Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Feeling Bad for a Trojan?

There is nothing that I personally despise more in the world of sports more than Trojans from U$C (those from Troy University are alright). However, there are moments when even the most dedicated Bruin and Trojan-hating human has to feel compassion for a Trojan. After all, Trojans are human. Most of them have emotions and feelings. In all seriousness, the news about U$C RB Stafon Johnson's horrific accident led me, and probably hoards of other UCLAers, to feel nothing but sadness. This was not an accident brought upon by alcohol, drugs, or trying to prank a rival school. It was solely an accident. Plain and simple.
Accidents happen, especially in the weight room. More often than not, they are not incurred by misuse but rather from the inherent nature of weight lifting. I had a friend back in high school had a dumbbell cut one of his fingers and he needed some ugly stitches to fix it. However, that is nothing in comparison to what happened yesterday. We all have to remember that it could have easily been any of one of us. Would we want to have people from rival schools say "oh he's a _____, he deserved it"? No. The spirit of competition tells us to root against players so they get crushed in a game, look silly, and make mistakes. None however, should be when it comes to a serious health problem.
There is more to life than just football, basketball, soccer, volleyball, and any other sport imaginable. What's more? living life. When a situation arises that hinders any athlete from living life like the rest of us "mortals", we should all take notice and care. Just because Johnson is a gifted football player who chose to play for a hated school does not make his struggle to live any less than the struggle by any Bruin, Duck, Husky, or others out there. Get better Stafon, recover at your own speed. Life is too short to mess around. You have plenty of life ahead of you, and even your sports enemies are rooting for you.

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