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Author/Athlete/Professional
Speaker "Think of yourself as an athlete. I guarantee you it will change the way you walk, the way you work, and the decisions you make about leadership, teamwork, and success."- MBN |
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My friend Wilhelmina Swenholt and I saw Any Given Sunday. We expected the movie to be about football but mostly it's about how difficult it is to respect your own body when the team and coach and culture want you to ignore your broken back or concussion or herniated disk. "Suck it up," says the coach, Al Pacino. Wilhelmina and I did a lot of sucking it up when we played college basketball many years ago. We've got four sore knees to prove it. The movie was on the second floor of the theater, and afterward we limped downstairs together, leaning on the railing. We laughed, but it's really not too hilarious to be permanently disabled as a result of playing basketball. Increasingly, I see female basketball players doing what I did, only in greater numbers. They're playing in pain until they can't play anymore. Then they face another sixty or so years of hobbling on undependable legs. You can spot these women in any game. They're wearing knee braces. When I see those braces, I cringe. You don't wear knee braces unless your knees have already been badly injured. Rebecca Lobo recently had reconstructive knee surgery for the second time on the same knee. Tennessee's Kyra Elzy has had two knee surgeries. Connecticut basketball star Shea Ralph has had two knee surgeries. Katie Smrcka-Duffy of Georgetown has had two knee surgeries, two ankle surgeries, and back problems. Are these women sucking it up? Is this a good thing? When football players destroy their bodies in "the heat of the battle," as it's so often called, no one is surprised. I don't want us to get that inured to female pain and injury. I don't want that to be the legacy of the women's sports movement: that we achieve equal opportunities to wound ourselves in the name of winning, or getting rich and famous, or pleasing the coach, or even pleasing ourselves, which is why I played so long. Basketball is almost too much fun. Lobo declined my request to discuss it. Three of Lobo's teammates also had knee surgery in 1999. I asked a spokesperson at the New York Liberty, “Is that unusual or worrisome?" "Not at all," she said, adding that she did not want to be named. "Kym Hampton, for example, was plagued by knee trouble during the season, and it hindered her minutes, so after the season, she's having surgery to address the situation." This is the situation I'd like to address: A lot of women are becoming disabled in the name of sport. Right before our adoring eyes, as we sit there in the stands or at home on our couches, cheering them on, these women are falling down and sometimes breaking in ways that can't necessarily be fixed. Tammi Blackstone, a senior at Drake, has congenitally misaligned kneecaps. "It's basically bone on bone," she told USA Today. She receives injections of synthetic cartilage. She wears a brace. She does physical therapy. She applies ice. She had surgery last June but the pain got worse. Walking hurts. But she keeps playing basketball. "She goes through the pain for us," said her teammate Haley Sames. Is that a good reason to grind bone on bone? "I also want to be a good role model," said Tammi. "I don't want kids to see me quit just because my knees are bad." Quitting because one's knees are bad makes a lot of sense. It makes even more sense to quit before they get bad. Becca Carter quit playing basketball back in eighth grade, after she tore the cartilage in her right knee. Now 17, Becca competes in amateur junior surfing tournaments. Her knee still “aches, swells, grinds, crunches, and pops,” she says. Surfing is "almost as hard on knees as basketball," she admits. But what she learned from her early knee injury, she says, "is to listen to my body. It's a good thing to push yourself, and sometimes you need to play when you're a little bit hurt, but it's also good to learn when to call it quits and just rest your body.” Something sobering to
think about as the women's college basketball
season grinds and crunches and pops to a close.
Want to read more about the courage to quit? Check out We Are All Athletes To contact Mariah about her presentations, call 703/276-8323 or write to her at Mariah@MariahBurtonNelson.com Home © 2000-2002
Mariah Burton Nelson 2002
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The Courage to Quit