ALBIN’S ANGLE

The Luck runs out Colts QB’s retirement serves as reminder of hard recoveries made by athletes

Nate Albin albinnat000@hsestudents.org

Alacerated kidney would likely make someone rethink ever doing that activity again. For a young professional athlete, he or she is expected to come back right away. Former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck battled a lacerated kidney, as well as six other major injuries, in a career that lasted only seven years. In a CBS Sports timeline of Luck’s injuries, one can see that right after one injury healed he faced another.

Still, despite many severe injuries that were publicly known for years, he was booed as he walked out of Lucas Oil Stadium and called a quitter by fans and professional analysts such as Doug Gottlieb on talk shows and over Twitter. This player was a fan-favorite whose jersey was the team’s best seller all seven years and has his name all over the team’s records. And he was booed.

The disrespect toward Luck has been through the roof. Being an athlete that has gone through and come back from multiple injuries, being booed is probably the biggest slap-in-the-face possible.

Physical therapy is an insanely slow process. Athletes once used to competing at high levels suddenly begin progressing as slow as snails. An athlete has to relearn everything that made them elite in the fi rst place. Physically, the most diffi cult part about therapy is that it actually is hard. You can no longer do the day-to-day activities of a sport that were once done naturally.

For example, when I was injured, it hurt to even walk. That was a major problem because I am a runner. I had to retrain my body to walk without pain before I could even dream of running again. Tasks such as raising my leg up a few inches became a diffi cult task in which each inch higher I lifted was celebrated. Between the physical therapy sessions were doctors appointments in which no one really knew for sure what was wrong. This was a cycle that for me lasted four to fi ve months.

Then there is the mental aspect of coming back, which is arguably harder than the physical parts. The athlete will feel unathletic, begin to doubt himself and his abilities. On top of all this, an athlete is constantly watching teammates improve around and cannot do a thing about it. He or she wonders why she is even playing her sport. It is mentally exhausting.

For Andrew Luck, the fun was gone. He said it. He could not live the life he wanted anymore because of injuries that he sustained while trying to satisfy selfi sh fans. He is not the fi rst athlete that has had to call it quits too soon due to injuries, nor will he be the last. One of the most recent examples of this comes from tennis. Even though he is attempting a comeback, three time major champion three time Olympic medalist Andy Murray announced his retirement from the sport in late 2018.

What is truly amazing is that Luck found time to play football in between all those injuries. Maybe a “Thank you for giving up clean health for a decade” is a bit more deserved than a “Boo.” Andrew Luck gets sacked by Washington Redskins defender Preston Smith in a 21-9 win on Sept. 18, 2018. Photo used with permission of Wikimedia Commons