, practicing, lifting, working to make yourself the best player you can possibly be. And you’ve succeeded. You are considered one of the very best players in college football, a certain first-round draft pick. But playing your school’s biggest rival, with the game and a major bowl on the line, you are hit in the helmet by a cheap shot from another player in the second quarter. It is the third time you have had your bell rung this season and as the fourth quarter begins, you are still feeling a little out of it when the coach asks you whether you’re ready to go back in the game for a crucial defensive series.
What would you do?
You could play it cautious and tell your coach that you’re still a little woozy and need more time. That would be the prudent thing to do. The safe thing to do. But what would your coach think of that? Would he think you were weak? That he couldn’t depend on you when things got tough? More importantly, what would your teammates think, those same teammates you consider to be almost brothers after everything you’ve gone through together for the past several years? You know many of them are playing hurt, some with injuries more serious than yours. Would they feel you let them down when they needed you most if you stayed on the sideline when they took the field to battle?
What would you do?
You’re a football player. You deal with pain every day. Especially the day after a game when you wake up feeling so bad you wonder whether you were hit by a train or spent the night in a washing machine rinse cycle. Broken fingers, sprained ankles, bruised ribs and kidneys – you name it, you’ve hurt it and played anyway. You once had a toenail torn off and just had it taped and went right back out there, bloody sock and all. That’s because you’re a football player, a warrior, and you can handle pain. So of course you play.
But this is your brain we’re talking about, not some bone or tendon. Damage this organ and it may never heal. You already had a moment earlier in the season when you left practice and couldn’t remember the way home. Sure, it was just a temporary thing. As soon as you took a couple steps in the right direction, it all came flooding back instinctively, as if nothing had happened at all. But it was still such a horrible feeling, one of utter helplessness, that you never want to repeat it.
What would you do?
You will be one of the highest picks in the draft, with all the money that goes with that. Even if you never play a down in the pros your signing bonus may leave you set for the rest of your life. More than that, you’ll be able to buy the home and financial security for your parents as a reward for all they sacrificed raising you. But if you don’t play and word gets out that you’re weak, injury-prone, unreliable, how far will you fall in the draft? Can you afford that financial blow when you’re not even certain there is anything wrong?
But you’re a smart guy. You’re doing well in school and there are plenty of careers that appeal to you other than pro football. You don’t have to be a football player. You don’t have to be a warrior. You can take care of your body and your mind and live a long, healthy life.
What would you do?
You look around and hear the fans stomping their feet and hollering. This is the final home game of your college career, your last chance to run onto the field and hear the crowd screaming for you. You love that feeling and know this is the sort of adrenaline rush that no one ever gets in the normal world. These people have backed you for the past three years. You don’t want to let them down. On the other hand, how many of those fans would be willing to help if you wind up a vegetable who needs to have his steak carved for him? How many give your welfare any thought whatsoever? The answer is none. Why should you owe them anything?
What would you do? Be a team player and risk further injury? Or look after your health because no one else will? Do what is expected of you or what is best for you? Risk your long-term for the here and now? Put the team first or yourself first?
The team doctors gave you a quick exam and say you’re fine to play. That should be enough, right? If the doctors say there is nothing to worry about, then there is nothing to worry about. But those doctors also are employees of the athletic department/ When push comes to shove, isn’t it in their interest to side with the school’s desire? Can you really trust them for an objective opinion?
What would you do?
Well, whatever you do, make your decision quickly. This may be a crucial decision in your life but there are only seconds remaining before it’s time to get on the field and the coach is waiting for your answer.
What would you do? If you were Kenan, you do the only thing that feels right.
You nod to your coach, strap on your helmet and run onto the field.
# # #
The main problem with the X-Treme Bowl Series was not that it was it hopelessly complicated, though that’s what everyone complained about. While the X-TBS system WAS extremely complicated – it involved a Byzantine combination of sportswriter and coaching polls plus a complicated Mac-based computer analysis that assessed strength of schedule, point differential, All-America awards, weight of the offensive line, broadcast market size, average alumni income, highway mileage from campus to the game and bra cup size of the cheerleaders – the main problem was that it ruined the old bowl system.
