I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy–what happened to the University of South Carolina’s great sophomore running back, Marcus Lattimore, who suffered a season-ending knee injury when the Gamecocks played at Mississippi State in a recent college football game. I say that, having been there, done that and gotten the T-shirt.
Knees aren’t built for playing football, since they don’t bend sideways or backwards. And because orthopedic surgery and rehabilitation wasn’t, half-a-century ago, what it is today, in retrospect the injury I sustained proved to be career-ending. Sometimes the direction of our lives can turn on a single unfortunate incident. I didn’t, however, believe that then, and hung on too long, hoping to still live the dream. Since, in those halcyon days, college coaches-recruiters and pro baseball scouts were paying me lots of attention. But it was over–for me at least–my playing days: however long it may have taken to sink in. And worse, if once upon a time I could run pretty fast, today–on two prosthetic knees, two hip replacements and a couple of back surgeries–I can barely walk.
Whereas, in Lattimore’s case, I expect he’ll be back better than ever.
The violence of football is a trade-off. Despite the damage the game can do, and often does, adolescent boys and men need some reasonably fair place and way to dissipate at least some of the testosterone that tends to characterize most of us males.
At least I was carrying the ball, my foot planted when a couple of big guys tackled me. Lattimore, however–the consummate team-player–he was blocking for someone else when an opposing player, who wasn’t blocking or tackling anyone, rolled over on his leg. It could have been one of his own team-mates, as often happens, particularly to linemen, where the space of the contact is more confined. The military call it “friendly fire,” merely an accident, hardly intentional.
Strangely enough, however, Marcus Lattimore’s unfortunate injury has finally freed me of the guilt I’ve carried all these years. How’s that, you ask?
What is it they say? Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving. And in my case, by the time I got hurt playing football I had been baptized in at least enough neurotic Baptist guilt to hold myself responsible for the injury.
Sure, it was late in the game and fatigue had set in. In those days, we played “both ways”–offense and defense. Still, if I’d been in better shape, it wouldn’t have happened. I’ve been telling that to myself, in the most emotionally flagelating of ways, for over fifty years.
Plus, the night before the game, instead of staying home and getting some rest, I had a date. No, I wasn’t out carousing. I actually went to church with my girlfriend, to a revival meeting. Despite such virtue, however, when we got back to her house, her parents, who were also at church, weren’t yet home. So what’s a normal, red-blooded adolescent boy to do in such circumstances?
I wouldn’t describe my girlfriend as “fast” or “loose” or seductive. She was, if anything, a “good girl.” And even if I may not have been the worst of male predators, I was still more interested in that window of opportunity to “make out,” however mild the petting, with my girlfriend, on the couch in her living room, than in politely, like a real gentleman, saying goodnight with a short kiss and going home to get some sleep before the next night’s big game.
Or as Rocky Balboa’s trainer, Mickey Goldberg, warns his boxer: “Women weaken
legs!”
But when Marcus Lattimore got hurt recently, something dawned–on me, at least. Lattimore’s a much better athlete than I ever was–as good as I, even others, may have thought. Not to mention, his being in better shape–having been optimally trained with the improved exercise science of these days–far beyond however well-conditioned I may or may not have been so many years ago.
As for the young man’s personal life (in general) and his relations with girls/women (in particular), I have no idea. Except that Marcus Lattimore’s public reputation–it appears about as unsullied as mine would have been at his age.
So, finally, I’m off the hook–the guilt of my own making–for even if purely an accident, getting a knee torn up playing football: if this can happen to someone as dedicated and athletically accomplished as Marcus Lattimore, why shouldn’t it have happened to me. Even if I weren’t in as good-a-shape as I might have been; even if I short-cut some rest I may have needed in order to “make out” with my girlfriend–a “good girl”–after a revival meeting at church, no less.
Granted, most of us aren’t usually as bad as the worst in us, nor as good as the best in us. Still, bad things can and sometimes do happen to good people. Even when it’s no one’s fault.
