Nicholas Gerard-Larson, a senior on the 2009 Milwaukee men's soccer team, will be blogging all season long on the UWM website. Today is his 12th blog entry.
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The wear and tear of this sport is really starting to get to me. As the season progresses those little nagging injuries that seem trivial at first begin to multiply. A few sore muscles on their own are generally easy to cope with, but when you combine this with a strained groin, perpetually re-opening scrapes from turf, and chronic tendonitis in one’s ankles it tends to conjure up various self-loathing, fatalistic conclusions about your body’s future well-being. This feeling consistently grows as the seasons accumulate, festering in the back of your mind as a constant reminder of time’s relentless toll on each of us. Now, towards the end of my fourth season, my body seems increasingly in turmoil, conflicted between maintaining the relentless, standardized form of self-destruction this sport requires and longing for a welcome, languorous respite.
The last four years have been a testament to what the body is capable of enduring. During the summer before my freshman year I underwent the first of three hernia surgeries, all resulting from strenuous athletic activity. Although these sort of procedures may seem odd in someone my age, they are fairly common among hockey, football, and soccer players. An ailment appropriately titled the “sports hernia” involves a gradual weakening of the various groin muscles, often caused by repetitive tears and strains and can lead to a more traditional hernia if not treated properly. The surgeon makes a small incision in the skin and reinforces the torn muscles with a supportive mesh to avoid further straining. Following the end of my junior season I again went under the knife for a second sports hernia surgery, this time on the other side of my body. I somehow developed an additional, more rare condition later in the off season called a Spigelian hernia, which is located under the oblique and lower abdominal muscles. My third procedure proved successful and I was able to rehabilitate almost fully for the start of my senior season.
Autumn continues to fade quickly into winter. The once colorful leaves now blanket portions of the sidewalk, offering a comfortable carpet for pedestrians to walk on, almost like a temporary yellow brick road. The air even smells colder, full of a dryness and expectant chill that foreshadows the coming snow and ice. Most of our team bundles up for practice now, bolstering the body’s warming mechanisms with hats, gloves and other thermal layers of insulation. We’ve yet to see a definitive snowfall, but I know Mother Nature will soon indulge those of us that long for a change of pace.
Our last conference game of the year brought us northward to face UW-Green Bay. The Friday game had to be postponed twenty-four hours due to poor field conditions, much to the chagrin of everyone’s trick-or-treating fancies. Despite the delay Green Bay’s field remained extremely soft and sodden, requiring metal studs to properly keep one’s footing. Appropriately, the style and overall feel of the game remained sloppy for its entirety. We aggressively fought hard at certain points to get some strong attacking chances, while also allowing our effort to lapse into a lackluster affair at times. A botched clearance led to a Green Bay goal in the first half and poor marking brought another in the second half. We ruefully ended the game 2-0 down and suffered another bus ride home in defeat. Our playoff hopes hinge on Wright State losing to Butler in their final game next Saturday, otherwise our last game of the year, and my last career outing, will be next Thursday at home against Madison.
