Any athlete who participates in sports knows that there is a risk of injury. We accept that risk without fear and play with reckless abandon; because the feeling of victory and love of competition creates exhilaration that no bump or bruise can diminish. But still, there is a risk, and every once in a while we athletes, whether social athlete or professional, must come to grips with it. Such was the case this past weekend when during a friendly, yet highly competitive, game of wiffleball I wound up breaking my big toe. Like all highly competitive athletes, I decided to truck on and played the rest of the game with little more than a limp (and we won!). True, at the time I didn't realize that the king of my little piggies was broken, but even if I had I'd like to think that it wouldn't have mattered anyway. When playing for the love of the game, you keep playing whether the game reciprocates that love or not.

I realize that there isn't a lot of pride to be held in the fact that I suffered a broken bone while playing a game of wiffleball, but as all athletes know, we don't get to select when or where we get injured; we just get to play with reckless abandon for the sheer love of competition. If a bone breaks while playing wiffleball, or a nose breaks in a pickup basketball game, that's the inherent risk that we all live with.

My only regret about this injury? That my teammates didn't think highly enough of this noble feat to carry me off the field after the game. But that may be less of a black eye on my teammates than on society as a whole. You see, through this sports injury I have seen firsthand how society unfairly places the importance of toes beneath wrists, noses, and even the toe's cousin, the ankle. Lance Armstrong has his Livestrong bracelet, Colbert has his Wriststrong, but what we really need now, what I really need now, is a Toestrong bracelet.