My apologies to my family, friends, fans, and followers for missing this Wednesday's blog. I was in bed sicker than a dog contemplating whether setting myself on fire would get rid of my chills or not. In addition, I looked online for a flem extracting device, but came up empty. As I laid in bed wondering if I would ever take normal breaths out of my nostrils again I asked myself what do professional athletes go through when they're sick? Is it even a legitimate excuse to miss a game, a match, or a meet because you have the flu?
I remember years back Bruce Smith missed a playoff game for the Buffalo Bills because he had a temperature of 102 and couldn't get out of bed. The Buffalo fans called him coward, used racial slurs, and labeled him irresponsible for ALLOWING himself to get sick before a critical game. We're talking about a 6'4 280 pound man that is the NFL's all time sack leader. Track and Field athletes can forget it. When they become ill they can't even take cold medicine without arising the suspicion of the anti doping agency. Baseball players are the boys of summer so this issue hardly comes into question. Basketball players typically get a pass if they miss only one game.
No one ever WANTS to get sick and most people take reasonable precautions to stay healthy. That being said I do think professional athletes should take better care of themselves than most people. They have the access to nutritionists, doctors, medications, and remedies your average person doesn't have. In addition, their physical attributes make them unique and not easily replaced. I'm not saying professional athletes don't have the right to get sick or that they should be punished for catching a cold, but if Tom Brady starts to feel a tickle in his throat I want him hitting the Echinacea and flooding his system with vitamin C before the problem causes him to miss a game. A lot is expected of these guys and it's only prudent to be pre-emptive. Your thoughts?
how about a junior college bball player who has 102.9 night before the bus leaves school for playoff -got beraded and accused of lying as if she didnt feel bad enough- then got canned from team who won championship and now isnt going to nationals?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the read. That is awful! You make an excellent point about how bad the ill player feels for letting down their team mates and the fans. It's unfortunate that athletes are often looked upon as pawns in a big game rather than human beings who make mistakse and have things out of their control happen to them.
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