It has been a minute since I have posted in my blog and I wanted take a moment before the upcoming Best of the West tournament to post an update. This season has been one of contradictions. On a personal level, my life has been moving forward in positive steps. On a team level there have been trials. On a league level there have been outcries. On a sport level there have been questions.
OFF THE FIELD
On a personal front, life has been progressing forward like a dutiful soldier. Firstly, I got married! The planning of a wedding is a full-time job. No wonder there are wedding planners! We did it ourselves and had a beautiful reception in downtown Seattle. Being married is the most wonderful thing ever. I think it helps that I married my best friend. It took me forever to find her but she was worth the wait. I feel like I have my feet on solid ground for once in a long time and it makes me feel more comfortable than ever to take chances and go after what I want in life. In a weird way, it makes me work harder because I’m no longer just working for myself.
THE FIELD
Going into this season, I had some serious goals. The rehab process with my knee has been a long road. I basically can break this process now into 5 parts.
- Post Surgery –> Walking
- First round of PT –> Jogging
- Second round of PT –> Running
- First season back with brace
- Third round of PT –> no brace
I have covered the first 4 rounds pretty well in previous posts. I can now update how I got to the 5th step. Last season I was able to play but with a brace. I hated that thing. I felt slow. It was heavy. It took forever to get it on. It never stayed where I wanted it to and I messed with it a billion times before the adrenaline of playing would make me finally forget it. I had to destroy several left pant legs so I could get the damn thing on with pants and a girdle. It was really annoying. I sucked it up because at least I was playing. I still led the team in tackles and played well I think considering what I was dealing with.
When I went to the All-American game that year in Pittsburgh, the warm weather really made my knee feel great. I was able to play with just a simple tape job. I felt much quicker. When I came back home to cooler weather, my knee got cranky.
It wasn’t my ligaments. It felt like a bone issue. What started as popping in my knee that felt good, you know that kind where you pop your neck or knuckles and get relief, ended up in so much popping that I sounded like an orchestra. And sometimes the popping would be painful.
I got into this training cycle. I was determined to get ditch the brace but found myself in a frustrating cycle of starting to train and making it angry, backing off, and trying again. After a few rounds of this I went back to my original ortho. He said basically it is simply a cartilage issue and the only thing he could do is maybe give me cortisone injections.
I walked away from that appointment feeling dejected. Was I doomed to just have to deal with this the rest of my life? Should I just suck it up with a brace another year? It was my wife that persuaded me to get a 2nd opinion. I called around. The first place I went to said they can’t see me because my injury was too complicated for them but they referred me to a specialist at the University of Washington.
I made the appointment and trekked it up to the hospital. This doctor kind of reminded me of Ross from friends if he was an ortho with dad jokes. They xrayed both my knees to compare. There was a slight narrowing between the bones in my left knee compared to my right which suggested cartilage damage. They took measurements of my range of motion. They took measurements of the size of my thighs to see how my quads compared. My left quad was a full inch smaller than my right! Much better than how it started when I first started PT but still way short of where it needed to be.
Basically what was happening was there was a chain reaction. My LCL was completely reconstructed but they decided not to work on the PCL as much as originally thought because it was a defined position of 1 which is about as tight as they could get it with surgery anyway. They left it thinking if they fixed the rest, that the PCL would be ok.
Because my PCL was slightly looser than normal, it put more pressure on my quad muscle to take the on the burden. Since my quad muscle was smaller than needed, it then dispersed the burden onto the inside part of my knee, which is where my cartilage damage was. The more I worked, the more pressure on that injury and the more inflamed it would be. The answer to my problem was building my quad.
The doctor prescribed PT with a therapist he described as awesome. He also gave me heel inserts as a temporary relief as they would force my gait and help take pressure off the inside of my knee. I left feeling like at least I had a direction.
I contacted the new PT and set up an appointment. When I met her I felt excited. She has worked with professional athletes in several sports. She gave me a program that as an athlete I could take with me and apply. She made me work but really listened to what I needed.
After a few sessions, I saw a huge improvement. The inflammation went down. She worked on my hip and ankle which had gotten tight in compensation. I then told her about my brace how I really felt like it was not helping me any more. I brought it in and we put it on and she agreed that at that point it was actually hindering my improvement. I got the OK from the doctor to order a smaller more functional brace. By the time it was shipped, my leg had improved to the point that I didn’t even need it.
I went to an all-star game in Vegas in late November and was able to play in all the practice and the game without a brace. I can’t tell you how freeing that felt. I felt like Forest Gump who finally got rid of his polio braces and could run. Or a horse that was finally let out of the gate.
I have played this entire season without one and I feel physically like I hit another gear this season. I finally have felt normal. I’ve dealt with other minor things but that is typical of any year.
