The Boston Red Sox have “the curse of the Bambino.” The Chicago Cubs have “the billy goat curse.” Now the Northwestern women’s swim team may have unleashed “the curse of NU Female Athlete of the Week.”
Last week sophomore Paige Nath became the fourth Cats swimmer to claim the title this season. But the award has proven to be a harbinger of bad luck for two of the previous three winners.
Two weeks ago, junior Erica Rose swam through an injured shoulder to win four events in two days against Eastern Michigan and Michigan State, garnering not only the NU award, but also the Big Ten Swimmer of the Week prize.
That’s when her good luck ran out.
Rose could not match her outstanding performance the next week — finishing third in the 400-yard individual medley against Tennessee, despite swimming it a full second faster against than she did against Michigan State. She couldn’t even muster a single win against the Lady Vols.
At the beginning of the season, Brielle Bovee was on fire. The sophomore tore through NU’s first month of competition without losing a single race in either the 100 or 200 breaststroke. After NU’s Nov. 9 meet against Indiana, Bovee was named female athlete of the week.
But Bovee would only swim in two more meets before injuring her shoulder. She hasn’t swam since.
Coincidence? Maybe.
The Cats can only hope Nath, who recorded two individual wins and swam a leg for four winning relays Saturday against Tennessee, follows the path of Carmen Cosgrove. The senior won the award Oct. 25 and has continued to perform well.
Shooting up: Bovee hurt her shoulder before Winter Break, but an MRI wasn’t taken until early January and the sophomore didn’t learn the injury was a result of tendinitis until last week.
Even then doctors weren’t sure there wasn’t anything else wrong. She was left with an agonizing decision — receive a painful cortisone shot and be swimming in less than two weeks, or wait for doctors to learn more about her injury.
It’s common for athletes to receive the shots because they provide short-term pain relief in joints — in Bovee’s case, the shoulder. The shot blocks the body’s natural inflammatory response, but does nothing to cure the injury.
The long-term effects can sometimes be harmful to an athlete. Cortisone has been shown to not only slow down the healing process, but also to accelerate the degenerative process. Another disadvantage of the shot is that it masks the pain for athletes — tricking them into thinking that they are healthy.
But for Bovee, the choice was clear.
“All I can say is she’s determined to get back,” NU coach Jimmy Tierney said. “She has a big heart and she wants to be back so bad to help this team out.”
