Remember when people were surprised to see other people in boots? No, not winter boots or cowboy boots or the highly overrated Ugh-I mean Ugg-boots all the ladies are wearing nowadays. I'm talking about the boots they give you when you go to the doctor and they find a stress fracture in your foot or something like that.
Maybe you would show up one day in middle school or high school and your buddy would have one on and they would say, \Oh yeah, I had a slight break in my foot so I just have to wear this for a few weeks,"" ... and it looked ridiculous. Now that boot has become a new fad-and not just for athletes, though they may be the people who created the trend.
I think it started with a bunch of local sports reporters. Athletes always get injured, but it seems to be when they do they seem to get a boot more often than they used to. So now when a player gets injured it's, ""Did you see so-and-so? They are in a boot!"" UW team doctors seem to have been prescribing them faster than television networks can come up with bad reality shows.
It used to be, ""Stress fracture in the foot? Here, put on this boot."" Now it has become, ""Stress fracture in your foot? Put on this boot. Hyperextended elbow? Have a boot. Scraped knee? Rub a little boot on it. Bruised ego? Nothing a boot can't fix.""
I wouldn't be surprised if one day I was wandering through the depths of Camp Randall, opened a random door and found a closet full of those boots. You could imagine my excitement if I could take one and join in the craze. It seems more people have a boot than people who do not. My lower leg feels a little naked without one.
In fact, even UW football Head Coach Barry Alvarez sported a boot Tuesday night at the basketball game. Rumors were that he injured himself on the second tee at Augusta. However, at halftime, he was not about to tell any stories. He just said that he was ""clumsy"" and would tell it some other time.
My bet is that there is no story at all, it's just that he's seen the majority of his players wearing them and decided it looks cool.
The boot has gone from a piece of medical equipment to an accessory. What once kept you from going to high school parties because you couldn't run away from the cops now gets you into parties. I'm sure they come in various styles and colors, and much like shoes, women will flock to buy dozens of them to go with every outfit they have.
One only knows what this fad will lead to.
For some athletes it may lead to crazy superstitions: ""Well, I wear my red boot on my right leg on even days and my black boot on my left leg on odd days.""
""After games I put the boot on my right foot, but I always put it on after I put my socks on both feet, but never before I put a shoe on my other foot.""
Boots will need to have their own ""bling."" There will be gold-plated boots for special occasions.
Who knows? Maybe it's a good craze. If everyone has a boot, then nobody will ever have a foot stress fracture again. But then again, maybe people will start taking it one step further than the boot-everyone will walk around with a boot on each foot, a neck brace to prevent whiplash and casts on each arm to make sure they aren't broken.
I just hope we don't get too comfortable with the boot. The Badgers' football season fell apart due to boots and other injuries late in the season, the last thing we need is the same thing from the basketball or hockey teams. Or if athletes feel the need to wear a boot, I hope it's to make a fashion statement and not to make a bid for a medical redshirt.
I am eager to see where the boot can take us. But as for now, I'm heading to the doctor with a fake pain in hopes to get one of my own. And if that doesn't work, if anyone knows where the boot room is at the Kohl Center, let me know.
Eric is a junior planning to major in journalism. Send your sightings of celebrities (sports or otherwise) in boots to ejschmoldt@wisc.edu.
