Retirement of Nebraska’s Mac Markway Amplifies the Side of Football That Fans Don’t See

There’s not much pageantry for injured and rehabbing athletes who are desperately trying to get back on the field.

After working his way back from so many injuries, Mac Markway is walking away from the game on his own terms, not on crutches. | Nebraska Athletics

Fans see the best part of college football. We sit in the big stadium — or watch on TV — and hear the bands, the relentless noise. We see the spectacle, and excitement of a Saturday.

Nebraska fans go to Memorial Stadium on Saturdays and soak in all of this, and it’s a feeling hard to match elsewhere in life. Nebraskans come from all across the state — and the Plains and elsewhere — to show up on Saturdays. 

College football is mesmerizing. My daughter and I gladly make a 1,200-mile round trip to go to my former hometown Ann Arbor to watch a game at the Big House.

Mom thinks we’re nuts, but she doesn’t understand. There’s nothing like it.

That’s the side fans know. There is another side that doesn’t contain the pageantry of Saturday in Memorial Stadium. That’s the side of college football that forced Nebraska defensive tackle Mac Markway to walk away from his beloved sport this week.

Mac Markway gave it his best shot

Mac Markway tried to make it happen. His knees wouldn’t cooperate. If you have ever suffered a knee injury, you know. In the season opener against Ohio, Markway played his first game in three seasons. It was his only game he played with Nebraska.

Imagine retiring from a sport in which you’re obviously talented and you love. Imagine walking away from the Saturdays.

He explained his decision in an Instagram post: “The reality is my knees just aren’t what they used to be and aren’t letting me play at the level I want to. I got a huge weight and stress off my shoulders with this decision and I am truly at peace with it.”

Markway, of St. Louis, started his college career at LSU as a four-star tight end. “From playing at LSU as a freshman to coming to Nebraska and betting on myself, I completed my story by getting back on the field after 5 career-ending injuries,” he posted on Instagram.

“To all my teammates and coaches I love you guys a ton, because of how much you guys helped me through all my hardships,” Markway said in his Instagram post.

“I am going to be around the facility helping y’all boys in another aspect of football. It’s time to conquer the world in a different aspect of not just Mac the football player but as MAC MARKWAY.”

‘Hardships’

Imagine for a moment what Markway endured over the years. He described his situation as five career-ending injuries. Imagine the pain, the ice packs, the tedious and painful rehab — what he called “hardships.”

Athletes do all this work off the field and they’re not certain, not really, if they will be the same when they are considered healed and ready to return to practice.

Injuries are prevalently magnified with football, with its physically demanding nature. It’s almost as if the sport was created to break apart young bodies. Check out your favorite team’s NFL injury report once the season gets going. It’s frightening, especially when you figure the guys who are not on the list and banged up, too.

If you’ve been injured over the years, you might know of the physical pain that has to be endured and the mental anguish of not being able to return to your favorite recreational sport. You want to play. I once stupidly played a match in my tennis club championships with walking pneumonia.

I’ve been in NFL locker rooms after games. There are four things you notice:

   1. These guys are enormous. It’s hard to imagine they collide with opponents, often at full speed.
   2. They have enormous bruises and welts and purple marks across their bodies.
   3. They are wearing ice packs everywhere.
   4. These guys are enormous.

If their team won, they are overjoyed, overcome really with celebration. The pain can wait; it isn’t going anywhere.

NHL locker rooms are different. Many of their injuries are chipped-up faces — from loose pucks, inadvertent sticks, being smashed into the boards, the occasional fist. Hockey also is a physical sport, and injuries occur, but it’s different than football.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule mentioned Markway in his Monday news conference. “His role will, I think, significantly be amplified each week,” Rhule said. “I think you’ll see him continue to move forward.”

Markway played six snaps against Ohio. Football, often, can be cruel.

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