Injury and Isolation

I was watching a college football practice recently and saw a player pull up with a pulled hamstring. I watched as he limped toward the sideline, but collapse before getting past the numbers. He crumpled to the ground as the trainer reached him. I watched as his position coach moved the other players and their drill ten yards up the field and continued the practice. It was like nothing happened to most of them, but to the injured player time stood still.


I stood with him as he watched his team continued practice, as others ran the drills he suddenly could not and I observed the desperate loneliness he was feeling, just twenty yards from everything normal. He stood there with ice on his leg watching other players vie for the position which was his just five minutes ago. He was dying inside and his teammates wouldn’t even look that direction. They were each denying their own frailty.


I believe there are no lonelier places for a competitor than the sideline and the training room. If our body has let us down due to injury or illness we’re suddenly cut off from the activities which feed our souls. We stand and imagine how we would make the play which our teammate just failed to make. We grieve losses without the ability to prevent them. We hollowly celebrate victories without the satisfaction of having contributed to them.


When you encounter injury or illness, be aware that isolation and loneliness, twin thieves of joy, await your arrival on the sideline or the training room. When your teammates become injured, be near them and chase the pain of isolation away with your assurance of loyalty and support.