Had Josh attended State College two decades earlier, the Red Devils’ season-ending victory over Tech would have left him elated, as happy as a college student could possibly be without finding himself in bed with a cheerleader. Instead, because State College had missed out on a trip to the X-Treme Bowl for the alleged national championship he and millions of other fans were somehow disappointed with the team’s bid to play in Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
This was the case for fans of schools across the country. Where they once would have been delighted to play in a prestigious bowl, now all but the fans of two schools would feel the season was a tremendous disappointment because they did not reach the X-Treme Bowl. And of those two “lucky’’ schools, one would also end the season devastated by the loss in the national championship game. So while the old system rewarded many schools and sent home half of them smiling and feeling good about the season, the X-TBS sent all but one school home miserable.
This is progress?
Worse was that few fans even appreciated what they had lost with the XTBS. In their desire to crown a “true’’ national champion and parallel the March basketball tournament, the fans and college football powers forgot that there was no need to copy another system because theirs already had been exciting enough. Sure, some teams wound up feeling they had been cheated out of national championship under the bowl system but some felt the same way under the new system anyway. Besides, getting to complain about how your team was screwed provided almost as much pleasure over the ensuing years as winning the actual championship. And in some cases, it provided more pleasure (for one thing, you weren’t required to buy as many expensive souvenir t-shirts).
Why was the country so obsessed with “definitive’’ champions anyway? At every level of competition there was an unhealthy need to crown someone with a title. It had sunk to the high school level, where state championships for a select few replaced traditional Turkey day games for the many long ago, and where there now were polls and rankings for “national’ champions. As if anyone really knew whether a high school in Texas had a better team than a school in Washington. And then there were all the youth travel teams, each traveling farther and farther with younger and younger kids who would have been just as happy – and probably happier -- playing against their friends back home.
Why this crying need for “national’’ titles? Couldn’t anyone just be happy with the experience of playing a game for its own sake?
Josh, trained by the media over the years that college football fans had been cheated out of a playoff, was not thinking about any of this. Hours after returning home from the game, he was still stewing about how State College had fallen just short of the X-Treme Bowl. It didn’t seem fair. When the sports news showed the two X-Treme Bowl teams celebrating their bid, he clicked off the TV in disgust and went into the kitchen to make some dinner.
He found Kenan in the kitchen staring into the refrigerator.
“Hey, man, great game!’’ Josh said. “That last hit you had to end Tech’s drive? AWESOME, totally AWESOME!!! They’ve already showed it a couple times on TV. I bet that one tackle will add another $50,000 to your contract after the draft.’’
“Thanks,’’ Kenan said, hoping Josh was right, but realizing such an opinion had absolutely no real authority behind it.
“It just sucks that we’re not going to the X-Treme Bowl,’’ Josh said, reaching for a beer. “You guys should so be playing for the national championship.’’
Kenan shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s OK. We get to go to Pasadena. That’s pretty good. If you told us that we would be going there back during two-a-days, I think wed be pretty happy.’’
Josh looked at Kenan as if he was from another planet.
“Are you serious? But you won’t be playing for the national championship! That bites!’’
“Whatever.’’ Kenan didn’t much care at this point. It had been a long season. They were going to a big bowl. It would be fun. They had worked hard to earn the trip. Why couldn’t everyone else be satisfied? It was annoying.
Josh peered into the fridge but didn’t see anything appetizing. “Do you want to go grab some dinner at Pizza Slut?’
“Nah, I’ve got a headache,’’ Kenan said. “I’m just going to make something and crash. I’m beat.’’
Josh nodded and grabbed another beer. “Let me know if you change your mind,’’ he said. “Steve says there’s a newspaper party. You know how messed up those newspaper guys get.’’
He waved and started toward his bedroom. Kenan went back to staring into the refrigerator. He knew he was looking for something to eat but couldn’t remember what.
Next: Christmas
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