Pain isn't as cool as it's made out to be

The past two weeks have been a series of minor mishaps for me.  First, I got up early one morning and was walking down the dark hall toward the kitchen while rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and proceeded to walk straight into the linen closet door, which had somehow been left partially open.

No big deal really, except for the part where my right foot slammed into the door and apparently broke my little toe.  Now anyone who’s broken a toe knows there’s not much reason to go to the doctor over it.  Just ice it down and tape it to the next one.  It was three times bigger than normal, black and blue and I could only wear certain shoes, but other than that, fine.

Then just as it got around to healing up and I could walk normal, I hurt my back shoveling the driveway from the latest snowstorm.  It sucks getting old.  So while my back was going through spasms and I let the drugs do their work, I’ve been pretty useless for about five days.

I know, you don’t care.  I only bring this up because when it comes to our athletes we seem to be constantly amazed when they have to sit out a game for an ankle injury and can’t show enough toughness to make it through one lousy contest.  Yet when we get hurt for the most ridiculous of reasons, we tell stories about it and our friends laugh at us.

Truth is, while most of us are fans because we didn’t have the athletic gifts that the men and women we cheer on do, the other big reason is that we don’t have near the tolerance for pain that they do.  How well would you have played in the Super Bowl if you’d had a torn ankle ligament?  Oh yeah, you weren’t good enough to play in the first place.

It really is amazing that Cal Ripken played in 2,632 straight games or that Brett Favre has started 287 in a row.  I couldn’t bend down and tie a pair of shoes earlier this week and I hadn’t had to swing a bat or get up from being hit by a 350 pound lineman.  It just goes to show that great athletes are a different breed.  It doesn’t make them better people, they prove that every day.  But it is why we love to watch them play.