It's been a tough week at SportDork Headquarters.  Any true Gator fan can relate to the sleepless nights that ensued after The Franchise was carted off the field in Lexington, Kentucky roughly nine days ago.  In the days that followed, The Gator Nation waited anxiously to find out the fate of the man that holds the key to a third National Championship in four years.  In an effort to preserve my sanity, I tried to make light of it, tried to convince myself that there was really nothing to worry about.  This wasn't our punter who had taken a shot to the head, it was Tim Tebow.  Tim Tebow doesn't get concussions, he gives concussions!  Forget about Tim Tebow's head - what about Marcus Gilbert's knee!!  I'm surprised it didn't shatter into a thousand pieces at the mere impact of Tebow's head!  And how many days would Tebow be out?  What an absurd question.  This is Tim Tebow!  I could only imagine that after forty-eight hours, that concussion would run screaming from Tebow's body after realizing that any concussion that attempted to inhabit Tim Tebow would be in for serious trouble. 

But Monday turned to Tuesday, and Tuesday to Wednesday, and still there were no substantive Tebow health updates.  As early as Monday, I had fully expected to watch in awe as Tebow held a press conference and announced that he was not only fully recovered and would be practicing immediately, but that he would be embarking on a world-wide tour at the conclusion of the season titled, "You Too Can Be Symptom Free One Day After A Concussion."  By Wednesday, I realized I could no longer live in denial.  I began to panic.  I searched far and wide on the internet for Tebow updates - anything that would help to quell the growing fear that we could be heading to Baton Rouge to take on the Tigers without our fearless leader.   Last Wednesday alone, in hopes of a new Tebow update, I refreshed GatorSports.com so many times that not only did my right thumb lock up, but I became concerned that I would be on the receiving end of cease and desist letter in the near future. 

My friends could see that I was spiraling downhill and tried to lift my spirits by sending me pictures like this:

 


But it didn't help.  (Ok - so it might've helped a little.)

Anyway, by Thursday, I was starting to come apart at the seams.  The sleep deprivation, the loss of appetite, the hundreds of phone calls to the Gator Athletic Department without a single response - were pushing me to the brink.  Even the extensive research on head injuries - I probably now know more about head trauma than many licensed medical professionals - did nothing to allay my concerns.  I had to know whether number fifteen would be at the helm against LSU.

At some point on Friday morning, as I was staggering through the house shirtless, unshaven, sipping whisky out of a coffee mug and mumbling something about the typical recovery time of Grade 1 versus Grade 2 concussions, Mrs. SportDork stepped in.  We talked about my declining mental and physical condition in the wake of the Tebow Tragedy (if anything ever deserved capitalization, this is it), and weighed a variety of options that would help ensure my continued employment and also preserve our marriage.  After a few minutes, the solution became clear.  There was only one way to deal with the uncertainty surrounding the biggest game of the Gators' season.

We had to leave the country.

Our plan was simple.  With about a week left before the LSU game, we would hole ourselves up at a remote international location, a place where 'football' means 'soccer' and they don't even know who Tim Tebow is.  (I argued that no such place could exist on this earth, but Mrs. SportDork assured me that there are, in fact, millions - that's right, millions - of people in other countries who are not familiar with the feats of Tim Tebow.)   With no access to U.S. television and limited internet access, I would be unable to scour every available news source for the latest Tebow updates and would be forced to let go of my obsession. 

With what can only be described as a logical, reasonable plan in place, we hopped on a plane to St. Thomas.  But as the astute members of The SportDork Nation know, St. Thomas is in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which is not nearly isolated enough to fit the criteria for The SportDork escape.  So after landing in St. Thomas, we spent an hour and a half on two separate water taxis, finally arriving at a small island in the British Virgin Islands named Virgin Gorda (in honor of Tebow). 

We arrived on Saturday night, and by Sunday, as the picture below illustrates, the plan was working to perfection:

 


Beautiful, tropical skies, no televisions in the room - just the type of environment the doctor ordered to help The SportDork recover.  Sure, there's Wi-Fi in the room, but at $20 for 24 hours of spotty service and most of my time spent on the beach, all my Tebow fears began to disappear like the bright orange sun behind the horizon every evening. 

By this morning, I have to admit that it had been at least twenty four hours since I had given a thought to Tebow's cranium.  When you combine that with the fact that it had been two full nights since I had awoken in a cold sweat, screaming, "No, Brantley - he wasn’t' open!  No!!!", I think it's pretty clear I was making progress.

As Mrs. SportDork and I were enjoying breakfast this morning, we congratulated ourselves on the execution of a well-thought out plan.  I chuckled as I mentioned what an effective measure our excursion had been in soothing my Tebow fears.  A little sun and fun and no access to comprehensive U.S. sports coverage was all I had needed.  I began working through my two fried eggs over corned beef hash with a side of bacon and sausage (I hear it's important to eat well when you're in recovery) and casually flipping through the New York Times mini-paper that the resort provides.  A brief article on healthcare reform here, an update on the latest activities of the Somali pirates there - just enough to give you a flavor for all of the major international stories, but not so much that it requires a substantial investment of time to figure out what's going on in the world.  I was actually considering that I might like to get my news in such a manner every day - it might just make me better informed than I am now - when I flipped to the last page, which covers major sports news from around the world.  On Monday, I think it was a story about Rio getting the Olympics and how Chicago would deal with the loss.  I scanned the page, noticed that Brett Favre was victorious in his first game against his old team, and then I saw it, lurking in the bottom right-hand side of the page:

We're flying back tomorrow.