COMMENTARY: When football becomes just a game

EDITOR'S NOTE: Bryan Payton is a national sports columnist for the Indiana Daily Student and a running back for the IU football team. This column is his reaction to a career-ending injury sustained by Ball State wide receiver Dante Love in the Hoosiers' game Saturday against Ball State.

Going into this past weekend, I planned to write about the Tampa Bay Rays or maybe how politics affects the world of sports, or maybe even the week in football. But after Saturday night, I quickly changed my mind.

If you’re thinking IU’s loss had anything to do with it, you’re wrong.

I just turned 23 this past Sunday, and with every year that passes, things get put more into perspective for me; life, athletics, academics, everything.

Years ago, I used to see football as the end-all to everything in life. Not much else mattered.

But what happened to Ball State wide receiver Dante Love on Saturday squashed all of that.

Love suffered a cervical spine fracture and spinal cord injury in Saturday night’s game.
The injury hit me in a way that not many things do. Sure, he was our opponent, and yes, we lost the game. But in the whole scheme of things, none of that matters.

I’ll sometimes hear athletes talk about how they want to cause pain in an attempt to strike fear in their opponents. But it’s seldom an athlete really means that. We don’t want to see anyone hurt, especially like this.

Standing on the sideline, I witnessed the entire play unfold via the scoreboard screen, which is how I usually see the game while the defense is on the field.

Once the hit was made on Love, I immediately turned my head to the field and yelled along with the rest of the 41,000 people in attendance.

I then jumped for joy as we returned the fumble for a touchdown. But as soon as I peered back to see Ball State’s reaction, a lump formed in my throat as I saw Love lying motionless on the field.

I wanted him to get up and run off the field.

That didn’t happen.

After a few minutes, I knelt down to pray with some of my teammates because we knew it didn’t look good.

I’ve watched the hit over and over, both on film and on the news. The hit was clean, and it didn’t seem like anything horrific would occur as a result.

A strange feeling comes over me when I think about it.

It made me think about all the times I’ve been hit like that, only to get up and play another down.

It angers me that something like this had to happen to Love.

In my opinion, he was destined to play on Sundays, but that is not what is really important. It’s a blessing to know that he is expected to recover and live a healthy life.

Football is a rough game. Thousands of players have been inches away from having something like this happen, but most times it doesn’t.

We’ve seen this type of injury before – most recently with former Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett. It’s unfortunate that some players aren’t as lucky.

Everything happens for a reason.

Some situations we understand, others we don’t. One thing we all need to take from this is the realization that nothing is promised.

As for us athletes, we need not lose sight of that. We need to allow this unfortunate event to enable us to step back and see football for what it really is – a game.