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Dr. David Geier the Injuries That Changed Sports Forever

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The Injuries That Changed Sports Forever dr. david geier Dr. David Geier That’s Gotta Hurt The Injuries That Changed Sports Forever ForeEdge Uncorrected Page Proof copyrighted material Geier_1stpgs.indd 3 2/7/17 12:27 PM ForeEdge An imprint of University Press of New England www.upne.com © 2017 Dr. David Geier All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill Typeset in Minion Pro For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book, contact Permissions, University Press of New England, One Court Street, Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit www.upne.com <<CIP data TK>> 5 4 3 2 1 Uncorrected Page Proof copyrighted material Geier_1stpgs.indd 4 2/7/17 12:27 PM Introduction March 7, 1970 “I realized that something was wrong,” Bogataj would recall years later to Phil- adelphia Daily News columnist Rich Hofman. “I tried not to go, tried to stop myself. But the speed was too big, about 105 kilometers an hour [roughly 65 miles per hour]. So I did everything I was able to do.” You might not know the name Vinko Bogataj, but you know who he is—or at least you know his crash. Earlier that day, Bogataj had lef the chain factory in Yugoslavia where he worked, along with his three friends, to drive to Oberstdorf, West Germany. Growing up on a farm in a family with eight children, the 22-year-old set out on that snowy day to compete in a passion of his: ski fying. Despite working full time, Bogataj was fairly accomplished in the sport that would later become known as ski jumping. He competed more for fun than prize winnings, as his greatest career “paydays” included $200, a stove, and a color television. Little did he know as he set out for Oberstdorf that he would soon become famous—or infamous—depending on one’s perspective. Having already fallen once, Bogataj faced worsening weather conditions heading into his second jump. Now he faced swirling winds and new snow on the ramp. Race ofcials shortened the jump out of safety concerns. “Tese days, they wouldn’t even compete in those conditions,” Bogataj told Dave Seminara of Real Clear Sports 40 years later. Bogataj sped down the ramp, but he lost his balance before he reached the end of the platform. He placed his right hand down, but his legs gave way. He fipped of the side of the jump in a spectacular fashion. He somersaulted through the air, ripping through a sign that read OBERSTDORF at the bottom of the ramp, and nearly crashing into nearby broadcasters, spectators, and race ofcials. “I could’ve gotten up, I didn’t feel hurt, but they wouldn’t let me,” Bogataj told Seminara. “Tey insisted on carrying me of on a stretcher, which I wasn’t happy about because my family was watching on TV.” Uncorrected Page Proof copyrighted material Geier_1stpgs.indd 1 2/7/17 12:27 PM His family would soon learn that Vinko would be fne, despite crashing at over 60 mph. Bogataj told Hofman that the violent appearance of what happened had scared the medical staf and onlookers. “I didn’t feel any pain at frst. I was just angry it happened. People kept telling me that it had to hurt. It looked so dangerous.” Te video footage of that dangerous crash would immortalize Vinko Bogataj. As he would ask in a ceremony to honor the 25th anniversary of the show on which Bogataj’s crash was broadcast, legendary sports host Jim McKay asked the audience, “Do you know this man? Probably not. He doesn’t even own a credit card.” Each Saturday for 37 years, Wide World of Sports opened the same way. It fea- tured video clips of a variety of athletic competitions to an instrumental musical fanfare. Host Jim McKay read a narration that became timeless: Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport. Te thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Te human drama of athletic competition. Tis is ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.” Vinko Bogataj and his spectacular crash were “the agony of defeat.” When Wide World of Sports frst aired in 1961, producers ran footage of Irish hurlers colliding during “the agony of defeat.” In 1970 Dennis Lewin, the coordinating producer for Wild World of Sports between 1966 and 1996, and executive producer Roone Arledge decided to pair Bogataj’s crash footage with the words “agony of defeat.” Despite frequently changing the clips throughout the remainder of the open- ing montage, the show kept the footage of Vinko Bogataj to represent “the agony of defeat” for the next 28 years. It is difcult to imagine anyone thinking of Wild World of Sports without recalling Bogataj spinning wildly of the ski ramp in Oberstdorf, West