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THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA AT MONROE
August 27, 2012
SPORTS
Time heals all wounds Olympic successes Browning healthy entering 2012
prove women’s ability
by Adam Hunsucker
It didn’t take long for Kolton Browning to realize something was wrong. After taking a ferocious hit late in the fourth quarter against Arkansas State, ULM’s dual-threat quarterback found himself on the turf struggling for air. Shortness of breath was greeted by the stinging sensation of instant pain. Getting up became an impossible task. “I landed right on my shoulder and it caved my chest in,” Browning said of the play. Backup Cody Wells finished the game—a 24-19 loss—but despite the injury, Browning was optimistic it was nothing serious. The training staff said otherwise. “At first I thought it was a bruise,” Browning recalls. “But it turned out to be a broken sternum.” Unfazed by the diagnosis, the Mabank, Texas native continued to play, starting every game for the Warhawks in 2011. Discomfort was unavoidable, and attempts to play with an extra pad offered little relief. “It didn’t help much, the pain was still there,” Browning said. “There wasn’t anything I could do but keep going.” To keep opponents from knowing the full extent of his injury, ULM did not reveal Browning’s broken sternum until after the season. The secrecy regarding his health led many to wonder the reason behind the quarterback’s decline in production. Browning finished the season with 2,483 yards passing and 13 touchdowns, down from the 2,552 yards and 18 touchdowns he put up in 2010. Despite playing hurt, he man-
LEA ANNA CARDWELL
photo by Emi McIntyre
Quarterback Kolton Browning rolls out of the pocket during the scrimmage on Saturday, Aug. 18.
aged a career-best 443 yards rushing, but thinking about the plays he could have made if healthy still haunts the junior signal-caller. “We were nine points away from having a winning record and going to a bowl game,” Browning said. With his health no longer an issue, Browning is ready to regain the form that helped him burst onto the scene as a redshirt freshman. “People said he had a sophomore slump not knowing that he was hurt,” head coach Todd Berry said. “That’s put a chip on his shoulder.” The Sun Belt will feature several productive quarterbacks, five of which threw for over 2,000 yards in 2011. Browning finished fourth in the conference in passing last season, behind Ryan Aplin of Arkansas State, Troy’s Corey Robinson and Blaine Gautier of Louisiana-Lafay-
ette. Among SBC quarterbacks, only Western Kentucky’s Kawaun Jakes has more experience than Browning. That experience, along with Browning’s suburb athletic ability, will be one of the focal points of the Warhawk offense. “He ran a 4.5 [40 yard dash] for the pro scouts and there aren’t many quarterbacks that can do that,” Berry said. Browning doesn’t dwell on his injury-marred 2011, but he hasn’t forgotten either, using it to fuel his competitive fire. With eight starters returning on offense, he’s excited about this year’s battle-tested group of Warhawks. “We know what we’re capable of,” Browning said. “And that’s getting the ball in the end zone.” contact Adam Hunsucker at hunsucam@warhawks.ulm.edu
The first thing a female athlete learns in the world of sports is that she can’t play with the boys. She can’t run as fast, jump as high or hit as hard as a boy. It’s softball. Not baseball. In golf she plays from the ladies tee, not the normal tee. She can be a dancer or a gymnast, but there’s no way she can play a contact sport as rough as football. If she makes it as a professional athlete, she might make half of what a male competing in her sport is paid. Maybe. But she definitely won’t have the fan base or television viewership. From elementary school on, female athletes are conditioned to believe that they are inferior. This year, female athletes truly are in a league of their own. Only this time, it’s a little different. At the 2012 London Olympics, the U.S. women alone won 58 medals. How many did men win? If the U.S. women’s team had competed on their own as a separate country, they would have finished fourth overall, and tied for third in the gold medal count. Missy Franklin took home four gold medals- the same number as Michael Phelps.
Aside from the U.S., 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen set a world record in the women’s 400 meter individual medley. In the last 50 meters, she even swam faster than U.S. superstar Ryan Lochte. But she’s female, so she must be doping. Growing up as a female athlete, I’ve been conditioned in the same way as every other girl who is active in sports. We grow up accepting the fact that, physically, we cannot compete with boys. It’s not even something that is explained to us. It doesn’t have to be. It is ingrained in us to our core because the rest of the world tells us it’s true. And maybe it is. If you put Shiwen and Lochte in the pool racing against one another, she’s probably not going to beat him straight up. But she still did something amazing. So why, when a woman accomplishes an incredible feat, do we immediately say it’s impossible? Why do female athletes receive less pay, less coverage and less interest when they are putting in just as much work as their male counterparts? The world of sports runs off of adrenaline, talent, ambition and the desire to win no matter the odds. It’s about blood and sweat and incredible perseverance. That is what it takes to win a gold medal. That is what every fan wants so desperately to see. Dear America: the U.S. women won 58 gold medals at the 2012 Olympics. Can we please have some recognition now?
contact Lea Anna Cardwell at cardwela@warhawks.ulm.edu