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Pastimes : Football Forum (NFL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (9233)	11/17/2001 7:04:39 PM
From: sandintoes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45639

Okay, that's comfortable. They'll do about as well as expected...

To: Augustus Gloop who wrote (9233)	11/17/2001 7:08:43 PM
From: Augustus Gloop	Respond to of 45639

Great Story This dood is a stud. If I were a chick I'd be on him like a cheap suit. <g> Friday, November 16, 2001 Injury was a blessing By Joe Theismann Special to ABC Sports Online Although I have yet to see the film of my leg being broken, I remember everything about the play that ended my NFL career and changed my life during Monday Night Football on Nov. 18, 1985. Joe Theismann holds Redskin team records in pass yardage, completions and attempts. We called a flea flicker. I handed the ball to John Riggins, and he pitched it back to me. I looked down the field and didn't see anybody. I felt pressure coming from my left, so I took a slide step to the right. The next thing I knew, I swung around and felt the most incredible pain I'd ever felt in my life. I heard what sounded like two muzzled gunshots off my left shoulder, but it was actually my right leg breaking. The body is such an incredible machine. From the knee down, my leg was completely numb -- no feeling whatsoever. I remember our trainer, Bubba Tyre, coming out and getting on my left side. I looked at Bubba and said calmly, "Please do me a favor. Call my mom and dad and let them know I'm OK." Redskins coach Joe Gibbs came running out onto the field. He kneeled down, looked in my eyes and said, "Joe, you've meant so much to this football team. Joe, you've been so important to this ball club. Joe, this is a heck of a mess you've left me in." I said I was sorry, and we both laughed. Then they put me on the stretcher. Never in my life have I ever heard an ovation like I did that night from the fans at RFK Stadium. It was unbelievable. The people poured their hearts out to me. At the time I didn't understand the severity of my broken leg. I had already broken my right leg once in Canada in 1972 and came back to play again. So why couldn't I do it again? In my mind, I just had to recover from another broken leg. Unlike other players who have suffered broken legs, like Ed McCaffrey this season, Tim Krumrie in the Super Bowl, or baseball's Moises Alou, I didn't have a rod inserted in my leg because it appeared the union of bone and bone was going well. But bone has a way of doing what it wants to do sometimes. Like lava, it goes where it wants to go, and nobody can change it. I developed a virus, leaving my right leg at about 85 percent. In the throwing motion, so much of the power comes from the legs as well as the arm. I worked hard to come back, but my arm had to make up for the 15 percent I lost in my push leg. I started to develop soreness in my arm in places I'd never had it before. So, at the age of 35, I wasn't in a position to invest two years to come back. Although today 35-year-old quarterbacks are valuable entities, nobody wanted one in 1985. I can't begin to tell you the amount of people who come up to me, even today, and say they know exactly where they were when my leg was broken. To a degree, it's quite an honor to hear that. I know my injury has been voted the most graphic injury in the history of sports. I believe that it made the networks more judicious about how they show graphic sports injuries today. There is not as much detail from so many different angles. People told me they showed replay after replay -- in slow motion, from reverse angles. It really became somewhat disgusting. Anyway, that night changed my life. Football, the most important thing in the world to me, had been taken away. I had to examine who Joe Theismann was as a person, and it was not a pretty sight. I was not a nice person. I was caught up in my own self-indulgence and ego and had sort of pushed everybody and everything outside of my life. In my mind, I was the star, the reason why the Redskins were successful. But I believe my injury was a case of divine intervention, trying to straighten out a life that was headed in the wrong direction. That's the story I share when I do my speeches. That night gave me a perspective on life I probably never would have gotten. I don't look at the injury as a tragedy; I look at it as a blessing. Joe Theismann is an NFL analyst for ESPN's Sunday Night Football.