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Injuries are horrible ways to end careers
JASON NADOLINSKI Sports Reporter
For most high school athletes, having your senior year finally roll around is a great

and tragic occasion. On the one hand, you're about to embark on a journey that will lead you towards the rest of your life, but at the same time, most of those athletes will be experiencing their final competitive contests of their careers.

Let's face it, there aren't many high school seniors who will be going on to play at the college level, and even fewer still who will turn their ability to shoot a jump shot, bury a one-timed pass into the net or make tackles into a career.

That's what makes the way Iroquois senior Kyle Shevlin's high school football career came to an end even worse.

For those of you unfamiliar with Shevlin, he has been the Chiefs' starting quarterback and kicker for the past three seasons. In a region where throwing or kicking the ball are typically afterthoughts in high school football, Shevlin shone brighter than many of his contemporaries. Sure, he could bootleg with the best of them, but Shevlin could air the ball out when warranted, and could kick the ball with as much ease as accuracy.

That all changed two Saturdays ago, when not even two minutes into Iroquois's Section VI Class A championship game against Sweet Home at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Shevlin's right leg was broken in two spots. All that hard work, all the kicks practiced and plays memorized, and more importantly, the potential chance to shine again on some of this level's biggest stages (Ralph Wilson Stadium and, had Iroquois reached the state championships, Syracuse University's Carrier Dome, where Shevlin and the Chiefs fell just short in the state semifinals in 2004) was taken away on a routine play gone wrong.

In my opinion, Shevlin was a lock to kick collegiately somewhere next fall, and if his doctors are correct, that could still be a possibility. I just hope this unfortunate injury doesn't prevent colleges from seriously considering looking at him for their teams and, at the Division I level, offering him a scholarship.

All of us armchair athletes think it'd be a breeze to nail a clutch 40-yard field goal, but the fact of the matter is, most of us couldn't - we just need to look to the Buffalo Bills' one-point loss to the Indianapolis Colts this past weekend for confirmation about how easy it is to miss a pressure-packed kick. Would Shevlin and his kicking prowess have made a difference in this past Saturday's 7-0 loss to Section V's Aquinas? We'll never know, and it's a shame.

And it doesn't end there. Shevlin was also a key contributor on the Chiefs' basketball team as well, and his chances of recovering well enough to be able to play even at the tail end of the season is up in the air. Basketball may not have been his best sport, but he was still one of Iroquois's better players. Will his absence affect the Chiefs' chances this winter? Again, we'll never know, but I'm sure sitting on the sidelines not being able to contribute will drive Shevlin mad. I know it would've driven me crazy if I was sidelined with an injury and I was just a scrub bench rider who was lucky to see mop-up duty when I played in high school.

Unfortunately, injuries are a part of sports that are inescapable. It just makes things worse when it takes away from a brilliant career like the one Shevlin was enjoying.

e-mail: jnadolinski@beenews.com