Thirty years ago tonight, I was a college student who should have been doing something other than watching Monday Night Football. And I ultimately wished I hadn’t been watching.
That was the night that former Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor broke the leg of former Washington quarterback Joe Theismann.
It was so much more than a broken leg. It was a gruesome snapping of two bones, and a tearing of the flesh until the bones ripped through it.
Kevin Stone of ESPN.com has cobbled together 10 little-known facts about the injury. Theismann himself didn’t see the play for 20 years; initially, he thought it would make it harder for him to recover. Even after he realized he’d never play again, he avoided it until 2005, when Theismann watched it for the first time with a reporter.
For those who have never seen it (and have yet to eat lunch), the clip surely can be found on YouTube. I’m not interested in seeing the clip, so I won’t be tracking it down.
A clip I haven’t been able to find came during Theismann’s time with ESPN, on Monday Night Football. During a visit to the booth, Jimmy Kimmel said to Theisman, “Joe, how’s the leg?”