Where’s the justice?

It happens so often. But fairness is forgotten.

Hopefully, last Saturday was the last game the NIU Huskies lost on the football field this year. Hopefully, it wasn’t the last game for senior free safety Tom Rhomberg.

No, not for the season … for his career. He injured his right knee defending a screen pass.

“I was coming up on the play to make a tackle,” Rhomberg said. “As I made contact, Scott Hein came flying in from the side to get in on the tackle … and his helmet hit me in the knee. … Right after it happened, I had this eerie feeling that it was going to be over.”

Rhomberg suffered a second-degree sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee. Fortunately, he did not have to go under the knife.

“I had partially torn it but it wasn’t torn all the way,” informed Rhomberg, “so I didn’t have to have surgery. I was pretty happy about that.”

But, his season and collegiate career ended simultaneously. After five years of Huskie football, Thom says ‘good-bye’ to the field earlier than he thought he would.

“My senior year and my college career ended without me being ready for it,” Rhomberg admitted. “It ended on that sour note and I wasn’t anticipating it. That kind of hurt.”

But Rhomberg can fall back on what is drilled into each and every student-athlete—academics.

He boasts a 3.21 GPA into his final year of college, recording three mentions on the Dean’s List along the way. He is also one of the four candidates from NIU for the prestigious 1992 CoSIDA Academic All-America Football team.

“Pro football’s a dream but, basically, that’s all it is for most people,” conveyed Rhomberg. “If you’re getting a free college education and you’re going to take advantage of it, that’s just stupid on your part.

“Injuries happen, they happen to everyone … but you always have something to fall back on with school.”

Homberg’s career isn’t over—it’s just begun.