On aging, denial, and the injuries that come from believing you’re still invincible.
I’m playing right-back, like I have for 25 years. This time, I’m playing in a seven-on-seven post-work recreational soccer league, with short fields and half-size goals. All the players have fine lines etched into their foreheads and firm memories of 9/11, if not the Bronco chase. And for each ex-soccer star on the bite-sized pitch is a ghost of her former self, out-running, out-dribbling, out-playing each and every player on the field.
I reached the peak of my soccer career circa 2001, when I made a travel club soccer team and thus latched onto an identity of Good At Sports. At the time, my skill entirely stemmed from my having grown taller and faster than the rest of my cohort. I could therefore, due to sheer size, outrun opposing forwards with a breeze, wrestle the ball from their feet, and boot it down the field, away from me. Whatever happened next was none of my business. This worked for me until high school, when I realized I’d developed near-zero dribbling skills and only a hazy understanding of what a “strategic pass” might be (something about triangles?). I took my two brain cells and horse legs to track and field, where they belonged.
And so, my gameplay has been consistent since the first Bush administration: sprint, shoulder-check, then boot the ball somewhere the fuck away from me.
Decades later, my opponents have a goal kick. Their sweeper whacks the ball and it comes sailing towards me, just a few steps to my left. It bounces and I step to it, cutting in front of my mark, barely quicker than her, and just as I get my foot on the ball to settle it—
“ARGH!”
I feel like my spine has been cracked like a whip and twisted like a corkscrew all at once. Just as I hauled my body weight to the left, my mark grabbed my right arm and yanked me back towards her. I shout a choice expletive (OK fine. It’s “fuck,” I say “fuck”), but it’s too late. My mark scores. I attempt to play for another couple plays. But each time my cleat hits the ground, I feel a horrible yank through my entire back, like my spine is being zippered with blades. If I twist my shoulders to the left or the right, white hot pain sears down my posterior chain. I won’t be able to walk pain-free for several weeks.
My back is officially fucked.
The particular bodily plights of the thirty-something jock don’t stem simply from the inherent risk imbued in competitive sports. They’re brought about by the delusion that we can still play as hard as we could when we were 22.
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Mine is just one of countless horror stories in the canon of washed-up thirty-somethings’ recreational sports injuries. I once witnessed a friend on that same soccer team slam to the ground and fracture her shoulder. A coworker once showed up on some random Wednesday with a broken finger from a flag football game the evening prior. A finger injury (right, ring) of my own all but ended my nascent bouldering career (R.I.P.). I’ve seen hamstrings pulled between home and first, ankles twisted landing needless jump-shots, and an ACL tear requiring surgery and months of recovery from a casual (albeit highly competitive) Sunday afternoon pickup basketball game.
Yes, athletics beget injuries, no matter the age or level. But I’m talking about something specific here. The particular bodily plights of the thirty-something jock don’t stem simply from the inherent risk imbued in competitive sports. They’re brought about by the delusion that we can still play as hard as we could when we were 22.
Full article: What Happens When Your Brain Is 22 and Your Body Absolutely Is Not (Outside Mag)