I watched two basketball games on television yesterday -- the men of Indiana beat Michigan (Yesss!) and the Michigan State women beat Purdue (also Yesss!). Later I watched three quarters, which was as much as I could stand, of the Super Bowl.
In all three games, I noticed, not for the first time, how many players remove the appliance that protects their upper teeth whenever there is a break. Some basketball players simply remove and hold their mouth guards, but many put one end in their mouths so that it protrudes like a giant fang. Others enhance that method by chewing on the thing.
Football players generally tuck the mouth guard somewhere on their helmet between plays, unless they have the kind that is tethered to the face mask, in which case they just let it hang there. Some of those are the kind that cover the entire mouth, sort of like wax lips on steroids.
Checking on the Internet, I find that custom-made mouth guards range in price from $50 to $300. (Ready-made ones start at $1.59.) Surely any college or professional sports program ought to be able to afford to provide their players with well-fitting mouth guards that are not so irritating.
But it does remind me of a Chicago Bears game many years ago in which their rookie running back was just about to develop the habit of lining up with his mouth guard dangling unless he was going to be carrying the ball on that play. It took the opposing defense about two plays to figure that out, and at least one tackle in the backfield for a big loss before the Bears coaches noticed and instructed Walter Payton to put the thing in his mouth on every play. Which he did. And the rest is history.
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