The Myth of Invinciblity

Football and hockey players are tough, baseball players are soft, or so the cliché goes.  (As for softball, my daughter played her entire junior year of college with slow-healing gouges on both her shins the result of a conditioning mishap, but who cares about women in sports, right?)  Football in particular plays into the myth, with all the John Foxes talking about player “owies” and all the commentators prattling on about a player’s “toughness.”  I tell ‘ya, Bill, that is one tough hombre—until he isn’t.

Take Rob Gronkowski, or Gronk, as they like to call their tight end in Foxboro.  Great player, plays hurt, seven operations and now facing an eighth with no guarantees that what gets done on his back will allow him to play again.  Gronkowski is 27.  I wonder what his quality of life will be in ten years or twenty.  But, hey, we love our Gronk.  Next man up.