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An otherwise quiet Friday in Marquette Golden Eagles land was ever so slightly marred when the official men’s basketball Twitter announced that senior center Matt Heldt had broken his toe in a “weight room mishap.”
#mubb @HeldtMatt out 4-6 weeks after suffering broken toe on Thursday in weight room mishap.
— MarquetteMBB (@MarquetteMBB) August 3, 2018
Couple of things.
- That sucks and is probably incredibly painful, especially for a guy as big as Heldt.
- Six weeks is mid-September, so Heldt will be back to fighting form before official full team practices even begin.
- Even if he takes a little bit of time to get his leg strength back due to resting his foot, games don’t officially start for about 14 weeks.
Thus, and no offense to Matt and his clearly painful toe injury here, this injury is essentially meaningless when it comes to Marquette’s prospects for 2018-19, which means...... THE RETURN OF THE ANONYMOUS EAGLE BUREAU OF NONSENSICAL INVESTIGATION!
There has to be more to this injury than just a “mishap.” The AEBNI staff (which is actually just the AE staff, except with deerstalker hats and bubble pipes) put our heads together and came up with the most likely scenarios to cause Heldt’s broken toe that is NOT “a weight slipped and landed on his foot.”
- High kick to a punching bag gone wrong
- Bar snapped while Heldt was doing his usual 200 pound bicep curls, dropping the weight on his foot
- Heldt’s hand strength crushed the bar while he was doing his usual 300 pound bicep curls, and the one of the broken ends of the bar and weights landed on his foot
- Heldt was helping Noted Collection Of Pipe Cleaners Come To Life Greg Elliott carry a 45 pound weight because he’s a good teammate, but it slipped and landed on his foot.
- The Powers of Pain challenged the team to a bench press competition, and right before Heldt benched 600 pounds to win, Warlord & Barbarian attacked everyone and then threw the weight onto Heldt’s foot.
- Heldt was dispensing with his summer duties as an actual milkman when a 50 gallon drum of milk tipped over and landed on his foot.
- Always one to go an extra step, Heldt was milking the cows in order to have milk to deliver for his summer duties as an actual milkman when a cow was overcome with excitement at the presence of greatness and passed out, landing on Heldt’s foot and breaking his toe.
- Whilst walking over to the McGuire Center for morning activities, the team was beset upon on all sides by ninjas, and as it turns out, you can only execute 97 consecutive perfect roundhouse kicks to save your teammates before your toe breaks on the 98th.
From there, things got....... weird.
From Sam Newberry: Look, I’m all for the easy money bet of “dropped an absurd amount of weight on one toe after absolutely crushing a set in the gym.”
But I saw the Greg Elliott Instagram post of him pulling a truck along behind himself during a workout. So I’m gonna go with Our Milkman going so fast dragging the truck that, as he slowed up, the truck caught up and tried to take vengeance on Matty’s toe.
You know, after breaking some land speed records in the process. Look out World’s Strongest Man Competition, here comes Heldt.
From Ben Snider: I think our treasured Milkman got a little too big in the head with ASTROWORLD being released and the leaked scrimmage video showing that he can drain 15 footers like his name is Thomas Welsh. He skipped his pre-workout meal of 6 cups of milk and one unseasoned hardboiled egg and went straight for his warmup routine of shoulder pressing Greg Elliott. He couldn’t make that last rep and dropped Greg on his foot. Without the necessary calcium that milk provides to help build strong bones, Matt’s toe was left shattered. Real shame.
From Connor Lagore: When Matt Heldt arrived Thursday morning to the weight room, he noticed the outside door was ajar. Not thinking too much of it, he closed it behind him and continued to the weight room. He began working on his biceps when he heard a commotion near the fridge where the staff kept all the Gatorade and protein drinks. He shrugged it off and kept pumping iron. But then he heard it again and felt the need to go investigate. He tiptoed over the that corner of the weight room and found a squirrel tangled up in a pile of jump ropes. It must have gotten inside the building when the door was left open, he thought. And he was correct! The squirrel did indeed find its way in through the open door, eventually finding its way into the weight room. The squirrel’s name was Marvin.
Anyway, Heldt had no idea what to do, but he wanted to help the squirrel. Heldt is, after all, a benevolent being and friend to all animals. After much thought, he determined there was only one way to get the squirrel out of the building and back out into the lush and natural habitat of 12th and Wisconsin: He had to put Marvin in the fridge. Heldt opened the door of the refrigerator and very carefully untangled the squirrel from the cords of jump rope. The second Marvin was free, he bolted into the fridge, mostly out of fear, but slightly out of understanding, as if he knew the gentle giant was trying to save him. Heldt slammed the door so that Marvin wouldn’t break free, and he heard the rodent scampering around among the bottles of Gatorade. Heldt bent down and picked up the fridge, throwing his whole back into it. Every muscle was clenched as he ambled his way towards the exit, giant metal fridge wrapped in his arms. He pushed his way out the door and into the warm summer air. Carefully, so as not to startle Martin, he put the fridge down. Immediately, he heard a shattering.
“Silly me, I put the fridge down right on an empty glass bottle,” he thought. “I’ll have to clean that up.” He looked down and realized some of the broken glass had gotten stuck in the bottom of his shoe. If he had taken one more step, the concrete sidewalk likely would’ve pushed the shard right up into his foot. Close call.
He slowly opened the refrigerator door, and Marvin shot out onto the sidewalk, breathing heavily, head on a swivel. He looked back at Matt once more, as if to say, “thank you, sir,” and skittered off into grass. Matt would likely never see him again, but the center was just happy to help out. Now, for the broken glass. Heldt once again picked up the fridge and brought it back down to the weight room. Obviously straining, he grunted a hello to some of his teammates who had recently arrived. Once the fridge was back in place like nothing had happened, he went to find a broom and dustpan for the broken glass. Like a good citizen, he swept up all noticeable debris. He wouldn’t want anyone stepping on it on their way into the facility and getting hurt due to someone else’s careless mistake. It took him a little while to find a recycling bin to dump it in, because of course he wasn’t going to put it in the trash. Finally, he found one near the custodian’s room. Happy with his good deeds, he made his way back to the weight room.
Heldt was pretty wiped from dragging around a fridge and running around looking for a recycling bin, so naturally when he picked up a dumbbell, his tired muscles wouldn’t hold it, and he dropped the weight on his toe, crushing the bone.