THE TEAM
There were tremendous changes for our team during the off-season. We made an announcement that were switching from the WFA to the IWFL. The thought from the management was that we would be apart of a new leadership group that would help revitalize the IWFL, which frankly was on its last legs prior.
This would mean that we would be exiting from games against Everett, Tacoma, and Portland and be playing teams like Nevada and Eugene. We would also get to possibly face teams like Utah, San Diego, and Texas.
We also announced that we had a new set of uniforms by UnderArmor. There were marketing pushes that were brilliantly put on by our marketing guru Rebecca.
We added some new talent and combined it with experienced veterans and looked to see what would happen.
Then the season began.
It has been the most dysfunctional season I have ever been apart of. That spans 12 years of playing in both leagues.
We opened up the season at home against Nevada with a win. It was a typical first game with good things and silly mistakes but it was a win.
We then geared up to play Utah at Utah. We arrived excited to prove we could play with them. Defensively we got outflanked early. We adjusted and slowed the tide but the offense struggled probably worst I have seen since I have been here. 3 and out parties make defenses tired. We lost 33-7.
Then the shit started hitting the fan. We started the season with 7 regular season games on the slate. Then a team folded that made the schedule switch around we were down to 6. Then Medford folded half way through and now we were down to 4 games. This includes a trip to Medford my wife paid for but couldn’t get refunded on. We were definitely sad pandas.
THE LEAGUE
The first three years of my career were spent with the Corvallis Pride in the IWFL. My experience towards the later part of that run was that the IWFL ran like a rec league. I played 8 years in the WFA after that and during that time, the IWFL regressed even further. I was skeptic that they would turn things around for this season. I wanted to believe that a new leadership team would help but I was weary. Just because you put names on paper doesn’t mean you will actually allow them to make changes.
The league’s website is not well run or updated hardly at all. They had stories from previous seasons still in their headlines. Scores were delayed. Standings were delayed. I struggled to understand how we could submit stats but none were uploaded. I later found out that apparently teams entering stats were optional. This kind of defeats the purpose of tracking stats if you have 3 teams entering them.
Their social media presence was basic. All they really posted was occasional content the teams posted on their pages. No original content on a league level.
Communication was non-existent. No one know the playoff structure. Then teams like the Bobcats and Yellowjackets folded. No one knew where the championship would be held. Would there even be a playoff?
If it were possible to feel ghosted by a league, this would be it. It got to the point where it was embarrassing to tell friends and family what league I was in or that I couldn’t answer scheduling questions because I really didn’t know what was happening.
Having played for a long time and invested myself in this game, mind, body, and soul, I feel a bit protective of it. I feel protective of the integrity of the game, the sport, and the women who put their bodies on the line to play it. It truly angered me that people in certain positions were not taking us seriously enough to even do the basic things. I felt like it made us take 12 steps backwards in a process where we have truly had to crawl to get those steps in the first place.
We simply wanted answers. A direction. A word. Were we going to practice for nothing?
REACTION
Due to only playing 4 regular season games, we have had HUGE gaps in between games. 4 week gap. 6 week gap. That does something to a team when you go that far in between games.
The pre-season is the work. It’s your meat and vegetables. The games are your dessert. They are your reward for your work. After a minute you get tired of broccoli and you want a damn cake.
Because of this, attendance goes up and down. People get cranky. No one has answers. You get tired of hitting each other. As a team, we have had to really try to bind together to pull each other through the fields of blah and try to focus on the cake over the horizon.
VEGAS
After many weeks of silence, our team, San Diego, Utah, and Texas, decided to create our own tournament. It’s called the Best of the West. We couldn’t afford to wait anymore. It’s either try something or just call it a season.
It will be in a tournament format. We will play Utah on July 19th at 6pm. Then San Diego will play Texas. The winners will play each other July 21 and the losers will play in a consolation game. There will also be a business meeting and clinic.
Frankly, I just want to play. I’m excited to play good teams. I’m excited to be on the field. As a player, it’s about being on the field. To prepare for the tournament, I have spent so much time in the sauna room at the gym that I might half live there. No question about it, it will be hot.
THE FUTURE
What this tournament means for the future, no one truly knows yet. Will this tournament format be a thing of the future? I don’t personally think football is made to be a tournament sport. It’s too brutal. Having huge gaps in between tournaments would be hard to sustain numbers for any team. Plus what are you winning if you win? I want to win a national title. I think playing an entire regular season with a playoff feels more valuable to me.
I hope that these steps backwards that it seems half the sport took this year, will create a spring cleaning effect. Maybe we can add by subtraction and spring forward. In the meantime, I will spend the next couple of weeks prepping to at least get back on the field. That is where I feel most at home.