Have you heard the quote, “The pain of recovery is often greater than the pain of injury, but healing is worth it; Don’t give up.”  Matthew Cobb is someone who has been through this with his football injury.

During this past flag football season Matthew was playing in a game. During the game Matt was able to get two running plays done before he sustained an injury on the field.  The way the injury happened was when he fell on the field and the guy behind him fell on top of him causing Matt to land on his fingers wrong. “It was difficult to get up at first after sliding across the turf,” Matt said.

When Matt’s mom looked at his hand, she knew Matt had a serious injury. Matthew looked and knew it was not ok because his left pinky finger was not facing the same direction as the rest of them. Matt’s mom brought him to the hospital because she just wanted to focus on getting him the best medical care.

While at the hospital, they had to cut his favorite football glove off his hand and reset the bone in his hand because his finger was dislocated and fractured. “Matt handled the resetting of the bone like a champ,” Matt’s Mom, Laurie said. “I would have cried! Matt is a super tough guy.”  It was tough for Laurie to see her son so much pain. After that, the doctors told him he had to be put in a splint and that he would not be able to finish the rest of the flag football season.

Even though he was not able to finish playing in the flag football season, Matt was able to help and be the assistant coach on the sidelines for the rest of the season. As the assistant coach, he helped keep the score on the sidelines and make sure they were all together as a team.

Although he enjoyed being an assistant coach, Matt said it was a little hard to think about when he would get to be able to play again after his injury. Matt knew how much work he was going to have to put at OT and doing his exercises at home also. After some OT work, he finally got movement back and was able to start playing again.  He said because of patience, vigorous work and the support of his Special Olympic program, teammates, Special Olympics Massachusetts staff and the doctors he had, he was able to keep moving forward.

His goal from coming back from this injury was to be able to continue playing his sports. He was able to achieve this goal and return to playing in the 2025 basketball season. He also will be ready for the 2025 flag football season. Matt was able to overcome his injury and get back to having fun.

“The pain of recovery is often greater than the pain of injury, but healing is worth it; Don’t give up.”

Anita Griffin is a member of the Special Olympics MA Content Squad. The mission of Special Olympics MA Athlete Leadership is to empower athletes to develop communication skills and utilize their voices to assume meaningful leadership roles. As members of the Content Squad, athlete leaders contribute to Special Olympics MA story-telling through interviews, photos, video creation, and more.