Imagine this: You’re a student at one of the nation’s finest institutions of higher learning. All your life, you’ve been applauded for your intellectual ability. In high school, you probably won lots of awards: science fair, honor roll, debate team.
You’re going through college, and the first year was a little rough, but you still did pretty well. Maybe you made the Dean’s List. Regardless, you can feel yourself getting smarter and soaking in more knowledge.
Then one morning, your thoughts are just gone. Your mind doesn’t work as fast as it did the day before. You’ve entered some bizarre Kafka-esque world where one simple day has entirely changed the way you look at, feel about and interact with the world.
Congratulations. You know what it’s like to be Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young.
Most of us will never get the chance to be a world-class athlete. But Vince is one of the lucky few, the chosen. His exploits as a high school recruit and then a Texas Longhorn are the things of legend. No one who watched that Rose Bowl could ever forget how Vince Young beat USC, essentially the 33rd NFL franchise.
All that fame and glory can be a curse. When your legions of family and fans hoist you up, when they place you on a pedestal because of your prowess on a field, that’s how you measure your self-worth. And when that talent is gone, what is there left in its place?
His is a game built as much on his legs as it is on his arm. He’s been hailed as the quarterback of the future, a torch he carries in Michael Vick’s absence from the game. His mold is now the gold standard of recruit or prospect, the game-changer that’s changing the way offensive football is played.
So when he thought those legs were gone and could feel them hobbled by an injury that has since turned out to be less serious than initially thought, he reacted how any of us would. He went to a friend’s house, turned off his phone and tried to just get the heck away from it all for a few hours.
The media has turned last week’s mini-manhunt into an absurd referendum on Vince Young’s heart and desire to play football. The prevailing sentiment seems to be that since he’s taken it this hard, he clearly doesn’t have the mental toughness for the week-in, week-out grind of the NFL.
Horsefeathers.
How would they have preferred him to react? Sit through their inane questioning in a Monday press conference? Spew sound bites about how it’s a setback but he wants to work hard and get back to help his ball club?
The claims that even the thought of not being able to play football made Young mention suicide to his therapist tell me something entirely different. It says he’s a young man who has his priorities a little out of wack, but tilted in the direction of too much emphasis on football instead of not enough.
Every player knows the risks when he puts on the pads, even all the way back in the first week of two-a-days his freshman year of high school. The horror stories are out there, whether as tragic as the few players killed every year or just your average, run-of-the-mill, four-ligament knee disintegration.
Those who play the game as their profession have seen the effects on those who came before: Johnny Unitas, with hands so mangled he couldn’t even write his own name; Iron Mike Webster, the longtime center for Pittsburgh, who suffered from brain injuries caused by a decade of punishment in the trenches.
It would seem, then, that the sane, rational reaction to Young’s situation would be to be thankful it wasn’t worse, and that it was “just a knee.” But he’s put so much of himself into this game, wrapped so much of himself into how he plays each Sunday, that the thought of losing a step and sliding onto the too-long list of former promising young QBs laid low by knees and ankles and shoulders unable to withstand professional beatings, unleashed a psychological chain reaction that simply overwhelmed him.
He certainly is going to need some help to get back on the field — and from more places than just the training room. A quarterback’s mind can be its own worst enemy, and it’s in both Young’s and Tennessee’s best interests to make sure both body and mind are ready to roll before getting back to business.
As someone who’s had to walk away from the game thanks to two serious knee injuries and a blown-out shoulder, I can do more than imagine his emotional pain. For his sake in the long term, I hope he gets the therapy he needs, in all forms.
I wish Vince the best of luck, even if that does mean his Titans will beat my Texans for many years to come.
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