How The Morph Was Born

We open the door to our extended stay hotel and see a bottle of cheap sparkling wine and some chocolate covered strawberries. We laughed. True, my wife and I had just gotten married a few days earlier. She thought it would be funny to call and tell the hotel we were on our honeymoon. In a way it was, but Spokane was not our first choice for our after-nuptial excursion. We were here for another reason altogether.

I had just finished my 3rd year in the NFL, and I was recovering from my 3rd surgery in 5 years. This time it was my spine. I had herniated two lumbar discs playing for the Saints. I first felt a twinge of low-back pain coming out of training camp and fought through it as long as I could.  I made it 2.5 months.   The years of pounding I put on my body finally caught up with me. For weeks I had slept on the living room floor, because it was the only surface hard enough. Then I would get up, scarf painkillers, and go into the Saints’ facility. I wasn’t going to let pain get in the way of my dreams. I’d go into the training room, lie to the coaches and trainers that my back was feeling better, and go out and grit through practices and games. It wasn’t sustainable. As the Saints went on to the NFC Championship game that year, lifting the organization and the Katrina devastated city from despair, I was laying at home recovering from back surgery, wondering if I’d play another down of football.

A couple of months later, I found myself in Spokane just days after getting married.  I went to meet with some non-conventional physical therapists. One was a renowned Pilates guru that taught me how a simple foam roller could help to fix and maintain my back. I’d used the foam roller many times before, but now I was a devotee. A couple simple stretches, some stabilizing ab work, and a few minutes massaging was all I needed to add to my routine to get my focus back on football and not on recovery. I played 5 more seasons and I used the foam roller the entire way.