Paralyzed Discussion Question #2

Analyze the effect of Reggie’s involvement in Nate’s injury on his playing and hypothesis how Reggie will play throughout the season.

Proper tackling technique.

Where Nate's injury occurred.

Reggie has not been playing like the “stick-em” of old since he was involved in Nate's injury. His hitting power has decreased and his reads have been fallible. The Monday after Nate’s spinal column injury in the game against Milbury, Reggie had practice. His head wasn’t in practice since he was thinking of how Nate was doing. Reggie subconsciously did not want to hit anybody hard in fear that he would injure someone else or himself like Nate. During a play at practice Reggie was playing middle linebacker, “I moved in to tackle Bart, but for some reason, I couldn’t do it. My legs suddenly went weak. I lunged at him and missed badly” (48). Reggie couldn’t bring himself to hit anyone and make a proper tackle with Nate on his mind. This is quit a problem seeing that Reggie is a middle linebacker whose job is to hit players and hit them hard. With Reggie’s head not into the game he misses a lot of his reads, which in turn puts him in a worse position to make a play. Since Reggie cannot hit, read plays, or make plays on the ball he is simply not fit to be playing football in his current state. The coaches see that Reggie hasn’t been playing up to his old status and start to worry what is happening to one of their star defensive players. If Reggie keeps playing scared then he won’t start on the defensive for many more days.