If this was an ideal world, all I'd think about when I heard the word "stinger" would be a delicious, delicious cocktail. Alas, I'm a UConn fan, so instead my mind jumps to Scott Lutrus and swishy pants. Now, to be clear, I have no clue what the source of Lutrus' recent injury is, because Randy Edsall and UConn will only acknowledge that he has an "upper extremity" injury. As Justin said:
While that could mean that Lutrus is merely replacing one of his cybernetic arms, or perhaps suffering from a case of the snifflies, it probably has something to do with another shoulder stinger, which is what plagued the linebacker most of last season.
So we don't know. Still, even the suggestion that Lutrus had a stinger left me in an interesting place because, well, I had no clue what a stinger was. I knew it had something to do with the neck/shoulder/arm area, but thats about it. Something tells me I'm not the only one either, so I did a bit of research.
A stinger, which is also called a burner, is a nerve injury that affects the neck and shoulder, according to WebMD. Stingers cause a burning pain to shoot down the arm that is often paired with numbness or weakness. They are extremely common in contact sports, WebMD says 65 percent of college football players will have one during their career, but almost all of them go away after a minute or so, so 70 percent of them are unreported. It is rare for them to be long-lasting, like the one that sidelined Lutrus for much of last season, and their doesn't appear to be much in the way of treatment besides waiting for one to go away.