By Gina Morrone ’14

Sunday’s Elite 8 matchup between Louisville and Duke, two incredibly talented programs, promised to be exciting.  What ultimately occurred was more tragic and horrific than that. I am thinking, of course, of Louisville sophomore Kevin Ware’s leg injury.  You know the story. You’ve seen the footage.  I know I’ve personally shown this video to pretty much everyone I have come across since my  return from break.

Most astounding to me is the reaction to his misfortune.

I know I am only fostering it, but I sort of think that we’ve taken something and magnified it to the point of hysteria.

Don’t get me wrong, Ware’s injury is something that will affect the entire Louisville program. He will be out for at least a year, physically.  There’s no telling how long it will take him to recover mentally.  But even though he broke his leg in half, that’s just it: he broke his leg. He didn’t die, he wasn’t paralyzed.

The medical staff in Indianapolis did a fantastic job rushing to Ware, shielding his injury, contacting the family and getting him out of there. The media, on the other hand, has a habit of taking tragedies and turning them into obsessions. Remember Shaun Livingston? He suffered probably the sickest injury to date, and we know it not because we were watching that Clippers game, but because of the media frenzy that followed.

In this day and age, the media is a lot more than ESPN and YouTube.  I’ve seen this picture on Instagram. I’ve read live tweets from the exact second that the injury happened.  I’ve seen gifs of players’ reactions.  Fans are the media.  Forget Wichita State.  Louisville, though a favorite in the tournament, has become the new Cinderella.

Kevin Ware will focus on recovery, Louisville will do their best to focus on the next game.  It could be hard though, when every time we refresh our social media pages we see a nice big #PrayForWare.