Germany. Not everyone appreciated that fact, though. Doug Wilson produced the show in Oberstdorf for ABC. He recalled that leaders in the sport of ski jumping were never particularly happy about Bogataj’s crash being prominently featured in the Wide World of Sports opening montage. Tey believed it created a ripple efect week afer week, causing hesitation among athletes considering the sport. Ken Anderson, founder of the website SkiJumpingUSA.com and a former ski 2 / Tat’s Gotta Hurt Uncorrected Page Proof copyrighted material Geier_1stpgs.indd 2 2/7/17 12:27 PM jumper himself, argued that ski jumping has never recovered from the damage inficted by the Wide World of Sports opening montage. “Well, absolutely,” Anderson said about the damage done by that footage. “It’s a well-known sport everywhere else in the sports world, but in North America, the U.S. and Canada, it’s not a sport that is very well known. Because people see something like that, that becomes their whole perception. Tey don’t see much of the sport. It’s poorly covered here, so that’s all they know about it. It defnitely afected recruiting.” According to Anderson, ski jumping has struggled in the United States for reasons other than the Wide World of Sports footage. Only a few sites maintained their jumping facilities, and most eventually closed them. Only a handful of ski-jumping clubs currently exist in the country. Tey are spread out across the United States, so young athletes rarely compete against each other. Travel costs for competitive jumpers, a lack of recreational participants, and the growth of winter sports like snowboarding and freestyle skiing have all contributed to the sport’s decline. Despite the widespread perception that ski jumping is dangerous, Anderson argues that it is a safe sport. He notes that a study by the International Ski Feder- ation (Fédération Internationale de Ski, FIS) tracked six snow sport disciplines, including Alpine, freestyle, snowboard, ski jumping, Nordic combine, and cross country, and according to the FIS Injury Surveillance System, only cross-country skiing is safer than ski jumping. “ABC never did a good job of saying, ‘Yeah, but he wasn’t really seriously hurt, and he went back to jumping.’ Tey just lef it there, lef it hanging and let people’s perceptions be whatever they might be,” Anderson complained. Wilson recognized the value of the crash footage. “Instantaneously, as it happened, I thought it would be a great ‘Agony of Defeat.’” He pointed out that Bogataj “could have been very, very badly hurt. If that had happened, it would have been inappropriate to show week afer week as the ‘Agony of Defeat.’” Tat’s Gotta Hurt examines the intersection of sports and medicine over the last 50 years. While millions of people have seen the footage of Vinko Bogataj’s ski-jumping crash, few viewers saw its outcome. Aides carried the Yugoslav jumper away on a sled and transported him to a local hospital, where he was admitted overnight. Amazingly, Bogataj sufered only a mild concussion. Te video of that high-speed trauma, though, might have changed a sport forever. In the ensuing chapters, I explore a series of injuries that changed their Uncorrected Page Proof Introduction / 3 copyrighted material Geier_1stpgs.indd 3 2/7/17 12:27 PM sports—or sports in general—forever. I examine how emerging surgeries, treat- ments, and prevention strategies afected athletes in many sports. I discuss how sports medicine has had a tremendous infuence on athletes and sports—perhaps more than any change in coaching or training has had. I also examine how sports medicine will continue to infuence sports and the athletes who play them for years to come. It would be fair to say that sports and medicine have always been closely as- sociated. In a 1984 article in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, George A. Snook, MD, presented a thorough review of the history of sports medicine from ancient Greece to the mid-1900s. He asserted that the frst recorded sporting competition, the frst incident of rule breaking, and the frst sports injury were described in the book of Genesis: And Jacob was lef alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when (the man) saw that he prevailed not against (Jacob), he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint as he wrestled with him. In the second century AD, Galen of Pergamon, a prominent surgeon and philosopher of the Roman Empire, was appointed as the frst “team physician.” Pontifex Maximus appointed Galen to serve as physician to the gladiators. He was reappointed to that position fve times. He later served as physician to Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
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