Spring Break Column

You hear grunts, and howls, squeaks and pounds. You see green and yellow, scorecards and crowds. It isn’t football, but it’s just as hard on your body.

For spring break, I got the privilege of going north, to the land of 10,000 lakes. A perfect place to spend spring break! Lakes are frozen over, snow piled high and due to the below freezing temperatures you can bet any activity will be done indoors. So, why was I there? I, along with the rest of the UNK men’s and women’s tennis teams, was there to compete.

The fortunate change of regions requires us to compete against division II schools in Minnesota, instead of heading a bit further south to Kansas and Missouri. The desire to contend at the NCAA Regional tournament in May is the drive that propels us forward.

Sitting about the very middle of our season, we have already faced numerous injuries. Though some good has come from it, like the addition of a wonderful, new teammate; some has not been in our favor. Playing two matches a day, a possibility of four or five in any given weekend, takes a great toll on one’s body. We need our legs, the lower body, to carry us from one side of the court to the other, lifting us up and down as we take each shot. Our arms, shoulders, abdomens and backs to control our swings, serves and power. Eyes help us make the judgment call as to whether or not our opponent’s shot was in or out. Our vocal cords, of course, enable us to call out the score and the hair on our heads, or perhaps lack thereof, holds in place a sweat band, head band, hat or bandanna. Each and every part of our body is working to allow us peak performance. When one limb goes down, the others must work twice as hard to keep up.

This spring break started out for me as any other weekend of match-play. As I began warming up, I could still smell my clean, just washed uniform and the strong scent of fresh linen dryer sheets. We pulled together and triumphed through both matches, defeating Augustana and Minnesota-Duluth, but a familiar pain underneath the big toe on my left foot began to show that my body had taken a pounding throughout the day.

Sunday night faded into Monday morning and soon enough we found ourselves back on the tennis court, not so fresh as the previous day. St. Cloud had one of the top seeds in our region so our biggest challenge of the week was about to get underway. Seeming to feel more and more pressure from my foot throughout my doubles and singles matches, I kept thinking, “pull through, this is the last one and then I’ll have a few days off.” My thoughts erased the pain even more as I finished my singles match felling pretty good. Another victory, only this one was a bit closer.

As soon as my head hit the over-stuffed pillow at our hotel, I was out. Should I have known the pain in my foot I would be feeling in the morning, the thought of ever falling asleep would not have crossed my mind. As I stepped out of bed the next morning, placing both callused-over and blistered feet on the floor, I took a step with my left and the agony that shot through my body was enough to sit me back down on that bed. “Could it be broken, again” I wondered as more and more thoughts developed in my head.

As athletes we sacrifice our bodies for our sport. When our mind is set and our goal is in focus, it doesn’t matter what sport we compete in, we go to great lengths to get to where we want to be, injured or not, and in the end, that defines who we are—athletes.



So I wrote this piece the evening of the day I woke up and thought it was broken. Since then, I have had some very generous family and friends help do what they could to get me back on the tennis court 3 days later. A day after this incident I saw a family friend who happened to be a trainer and without looking at x-rays he believed it to in fact be broken. His recommendation was to get in a boot or on crutches if there was any chance of me playing that weekend. You see, this was a big weekend for me as all my family live in MN so many were coming to watch our matches on Saturday. After doing some searching we were able to track down a walking boot, without being in Kearney and having the trainers there, I felt helpless due to my limited actions because I was not with the team and too far away. When Saturday came, I was determined to at least play doubles. When that went ok, I played singles and another round of doubles. Assuming my foot would be hating me in the morning, I was pulled out of our last singles match for precautionary reasons; that being because I was encouraged not to play at all by UNK training staff. To my surprise, the next morning it didn't feel too bad at all, in fact besides the inflammation, it felt pretty good. Still I have not gone to get another set of xrays done. The trainers are hoping that because it was not sore the day after I played that means progress. I was told just to continue watching it throughout the weeks and monitor and changes I may find. The week after spring break was filled with a lot of non-tennis activity except for a match last Sunday in which it seemed fine. The true test will be this week and those that follow as our competition increases and our weeks are jammed packed with tennis!