14 Sports
The McGill Daily | Monday, November 21, 2011 | mcgilldaily.com
Confessions of an injured athlete What I lost, what I hated, and how I healed Madeleine Cummings The McGill Daily
I
have always divided the world into two types of people: athletes and non-athletes. I now know there are three: athletes, non-athletes, and injured athletes. The last category is by far the most neurotic. I would know. For the past year, I have been batting patella femoral syndrome in both knees. First, some background: I run on McGill’s varsity cross-country and track and field teams. I live with other runners, and we chose our apartment because it is exactly 400 metres away from the outdoor track. Approximately one third of the clothes I own are made of spandex, and, come winter, I attach rubber picks to my shoes so I can continue running on the snow and ice. I’m no stranger to injuries. I’ve had many, from a strained a calf muscle I got doing steeplechasing, blisters whose size would shock most medical professionals, bad ankle sprains, and even a few bruised ribs after tripping over a sidewalk crack (I’m also graceful). I won’t bore you with the details of my current injury, but let’s just say that it was stubborn and persistent. At this time last year, I was limping everywhere and going down stairs backwards so as to avoid bending my knee in a certain way.
Needless to say, I couldn’t run. After moving through the stages of denial, blame, and finally acceptance, I approached the rehabilitative process with a relentless drive that I wish could be channeled towards my GPA or summer job search. X-rays, bone scans, MRIs, sports doctors, and physiotherapists were just the beginning. I bought a road bike and spent hours riding it. Not knowing how to change the tube tires, I would walk like a duck in my plastic clip-in shoes all the way home if I got a flat mid-ride. I swallowed bottles of various anti-inflammatory pills, spread special gel on my knees, and shivered through ice baths. I even had a previous coach of mine videotape and analyze my gait to search for asymmetries. The people at Moksha yoga have likely never seen such aggressive use of a membership card. “Weren’t you here this morning?” they would ask as I arrived for pilates in the afternoon. I swam laps, and learned to flip turn. In front of the TV, I did strengthening exercises with thermabands, foam rollers, and other toys. Then I added a weight-lifting regimen. By the summer, I was doing three forms of exercise a day (cardio, weights, and yoga), working at my job in between sessions, and going to bed at 10 every night. Every few weeks, I would try to run again, but the knee pain always returned. At the height of
my lunacy, I wrote a letter to my left knee demanding that it heal itself. It was while aqua-jogging in McGill’s Memorial Pool one day that I instantly understood why millions of people hate exercising. I hated it too! I hated pools. I hated being inside. I hated every activity because it wasn’t running. Aqua-jogging, or “pool running” as it’s informally called, is a particularly awful form of cross training. It’s also the most recommended, because it’s so low-impact. A pool runner straps a belt to his or her body and runs through the water at a pace that feels like slow-motion. That day, I fought desperation in the deep end. I pumped my arms faster and faster. Was I crying or were my eyes just stinging from the chlorine? Then, I just stopped moving and unclipped my belt, which floated to the surface as I began to sink. My dignity had been reduced to this diaper, this strip of floatation foam that was – like me – fraying at the ends and stuck in the deep end. I’d had enough. Walking home, I resented each casual jogger that passed by me. I couldn’t help but think, “Why hadn’t their knees given up on them? Why did I have to suffer and not them?” Once home, I went into my bedroom and shut the door. I then noticed there was something shiny on my bed. It was a new journal with the first few pages already filled in. “Dear Madeleine,” the first entry began.
“It’s me. Your left knee...” I approached my injury with the conventional formula of rest, crosstraining, and strengthening. But the missing ingredient to my rehab – to getting well and moving on – was something I had all along, but often failed to see: the people around me. The knee-letter and journal was a gift from the one roommate I have who is not on the track team. You don’t need to be an athlete to know how hard it is to be kept from doing something you love. A few weekends later, I stood on the sidelines of a cross-country course in the pouring rain and cheered for my teammates. I saw the pain on their faces as their spikes sunk into the sodden golf course. Their faces were shiny with sweat and rain. Their jerseys were soaked and mud-covered, and they grimaced as they tried to work through the pain.
