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With alliteration working, both words seemingly benign, it may not sound so bad.
But when it’s comes to painful football injuries, turf toe – essentially a sprain of the big toe’s main joint – is quite high on the list.
Ragin’ Cajuns linebacker Tig Barksdale – a case study lately in playing with pain – has been dealing with it much of this month, and it hasn’t been easy.
“Turf toe is not a lot of fun,” said UL coach Mark Hudspeth, whose club has a bye this week that couldn’t have come at a better time for banged-up players including Barksdale and starting quarterback Terrance Broadway (sprained ankle).
Only being hampered like Barksdale has, though, can one fully appreciate just how much two healthy big toes are integral to running up and down a 100-yard field.
“It’s annoying,” Barksdale said. “I need my big toe to push off.”
Barksdale had an interception while making his first start of the season in a Sept. 7 loss at Kansas State, then missed a 70-7 win over Nicholls State on Sept. 14 because of the injury.
He returned one week later, last Saturday at Akron, but wasn’t really right when he did.
“I’m still having problems with it,” he said after the 2-2 Cajuns practiced earlier this week for the first time since their 35-30 win over the Zips.
Even with so much pain from the sprain, however, the turf toe pales compared to what Barksdale dealt with a season ago.
After stops at a military prep school in 2009, as a redshirt at Ole Miss in 2009 and playing running back at Jacksonville (Ala.) State in 2010, Barksdale’s first season on the field at UL in 2012 was marred by a sports hernia – excruciating pain prompted by a weakening of the muscles or tendons in the lower abdominal wall.
“Sports hernia is the most painful thing I’ve ever had,” said Barksdale, a former Mississippi Mr. Football who helped lead South Panola High in Batesville, Miss, to four straight Class 5 state championships.
Barksdale actually was injured in the summer of 2012, but he played throughout the season anyway sometimes taking pain-killing injections just to make it through a game, sometimes not admitting how much he hurt.
He wound up appearing in eight games for the Cajuns, starting six, and finished with 28 total tackles, including five in a season-opening win over Lamar and five in a September loss at Oklahoma State.
Every outing, however, came with hurt compounded by frustration.
“It really affected me a lot, because I really couldn’t make the plays that I wanted to make,” Barksdale said. “When I got up to a certain amount of speed, it wouldn’t really let me reach my full potential. So I really had to slow down.”
After the season, Barksdale opted for surgery.
It meant having to sit out spring drills earlier this year, but the call was easy.
“I was really happy, because now it feels a lot better,” he said.
Barksdale said he’s still “having little problems sometimes,” but “I’m just glad I found out what it was and went ahead and got it out of the way.”
That done, the Cajuns decided to move Barksdale from safety – where he played in 2012 – to his current Will linebacker spot.
“He had come off that hernia injury,” Hudspeth said, “and (we) just didn’t think he was moving around quite, quite well enough to play between the hashes back in the back end.
“But up in the box he’s very physical, and he’s very aggressive. He’s a hard tackler. So becoming maybe a step slow at safety he became a step fast at linebacker, and it’s really paid off down there for him.”
Now playing behind sophomore Tyren Alexander, who took over as starter against Nicholls State, Barksdale was in on a career-high tying five total tackles, including half of a tackle-for-loss, at Akron.
He has 12 total tackles in three games this year, including five solo stops.
Even as someone once at five different schools in five seasons, however, the 6-foot, 205-pound junior initially was hesitant about relocating.
He did anyway.
“Whatever I had to do to help the team I’d do,” Barksdale said. “I didn’t like it at first, but I just had to buy into it, because I knew they weren’t going change me back.”
So much like he did with the sports hernia, Barksdale put his head down, sucked things up and soldiered through.
But then the turf tissue arose, and he was hurting all over again.
“Basically when I was sitting there I was like, ‘Man, why am I always getting hurt?’ ” he said. “Because I don’t like being hurt. I hate pain. So I hate my body, because I feel like it’s wrecked me.
“I just pray about it and ask God to help me. … But I’m really just trying to be a tough man about it, and fight through it.”
Count Hudspeth, whose Cajuns are off until an Oct. 5 visit from Texas State, among those with respect for the effort.
“His body hasn’t been 100 percent in a while,” the Cajun coach said.
“But he’s pushed through it all, because he really wants to play,” Hudspeth added. “I just hope that he can get healthy here pretty soon, to where he’s 100 percent. Because I think if he’s 100 percent he really can help us.”
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