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Until about three weeks ago, I had done something truly amazing with my collegiate athletic career. Through an incredibly long streak of luck/fate/chutzpah, I managed to make it through my first two seasons of college football without what one would classify as an "injury".

Of course there have been countless sprains, hyper-extensions and other garden variety "boo-boos", but the closest I've come to a true injury was the two weeks of my freshman season at Colorado College I spent with bronchitis, pinkeye and an ear infection in each ear. Of course, that gave me the added on-field advantage of threatening to cough on, spit at or fart in the pillow of my opponents (the last of which was the primary factor in my being named all-conference). As unpleasant as that experience was for me and others, it didn't keep me off the field, and nothing else has for my entire college career.

So of course after spending months putting my body through what amounts to repeated car wrecks, I naturally get injured doing something stupid. Admittedly it wasn't as stupid as Denver Broncos wideout Brandon Marshall putting his arm through a TV or former New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress accidentally firing a gun that was placed dangerously close to his man parts (it's always the receivers that do stupid things), but it wasn't quite the apex of my achievements.

I was playing Wes Ball, a game concocted by Grinnell athletes of eons past that involves throwing a water polo ball around a gym and yelling at your teammates for not covering the 300-pound guy in the end zone. I typically play the game because it gives me the chance to do something other than my typical athletic experience: run into people, or get yelled at for not running into people effectively enough. I've also been playing Wes Ball because I'm trying to improve my athleticism so that I can run into people more effectively and therefore get yelled at less.

The play in question occurred when, in an attempt to do something athletic, I jumped up and tried to swat down a touchdown pass with my left arm. I was not aware that this routine pass would result in a convergence of large bodies that ended with a sharp pain in my shoulder. I shook it around a couple times and got back to playing. I figured that, like most of the chronic physical pain in my life, I could simply rub metaphorical dirt on it and be fine.

After a couple of weeks in the weight room, the pain still persisted, so I admitted defeat by talking to the trainer. She sent me to Iowa City to see an orthopedist, a guy who followed up some small talk with a shot of Novocain and Cortisone to see if my bursa sac was inflamed. I admittedly had no idea what a bursa sac was or that my shoulder had one, since being an English major gives me little functional knowledge of the world. The painkiller made my arm feel significantly better, so the doctor told me I have bursitis and then peaced out.

Honestly, I feel blessed that I got injured in the offseason, because after transferring schools just to keep playing football I don't plan on missing a game. Limiting my activity sucks since we just began a new head coaching era in this program and I wanted to start it off right. However, this situation gives me a chance to focus on persuading Coach Pedersen to let me be the only 265-pound running back in the conference; since my shoulder limits what lifts I can do, I've been spending time practicing my touchdown dances.