Andra Cernavskis | The McGill Daily Being injured for a long period of time forced me to learn how to work through a similar pain. Much like runners do in a race, I began to push the self-pity aside in order to keep going. In the end, it was my friends who helped me do this best. They were the ones who laughed the hardest at my trials and tribulations, and who eventually convinced me to try running again this October. On November 12, I ran at the national cross-country championship in a blizzard on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. The race went well, and my season ended in relief and pride. I had my happy ending. Now my roommates have injuries of their own, and I can see the frustration in their eyes. What I say to them, like they said to me, and what I would say to anyone battling a persistent injury is this: keep on trying. Others do understand. You will heal.
cantly altered the nature of sports fandom. Before fantasy sports became popular, fans would typically root for their favourite team. Now, fantasy participants root for many different teams based on athletes rather than geography. Dave Richard, a senior fantasy writer at CBSsports.com, explained this phenomenon to Goldin: “Fantasy sports have reinvented sports fans. Before these games became popular, most people
were fans of one or two teams in every sport... Suddenly, a fan watching in Detroit has an interest in a game between Los Angeles and San Diego.” Fantasy sports, once the niche of Harvard sociologists and a small segment of the most passionate fans, are now a hobby and obsession to millions of people and a major revenue source for sports media. With this trend, fantasy sports are only poised to become more and more popular.
Naomi Braude Sports Writer
E
ntire websites, hours of ESPN coverage, and segments of Sports Radio talk shows are devoted to them, many people participate in them, and yet they do not involve real scores or affect standings. Becoming increasingly popular in the last five years, fantasy sports participants pick and manage a virtual team of real athletes. Just as professional managers must be quick thinking and constantly aware of what players might be injury-prone, so too must fantasy players. These players, with 24 hour access to news, develop these same skills. Prior to the beginning of the professional season, approximately eight to twelve people form a fantasy league. Players often know each other, but websites, such as Rotowire.com, Comissioner.com, and Yahoosports. com, can also organize leagues. Next, players participate in a draft. Each player, managing his own team, is responsible for filling his roster with virtual athletes. Modeled after real-life drafts, participants are subject to a time limit for their picks, and therefore must be as fast-thinking and knowledgable as real managers. Once the professional season begins, participants select their lineups for the given week. Again, this is
modeled after the way real sports are conducted; fantasy football players chose their rosters on Sunday, while fantasy hockey players chose theirs on Saturday. When the game gets going, the athletes perform according to their statistics and rankings from real games. Unlike in professional leagues, in which roles are split up, fantasy players act as owner, manager, and coach all at once. As Danny Goldin, a former writer for Rotowire.com, explains, fantasy sports were first played in 1960 in the context of an experimental study in a Harvard University seminar led by the sociologist William Gamson. Participants were instructed to form MLB rosters prior to the start of the season, and their players “value” was then calculated upon conclusion of the real season the players’ statistics. While Gamson’s model did not permit players to make roster changes during the actual season, participants in fantasy sports now actively manage their team throughout the season, requiring them to pay close attention at all times to the status of their players. With the advent of the internet, fantasy sports experienced large developments. In 1997, Commissioner.com – which is now the fantasy engine of CBS Sports – and Rotowire.com were launched. These are fantasy sports websites that provide the average sports fan with detailed statistics and analysis on players so that they can
micro-manage their fantasy teams. In addition to allowing sports enthusiasts an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of real players through the management of their fantasy team, fantasy players often place bets with the other members of their fantasy league. If they win, they get the money and, perhaps more importantly, bragging rights among friends. There are a variety of reasons why individuals choose to participate in fantasy sports. Scott Rathwell, a McGill masters student in Sports Psychology, explains that he plays fantasy hockey sports primarily because it offers a means of keeping in contact with friends, many of whom he previously played on actual teams with. Lawrence Greenberg, a Concordia History student who plays both fantasy hockey and football, points to the competitive aspect of the activity, he says it “makes watching the games more intense.” In addition, being able to “show other people that you can pick and manage a better team” is a strong incentive for him. Both Rathwell and Greenberg agree that they now have a heightened level of interest in the actual games. “I definitely watch the games more closely. I constantly have to see who gets injured to try and pick up his replacement before someone else does,” says Greenberg Fantasy sports have also signifi-
Julia Boshyk | The McGill Daily
Fantasy sports for dummies