How far would you go?

Last Weekend, the last games of the Elite8 in College Basketball were played, and one of the games was very tragic. In the game between Duke and Louisville, a player broke his leg. The way how he broke it was terrible. He jumped out to the three-point-line to contest a shot, and landed awkwardly. He didn’t just twist his ankle, but his shin landed on the ground and broke, so that a part of his bone was sticking out of the skin. All the players were shocked, and he was brought immediately to the hospital. I watched the video of him getting injured again because I just couldn’t explain myself how something like this could happen without any contact or ankle braise. Later on the doctors mentioned that he might had a small fracture, which nobody knew of and by the awkward landing the bone snapped.

One of my friends is in a similar situation, just not as tragic as the Louisville player, Kevin Ware. My friend had pain in his wrist for a while, but played threw it and had just landed a new contract for a few weeks in South America. Even though he wasn’t able to shoot normal, he still put up good numbers until he got injured again. Now he had to see doctors, and it turned out that he wasn’t insured by the team, which made him go home immediately. At home he found out that his wrist is fractured, and that it looked like it was an old injury, which just broke open again. He will be out for 6-8 weeks, which is nothing compared to the time it will take Kevin Ware to come back, if there even will be a comeback!

Things like this always make me think how lucky I have been throughout my career. Of course, I did have injuries such as ankle sprains, torn ligaments and muscles, and a broken nose, but so far nothing severe, which caused me to have a major surgery or sit out for a long time. I know a lot of players, who underwent surgeries and doctors told they couldn’t play sports anymore, and they did it anyways. Also, this season most teams had a lot of injuries and our opponent in the first play-off round is struggling as well. Their point guard broke their pinky and their post player has a knee injury. While the point guard hasn’t been playing, the post player did. How far would I go? Would I take the risk to play to reach something I never accomplished before? When is it time to take a break or even hang up the sneakers? Also, it made me think how healthy I really am. What if something in my body isn’t healthy and I don’t even know it? I do want to play Basketball also with my kids one day, and we all know professional athletes will struggle later in life with their bodies, so when is the right time to retire?

Honestly, I have thought a few times about retiring. The first time, I thought about it was the year I signed a contract with a Ukrainian team and it didn’t work out. I was wondering, what if I don’t get picked up by another team? Should I just retire? The answer was easy! I watched games of the women’s team in my hometown and noticed how much it bothered me to sit in the audience instead of being out there on the court! So I kept on playing, now I am almost turning 30, and I remember how I was as a young hungry player thinking why is this grandma still playing. Now I am the grandma, and before this season, I had thought about retiring at the end as well. I wanted to get my coaching license, and thought about being a coach afterwards. However, after playing this year, I saw I still got it. I have been playing a lot, even played the entire 40min, and put up decent stats, so I am thinking why not keep on playing? Last weekend, I watched the MBC game vs. Bonn, and Christ Ensminger was dominating inside the paint. He is almost 40 and can’t be guarded by players way younger than him. He is the perfect example that age isn’t a reason to retire. As long as you are doing your job on the court, you can play. So when is it time to retire?

I read the story about Johannes Herber retirement (http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/basketball-nicht-das-ganze-leben-nachspielfeld-12055024.html), which was very inspirational. He was forced to retire due to injury as many players are. I hope for me this will not be the case (and yes, I am knocking the whole time on wood, while writing this). I don’t know yet, when I will retire and what the reason will be, but a big injury would definitely be a reason for me, especially at this age. If you are young, i.e. like Kevin Ware is, there is always the dream of playing ball professionally, but I already accomplished my dream and I am living my dream and hopefully for a couple more years ;-)