Whether one chooses a professional career as a race car driver, or a football player, the athletes and drivers assume the risk of injury, it is an inevitable reality.
The 2013 season list of injuries in both sports is extensive, with one injury severe enough to kill NASCAR and World of Outlaws driver Jason Leffler.
Seeing as though I pay attention to NASCAR and football, I'll discuss the two for this blog.
Football: The headline news in Boston sports this week is about NFL Pro-All Star tight end for the New England Patriots: Rob Gronkowski is suffering a season ending injury. A helmet hit in the right knee resulted in a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the medial collateral ligament (MCL). As I wrote this piece, sources had not confirmed specific details of other injuries that may have occurred, but we all know that a torn ACL ends Gronkowski's season and may affect the start of the 2014 season next fall. He's young, he's healthy and strong and the probability of a quick recovery is possible but not promised.
Regardless if the NFL changes its rules that players cannot tackle the knee, injuries in football are inevitable. Yet Gronkowski seems to be the victim of many. In college, he injured his back while deadlifting in the weight room. This resulted in surgery and a half season of playing football during his junior year at the University of Arizona. He had to host his own pro-day event for talent scouts in hopes to be drafted to the NFL. To his luck, he was 42nd overall in the second round in the draft and the Pats picked him up before his senior year, not that it matters but Gronkowski never graduated. Once in New England, he proved himself during pre-season games in 2010, and New England fans fell in love with the man they now call Gronk.
Toward the end of the 2011 season, Gronk broke his ankle and had to have surgery to repair it with wires wrapped around it.
In 2012, he broke his arm and had to miss the rest of the '12 season, as well as the beginning of the '13 season.
Before the Cleveland Browns game on Sunday 12/8, seven weeks after his return the field, Gronkowski said he felt better than ever. Then he was hit by Browns safety player, T.J. Ward during the third quarter, shattering any dream he may have had to be in the Super Bowl this season.
As told in a few stories in the book "Growing Up Gronk" written by his father Gordon Gronkowski and writer Jeff Schober, the fourth Gronkowski son has proven since his childhood that he has a strong threshold for pain but as he lay on the field Sunday afternoon looking helpless, his facial expression proved that this hit was far too painful to ignore A microphone and video captured his vocal reaction, and the pain in his voice was enough to prove there was serious damage to his knee. Doctors only needed to confirm and diagnose the extent and details of the injury.
New England fans can only hope that superstar quarterback Tom Brady will be able to pull off victories with the team he has now. The Patriots injury list is extensive, and the lack of strong players could cost them a Super Bowl victory. Gronkowski is a strong asset to the team and no one will ever be able to replace the powerhouse plays 'the Gronk' can pull off. His height, his strength, his speed can't be matched. It is safe to say that the Pats have a lot of work ahead of them to make the best of the last three season games.
Though 10 and 3, neither the defensive or offensive line on the Pats side is impressive. They've yet to score touchdowns or field goals in the first half of the last three games. The Carolina Panthers win over the Pats on Monday Night Football on 11/18 wasn't only due to the fact that Gronkowski was held back in a bear hug to catch the final pass in the end zone, but because of a few errors in the beginning of the game.
Luck would have it that the Patriots returned to the second half to pull off impressive plays to beat the Broncos' two Sunday's ago. In Texas, the Patriots had to work hard in the second half again to pull off a victory against the Texans. Sunday's game against the Browns went just as bad- and no one could guess if the Patriots would win until the final play of the game.
What will happen in Miami? Will the Patriots be able to hold off the Ravens and the Bills and move on to the playoffs in January?
The Patriots will not fail to keep fans on their toes for their season is unpredictable. Are the 2013 Patriots team a true contender for the Super Bowl?
I wonder, how much pain will an athlete endure to continue to play professional sports? How many injuries is too many? Let's consider their salaries, Gronk is worth $55 million, yet it does seem like he spends as much time healing on the sidelines as he does playing. He may have to undergo a sixth surgery in a one year time frame, and that does not include his total number of surgeries in his lifetime either. That may be the price he pays for the talent he has- he is known to have redefined the tight end position , to date he has 226 receptions for a total of 3,255 yards and 42 touchdowns in his three year career for the Patriots.
In NASCAR, driver Kyle Larson's first race in the Nationwide series on February 23rd, 2013 ended when his car went airborne and got caught in the catch fence. The engine stuck in the fence, a tire and debris went flying into the grandstands injuring innocent fans, and the rest of the car went spiraling onto the field. Larson walked away, shaken and stirred and physically unharmed. Though unfortunate that the fans were hurt, no one died.
A few weeks later, Denny Hamlin drove his No. 11 Toyota into the wall at the track in Fontana, California. His back popped, he injured his spine and that left him sidelined for five races. Hamlin has several occurrences of back injuries. He too had surgery to repair his ACL in 2010.
In June 2013, right after Leffler died from injuries sustained in the neck from a head on collision in the wall, Tony Stewart's winged car went airborne, flipping five times, he walked away unharmed. A week later, he was in an accident in the same dirt car, and this time, he broke his fibula and tibula in his right leg- and forced him to stay out of the dirt and stock cars for the final 14 weeks of racing. It's odd that Stewart had more serious accidents without injuries, such as going airborne in his No. 14 Cup car at Talladega, he landed on Kasey Kahne's car, both men shaken and stirred but not harmed. In 2011, Kahne also went airborne while driving his sprint car, and flipped over the fence- he walked away very shaken, yet not injured.
In 2001, Stewart's No. 20 went airborne and landed on Bobby Lebonte's No.18 car, and both cars went spinning out of control. Both drivers walked away from that incident. After that caution however, legendary driver Dale Earnhardt, also know as The Intimidator, tried to block traffic so that his two drivers Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. could finish the Daytona 500 in first and second- his No. 3 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet went head on to the wall in turn 4, and Earnhardt died on impact.
So injuries are inevitable - the games, the races go on and the drivers and athletes will continue to play their sport until they are either dead or forced out.
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