Sidelines
SOME guys just get hurt. They just do. It has nothing to do with how tough they are. It's luck. It has to be. Or genetics, the way their bodies hold together. It's a roll of the dice, somewhere between science and the twists and turns of fate. Players deal with injuries,
hope for luckHow else can you account for guys who go for decades in the NFL with barely an operation while others trip over paper clips and are out for 6-8 weeks? (Every 6-8 weeks?)
Toughness? No. Toughness helps with the minor stuff, with pain, but toughness doesn't get you anywhere when bones break and tendons pop. Some people's bones break. Some -- miraculously, Cal Ripken -- don't.
"I do everything right," the Steelers' Chris Fuamatu-Maafala said this summer. Everything. Fuamatu-Maafala, the former St. Louis School star and poster boy for bad luck with injuries, can't explain why his body continues to betray him. He does exactly what he's supposed to. He's in great shape. He's ready for action, better than ever, and then ... something else goes wrong. Something else breaks. Something else pops. "You know what I mean? It just happens in football. It's the nature of the game. You can only hope and pray, brah."
Which brings us to Hawaii defensive tackle Mike Iosua, who is still here today watching the game on TV, like the rest of us who weren't on the travel roster. "He'd probably get re-injured," coach June Jones said this week. Iosua can hope and he can pray, but Jones is probably right. Iosua has all kinds of things wrong with him. This year alone, he's already injured a shoulder and a knee, and if the coach is holding him out of a game, especially after an extra week of rest, that's not a good sign.
It's a big loss. Iosua would play. They all would. But if Jones, Mr. Life at 100 mph, holds him out, you know it's serious. Iosua was hurt last year and he's hurt again and when he'll get completely better, nobody knows for sure. He might not get much better. Lui Fuga might not get better. Jacob Espiau, banged up but still playing, might not get any better.
Fuga, another defensive lineman, was hurt last year, too. He played the entire season hurt. A tough, tough man. But he's watching the game on TV today. Toughness doesn't help much if your body falls apart.
"I'm not the only one," Fuamatu-Maafala said. "That's the good thing, you know what I mean. Get plenty guys around the league that haven't had an injury-free season, so that's what keeps me going. Guys like Robert Smith who blow out their knee. You know, two years in a row he's been hurt and then all of a sudden he does good."
So Fuamatu-Maafala is out of injury rehab and he has new hope. Again. But Iosua and Fuga and the rest don't have that kind of time. And neither does UH.
Kalani Simpson's column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
He can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com