Maybe Jordan Hicks ought to come up with something cooler.
Like he was bitten by a shark or fought off a robber or flipped his motorcycle.
"I was on my honeymoon and I slipped by the pool," Hicks said. "I wish I had a better story."
Wearing a padded glove and a soft cast on his right hand, the Eagles' very promising 25-year-old middle linebacker took the practice field on Thursday for the first veteran practice of training camp. Hicks participated a lot, even taking reps in team drills, but was somewhat limited.
Hicks was on his honeymoon in late June in Greece when he slipped and snapped the fifth metacarpal in his hand (the pinky bone closest to the palm), he explained Thursday. News about his injury raced home; Hicks said reporters found out about the injury before his mom.
So ... what happened?
"I slipped by the pool and tried to brace myself," Hicks said. "The ground that they use out there is kind of rocky and unstable and they use this glaze over top of the rocks. I was getting out of the pool and I slipped by it. I tried to brace myself. Unfortunately, it broke, snapped my finger in half."
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The injury happened on his fourth and final night on the island of Mykonos. The next day, he and his new wife took a ferry to Santorini, where their first stop was at the hospital for an X-ray. Hicks was in communication with Chris Peduzzi and the Eagles' training staff throughout the ordeal. They saw the X-rays and the video Hicks sent them of him making a fist. Hicks said he didn't feel pain and although the hospital in Greece wanted to cast it, he let his hand be free for the rest of the trip.
"I walked into those hospitals and the doctors and nurses were smoking cigarettes," Hicks said laughing. "They were relaxing, having a great time, sitting there smoking. I'm like, 'I'll limit what they do to me.'"
Upon his arrival back in the United States, Hicks had a surgery, where doctors used a pin to repair the broken bone. Hicks said doctors wanted him to start moving it the very next day.
"Obviously, you can see right here, I have no restriction in my movement," Hicks said, flexing his hand. "I'm not even three weeks out. It's been fast and I'm healing well. It's unfortunate, but it honestly did not hold me back at all. I was back out here the next week working out, sweating."
The injury, ultimately, isn't a very serious one. Hicks is almost already three weeks out from the surgery and thinks the soft cast (that he wears only on the field) might be able to come off sometime next week. He isn't sure if he'll be full-go by then and doesn't know if he'll be allowed to play in the preseason. But he made sure to point out that many players come back from this injury the very next week during the regular season and he thinks he would have done the same if he needed to.
"I feel like it could have been worse," Hicks said. "It definitely could have been worse."
But for a guy who was so happy to finally shed that injury-prone label after playing all 16 games last season, hurting his hand on vacation was just another injury to pile up. Dating back to his college days at Texas, Hicks has really struggled to stay healthy.
When he slammed his hand on the ground, was he thinking "not again..."?
"My mindset has kind of shifted from that to really being more of, 'What now is going to hold me back?'" Hicks said. "I feel like I've been through enough to understand and can compare what I'm going through at the moment to those tough times. That's what you can say life is about. You go through all of these things and you come out on the other side better. And the mindset that you have from those things is shaped in those moments. I think that's where I'm at today."