It’s one of those moments everyone dreads: Seeing a player motionless on the field. One of those moments came Thursday morning when Broncos’ linebacker Warrick Holdman collided with a teammate and didn’t get up.

As of Thursday night, Holdman was at Sky Ridge Medical Center with a spinal cord concussion. Needless to say, he and his family are in our thoughts and prayers.

It is amazing how quickly sports can become secondary to life’s more important things, such as health. While fans root for teams and players, and members of the media report on their endeavors, players are still people. They are people with lives, hopes, dreams, ambitions, likes and dislikes.

While football players, by virtue of the equipment they wear, are often seen as faceless—or merely numbers—they are much more. Like you and I, they are unique individuals. I often wonder why it takes something serious like Holdman’s injury to remind me of that.

I have no idea what a spinal cord concussion is or how serious it is. I can’t imagine it’s too good for a football player. At least the preliminary signs are that Holdman will be all right. Let’s hope that turns out to be the case.

The end of the first week of camp is upon us. After the initial excitement, it seems as if the grind has become official. Today I asked running back Travis Henry if he felt like the grind had officially set in and he said he thought it definitely had. I bet the players are looking forward to Sunday when they get a day off.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Mike

Tags: injuries, Training Camp, Travis Henry, Warrick Holdman

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 12:12 am and is filed under Mike Rice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.