It’s October of the 2015 fall semester, and your current national sports columnist, Greg Gottfried, also known as Greg Gottfrield, is playing basketball at the Ora L. Wildermuth Intramural Center.
The 5’6” combo guard and lover of writing in the third person is surely playing lockdown defense when the ball goes up in the air.
Sneakers squeak, yells of a shot are shrieked and Greg gets in position to box out underneath the hoop.
His opponent jumps for the ball with the grace of an elephant trying to walk through an EZ-Pass lane and lands firmly on Greg’s back.
Immediately, something is wrong. Greg is hurt and the lower part of his back feels like it’s been in a heavyweight-boxing match.
The next day, he can’t get out of bed without discomfort, and every position he sits in during class is excruciating. Eventually through physical therapy and time, Greg improves, but there are still bursts of pain in his back whether he is running, working or just sitting down.
Tony Romo is a better athlete than Greg Gottfried; I’ve often said this.
But, there comes a point where the injuries add up and an athlete becomes a shell of their former self. Steve Young, Joe Theismann and Michael Irvin are just a sliver of the examples of players who had their careers cut short by injuries.
Some players just aren’t the same after one too many hits, and it seems like Romo will be the next member of this infamous club.
Last year, Romo played four games and since the 2013 campaign has been plagued by a multitude of injuries. With his back leading the charge, he has been piling on damages including those to his left shoulder, left collarbone, left clavicle, ankle and ribs.
The man is a walking hospital.
In Dallas’s third preseason game Aug. 25, Romo was lying on the ground once again — this time on Seattle’s artificial turf.
No. 9 scrambled out of the pocket, clutched the ball in his right hand and got leveled by Seattle’s Cliff Avril. He left the game with an apparent back injury, and stud rookie Dak Prescott took over at the quarterback position.
Joe Trahan of WFAA in Dallas, Texas, shared footage of Romo in extreme discomfort on the sidelines. Eventually ESPN reported Romo suffered a compression fracture of his L1 vertebrae and is looking at a timetable of 6-10 weeks to recover.
Romo at his best is one of the more electrifying quarterbacks in the NFL. Every play is a roller coaster as his scrambling ability allows him to elongate plays and make miraculous heaves.
His connection with Pro Bowler Dez Bryant is spectacular and provides some of the best highlights every season. With that said, a report from Tyler Conway of Bleacher Report shows the downside of the quarterback of America’s Team.
“The four-time Pro Bowler hasn’t played 16 games in a season since 2012 and has missed at least one game in five of the last eight seasons,” Conway wrote.
There’s a sense of fatalism and despondency when watching Romo take the field. Although the Cowboys’ front office has claimed that he will be the starter when he returns, there seems to be a feeling that the question isn’t if he’s going to get hurt again, but when.
Romo is 36 years old and it may be time we start treating him as an injury-plagued veteran and not the prodigy that we remember from years past.
gigottfr@umail.iu.edu
@gott31
