A Science Guy’s Almanac #17. Year 2. February 8, 2016
A ruptured Spinal Disk and Giant Snowflakes – Part 1
When I graduated from high school, I went to University of California San Diego. It’s excellent school for Academic pursuit, But not so much for football. In fact, I played on the only football team in the history of the UCSD campus.
My high school football team in my senior year could best be categorized as bad. The UCSD team I played on was worse. We did have some very good football players. But we also filled roster spots with warm bodies until we suited around 30 players for the pre-school year practices.
Included in the warm bodies was a guy who'd broken his leg skiing. When day during practice he collapsed. We gathered around and looked at what appeared to be a severely broken leg--the outside of his foot lay flat on the ground while his kneecap pointed straight up. However, the player wasn’t in any pain at all.
He did go to the hospital, and his leg was repaired. Turns out, the spiral fracture that he done skiing never really healed. What did break during practice was a portion of the bone that had died instead of healing. The dead bone didn’t hurt.
But I digress.
Our first football game was before the school year started. UCSD had never had a football team. Because of that, the cheerleaders were not used to having anything to do until basketball season. Gamer's that the were, the cheerleaders dutifully showed up. As might be expected, there were some glitches.
During that first game, the cheerleaders misspelled UCSD more than once in the traditional University of California clapping chant. The entire chant is the cheerleaders and the crowd shouting our the school's initials followed by "Tritons Fight!"
I didn't think remembering U--C--S--D was that challenging. I was mistaken.
That example of horrific cheerleading was the highlight of the first game.
We lost 40 do nothing.
Our second game was against Cal Lutheran University. Our schedule consisted of teams that had openings in their schedules when we also had openings—that was pretty much every week.
Cal Lutheran was the defending small schools champion.
Remember, we were terrible.
We rode from La Jolla to Cal Lutheran in a yellow school bus. As soon as we arrived we carried our own football gear to the locker room and suited up.
We were the first team out on the field to do the warm-ups.
About 10 minutes into our stretching exercises, the Cal Lutheran team arrived—all 60 or 70 of them.
Cal Lutheran kicked off. We ran three plays and punted. Cal Lutheran probably ran four or five plays before they scored.
They kicked off again.
We ran three plays and punted again.
That cycle continued throughout the game.
About halfway through the second quarter, I was playing quarterback. Greg Gleason, who transferred to Tulane the next year and set several school records, and I alternated at that position, but I was on the field during this particular series.
We ran what was supposed to be a rollout pass. It ended up being a quarterback keeper when no receiver was open.
The year was 1968.
Unlike today, in 1968, no players ran out of bounds intentionally. Every running back, wide receiver, even quarterbacks tried to smash their way to as much yardage as possible every time they touched the ball.
I remember being tackled by at least six players on that particular carry.
We didn’t get a first down.
We punted again.
I was on the punt team as what we called the "up back." My task was to stand in front of the punter and block the first or the most dangerous person that got close. The number one skill required for the position of up back was to not back up.
Think about it.
The up back is blocking while the punter is punting. If the up back backs up, there’s a chance for two rapidly moving objects to contact the up back's tush. Since I had no desire receive either a shoe or football enema, I was perfect for this job.
Once the ball was kicked by the punter, my job was to go to the side of the field but the ball was kicked to. The punter went to the other side of the field in case the receiving team ran a reverse.
On this particular return, I could see that Cal Lutheran was trying to set up what is known as a picket line.
Imagine a row of players all approximately same distance from the sideline. Each player is trying to keep any opposing players from passing through the line. If done correctly, the picket line makes an open lane for the part returner between his team's players and the sideline.
As soon as I saw the line forming, I got between two guys who weren’t paying attention to the up back. I waited for the ball carrier, prepared to make a tackle.
Without warning, I was smashed in the back by one of the picket line players who'd turned and saw me. His helmet hit me in the lower back. I went down in a heap. As a climbed to my feet I looked around to see if the official had thrown a penalty flag.
He had. I felt better as I jogged off the field.
Since I also played linebacker about half time, three or four plays into Cal Lutheran’s possession our coach called my name. Then he told me to get in there. Nothing unusual yet.
I took a step with my right leg. No problem. But, when my brain told my left leg to take a step, nothing happened. I face planted in front of the bench along the sidelines. That was unusual.
The coach asked me if everything was okay.
I said no. He put somebody else in at linebacker.
The team trainer got me up on the bench. Just before halftime, I was assisted to the locker room. Once in the locker room, it was determined that there was no way I was going to play the rest of the game, So they gave me a shot of a muscle relaxer.
After the game, the trainer said that I shouldn’t ride home on the school bus. My mom and dad were at the game. They'd driven up in their car. They said they would take me to the hospital.
It was then that they were asked by the coaching staff if they would mind taking another player with them, too. They agreed to do that. At the time, the coaches were more concerned about the other player than about me. His abdomen was swollen and it was very painful, they thought he probably ruptured his spleen.
On the drive from the Cal Lutheran to the UCSD hospital in La Jolla, I lay in the back seat of my mom and dad's Chevy Malibu. The other player sat in the front seat next my mom. She was in the middle of the bench seat. My dad was driving..
All the way home, the player in the front seat moaned every time the car made a sudden move or hit any size bump in the road. It was quite a ride.
We got to the hospital. My dad went up to the Emergency Room to let them know we were there. The coaches had called the hospital from Cal Lutheran telling you we were headed that way.
The E.R. technicians took the other player first.
Then a young man in a lab coat came to check on me.
My mom looked at him and said she thought we should wait for the doctor.
The man introduced himself as the chief of Orthopedic surgery at the hospital.
My mom said it was okay to check me out.
After a brief check of my condition, I was admitted to the hospital.
Being 18 years old at the time, I was sent to pediatrics.
I found out what happened to the other player we brought home. He'd been hit so hard on one play, that he'd swallowed enough air to inflate his stomach. That was why he was in pain.
He spent most of the night burping. They released him the next morning.
Watch a version of this on YouTube:
Next Almanac post: A ruptured Spinal Disk and Giant Snowflakes – Part 2
Follow me on Twitter: @CRDowningAuthor
