Curses in Sports
April 25, 2009 in Football, NFL, Sport History
Any sports fan has heard of various curses in sports. You have the curse of the bambino, which supposedly prevented the Red Sox from winning a championship for 86 years because they traded Babe Ruth. And then there is the sports illustrated curse, which is supposed to give bad luck to everyone who graces the cover the Sports Illustrated. And yes, there is even a San Diego sports team curse-Stating that professional sports team in our lovely city cannot win any sort of championships.
Whether or not you believe in curses, they are kind of fun to follow. Here is a new one that has surfaced recently that I have been watching: The Madden video game curse. This curse causes anyone who is on the cover to get hurt the next year.
It all started in 2000 when Madden featured star running back Barry Sanders in the background of the case. Subsequently, curse or no curse, Barry Sanders did not play a single down during the 2000 season. Players soon started following that role:
- Dorsey Levens: Cover 2000. Bad new throughout season, and let go by the packs.
- Daunte Culpepper: Cover 2002-Knee injury, missed 5 games.
- Marshall Faulk: Cover 2003-After 4 1300+ seasons, ankle injury dropped is rush yards to under 1000
- Michael Vick: Cover 2004: Broke fibular during pre season game.
- Ray Lewis: Cover 2005: Tore hamstring-missed half the season.
- Donovan McNabb: Cover 2006: After stating that the Madden curse was “A trend” and he “don’t believe in the curse at all” McNabb suffers a sports hernia in the first game of the seasons (do you hear me know….GOOD!)
- Shaun Alexander: Cover 2007: Broke book and missed 6 games during the season.
- Vince Young: Cover 2008: Hurt quadricep missed 2 games.