Years ago, during an exhibition game in Mexico, Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway tore a tendon in his throwing arm.
It was big news in the Rockies. One of the Denver newspapers went so far as to produce a large illustration of a right arm, one of those opened-up, biology textbook images that reveal bone, tendon, muscle and blood vessels, detailing the Elway injury and how it might be repaired.
Later, a reporter asked Elway about all the fuss, particularly the illustration.
“I’m just glad I didn’t pull a groin,” the legendary quarterback deadpanned.
It is unusual, particularly in the age of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Privacy Act, that we know so much about athletes and their ailments. Whether it’s Peyton Manning’s infected bursa sac, Tom Brady’s ACL and MCL surgeries, Mike Lowell’s torn labrum or Amare Stoudemire’s microfracture surgery, we have a lot of information about the relative health of the physically superior among us.
This proliferation may be driven by Vegas bookmakers and fantasy league players. Regardless, the dissection and examination of the athletically gifted has taught us about the anterior cruciate ligament, the difference between a high ankle sprain and a low ankle sprain, and such advances in diagnosis as the sports hernia, a medical condition of the groin that’s not a true hernia.
Us mere mortals suffer true hernias, lifting heavy stuff and the like. A sports hernia is actually “athletic pubalgia,” a painful condition in the lower abdomen that may be the result of imbalanced athletic training between the lower body and the torso. Go online, and you can learn volumes about the condition, including all the athletes who’ve had them (CDO graduate and Texas second baseman Ian Kinsler, and Philly quarterback Donovan McNabb twice), and the various treatments. There’s even a humorous web site, the Sports Hernia.
Just as the space program brought advances in powdered citrus drinks and self-contained personal sanitation to society, our athletes and their caregivers give us medical progress, too. Last week, Cincinnati Bearcats quarterback Tony Pike, playing with a recently broken left forearm held together by a plate and six screws, all of it covered by a soft cast, let his team to a 24-10 win over ranked South Florida. Reggie Bush, the Saints’ running back and return man, had his left knee meniscus repaired two weeks ago. With rehabilitation, he is expected to be out up to four weeks. Twenty years ago, he would miss the rest of the season.
Wouldn’t life be great if we all had the medical care given our athletes? Team doctors who heal dozens, or maybe a couple hundred … not thousands, as we pedestrians endure. Diagnosis in minutes, or a day, with state-of-the-art equipment at the work place. Doctoring by the world’s best surgeons and therapists.
Then again, athletes make their way on their physical gifts, and owners pay millions for those gifts. Allen Iverson, traded Monday by the Denver Nuggets to the Detroit Pistons, is being paid $20.8 million this season to throw his small, wiry, inked body all over NBA floors (and to shoot every time he gets the ball). Twenty point eight million. AI is well-heeled, and well-healed, getting the best care money can buy. Could we all be so lucky … as long as no one else knows what’s ailing us.
