Football gods pile on Pierce

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/09/2010 (5862 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It might be too much to suggest that Buck Pierce is a tragic figure, even as the Bombers quarterback sat before a bank of microphones Wednesday with an elaborate sling cradling the arm that betrayed him.

Tragedy implies great loss, sometimes death. Nobody died on the turf of Mosaic Field on Labour Day.

But to witness a young man like Pierce, of all people, bravely attempting to answer to yet another serious, potentially career-ending injury suffered on the field of battle undoubtedly has a Shakespearian feel.

After all, words like "alas" and "outrageous fortune" were invented to describe Buck Pierce’s football career.

Concussions. Shoulder injuries. Knee ligament damage. Now a grossly dislocated elbow on his throwing arm that — barring some sort of miraculous healing process — will cost Pierce the rest of the 2010 season.

At the very least.

Asked at a press conference if he beats himself up over the seemingly never-ending damage to his body, the quarterback replied: "You do. But for how long? How long do you beat yourself up about that? How long do you think ‘what ifs’, what if I could stay healthy for a season? All these things. But I continue to take the positive spin and… try to be a positive influence on a negative situation."

Well, here’s one answer to that ‘what if’ question. If Pierce wasn’t plagued by injury, he would be a perennial all-star candidate. He would make any team he played for an instant contender. He would be a marquee CFL star. He would be Dave Dickenson or Jeff Garcia.

This is the same man, remember, who personally accumulated almost 1,000 yards in the Bombers’ opening two games of a once promising season. He was by all indications the long-awaited Messiah poised to lift a lost, money-losing franchise from the abyss.

Not only that, Pierce had found a home. A football-first community with a rich tradition that Pierce embraced. And the long-beleagured fans hugged him right back.

"I think that’s the hardest part," Pierce noted, "being introduced to the tradition and the family of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, then not being able to go out there and contribute the way I’d like to."

Pierce is the quintessential employee. He’s dedicated, selfless, unfailingly positive and professional. He plays the game with no fear. His teammates would follow him through Hades. Or Hamilton.

Yet there Pierce sat in a sling, attempting to explain the unexplainable. "It was a fluke thing and very unfortunate that it happened," he reasoned. "I can’t do anything about it. I can just pick myself up and put myself back together and try and go out there and get myself ready to go."

You know, one of the first tenets we learn the hard way is life isn’t fair.

But why does it have to be cruel?

Think about it: The overriding concern about Pierce’s health was always above the neck, the reported concussions he suffered as a B.C. Lion that made his signing an unquestioned gamble from the outset. There were never any guarantees.

Fine. So you chalk up his twisted knee on a harmless looking rollout in Hamilton in Week 3 as unfortunate. But the freak injury in Regina is the football gods piling on.

What, it couldn’t have been his non-throwing arm dislocated? Did it really have to be an injury involving his "humerus" bone?

Is that some sort of sick cosmic joke? Because another life’s lesson we’re taught is that good things happen to good people. And irony should work both ways.

But in the case of Pierce’s star-crossed career, nothing could be further from the truth.

Hey, I get that it’s a violent game and in professional football careers and seasons end every single week. It’s the cost of an unforgiving business where everybody knows the risks. The timid aren’t meant to compete.

And Pierce repeatedly vowed on Wednesday that he would "put himself back together" with the goal of returning to the field again. He promised to stay positive and tutor his stand-in, Steven Jyles, who will be working without a net.

Is this just bad luck? "I don’t know," the quarterback shrugged. "That’s what everybody says."

Regardless, don’t say, "I told you so." Risk or not, no one envisioned this ending; a dislocated wing falling backwards on an innocuous play that happens 1,000 times without anyone incurring so much as a scratch.

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Pierce deserved a better fate. He deserved a more noble ending.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

Or not to be.

The question doesn’t matter now, but for Buck Pierce it remains, ‘What if?’

randy.turner@freepress.mb.ca

Randy Turner
Reporter

Randy Turner spent much of his journalistic career on the road. A lot of roads. Dirt roads, snow-packed roads, U.S. interstates and foreign highways. In other words, he got a lot of kilometres on the odometer, if you know what we mean.

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