Injuries Contribute to Indiana Loss
Matthew Pickut
Monday February 24, 2003
The Firebirds described Philyaw’s finger injury to the media as an ‘open dislocation.’ However accurate that may be, it’s still like calling the Grand Canyon a big hole in the ground – it’s true but doesn’t quite give you the picture. Not only was Philyaw’s right index finger dislocated, the middle bone broke through the skin after cutting a wide gash.
“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Philyaw. “It’s like one of those hits you see, like Joe Thiesman. I didn’t know exactly what happened and then I looked down and was like ohhh, what just happened. I should have stayed down on the field and let them pop it in there but I was in too much pain. I couldn’t handle the pain so I took off running for the locker room. It took a long time for them to get it back in place, and that’s when I knew it was more serious than I thought. I tore the skin all the way around. I had to get six stitches.”
Just hearing about the injury makes me glad to be a pastor. I mean, worse comes to worse I catch a cold from shaking hands after a service, maybe I get a paper cut opening the mail, or I tell one too many stories about my wife from the pulpit and have to sleep on the coach, but I’ve never risked having my own bones shoot out of my skin. Somehow Philyaw managed to keep a sense of humor.
“That’s the worst injury I’ve had playing football, and the funny thing is that since I’ve been growing my braids, I’ve worn my hair down twice,” joked Philyaw. “[The last] time I hurt my knee and had to be out for a few games, so I guess I’ll be cutting my hair before I come back.”
For his part, Bech made a game effort to help the team, catching the first pass on Indiana’s opening drive and making a one-handed interception to save a score early in the game. As the game wore on, however, Bech’s shoulder became more of a problem.
“He was favoring it at the beginning of the game,” said head coach Mike Dailey, “and then he made that spectacular interception. He’s a great competitor.”
In the end, Bech’s limited mobility kept him from being a larger part of the game. “I fell right on it, and now I don’t have much mobility in it. I can’t move it above my head,” said Bech. “ I was hoping that it would calm down but I felt like I was hurting the team.”
Despite the injuries to his teammates, OS Eddie Brown scored 18 points in route to passing the 2000-point mark for his career. Even though Brown became only the second player in league history to reach the 2K milestone, a win would have made him more excited. “It’s really mixed feelings,” said Brown. “I mean the points are an individual thing, but doing the things that give the chance to win that caries more weight. The points just mean that they keep throwing me the ball and that I’ve been playing for a long time.”
In relief of Philyaw, QB Craig Whelihan played well but looked rusty. “I’d take that pick back, and I missed on some throws,” said Whelihan of his performance, “ but over all I think I played pretty well. They didn’t do anything to surprise us. They just came in here and played well.”
In the end Brown summed up the Firebirds perspective going into next weeks game against the Colorado Crush. “I think we need to work a little harder. We played good, but we should have played great, so we need to work a little harder.”
My Brush with Coolness
All right, I admit it. I stayed to watch Tony Hawk skateboard after the game, expecting to leave unimpressed. I mean, I’m not the exactly the target demographic. In fact, as a 29-year-old, overweight, married, white male, I’m pretty much the anti-demographic – most producers of ‘in’ products would prefer I don’t use their stuff, for fear of being seen.
All of that being said, I have to say (whether they like it or not) I’ve become a big Tony Hawk fan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to take up skating (my idea of exercise is sitting further away from the buffet on purpose), but I was very impressed by Tony and his skating friends. Not only were they incredible on the ramp, they were genuinely funny, friendly, normal (compared to what I expected) guys.
Tony was only able to watch a little of the game, but saw a lot of similarities between skating and the AFL. “It’s a lot more action-based than other NFL games I’ve seen, a lot more plays and I thought it was exciting,” said Hawk. “I think our sports have become so well-accepted that even a main stream football fan can appreciate them, where five or 10 years ago they wouldn’t get a second look.”
Fellow Skater Jesse Kitsch, the newest member of Hawk’s team, took advantage of the fact that most of us in the media room didn’t know Tony Hawk from Tony the Tiger to step up and take the spotlight. Aside from praising ‘that new kid,’ he actually made some good points about why skating is attractive to a lot of kids. “There’s no score and no coach yelling at you when you screw up.”
Considering some of the things you hear going on in high school sports, maybe someone aught to listen to these guys.
Matthew Pickut is a pastor in northern Indiana and a long time AFL fan. He also writes for his own website: The Brown Paper Blog. He graduated from Taylor University in Upland Indiana (class of `96) with degrees in Biblical Literature and Sociology as well as a healthy respect for the medicinal properties of coffee.
