No matter the weather, Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Allen Hurns will always wear long tights and a long-sleeve shirt to practice. Whether its 50 or 100 degrees, Hurns will always be in a long-sleeve shirt and long tights.
That’s because the NFL wideout is allergic to grass.
No he’s not just wearing the long sleeves and tights to protect himself from the sun or keep himself warm, Hurns is doing it because he doesn’t want to be scratching himself constantly.
If you’re a gymnast, basketball player, or a swimmer that isn’t a problem. But Hurns is a football player and is on grass all the time.
“It has its moments,” Hurns said.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), around 50 million Americans suffer from allergies every year. Of those 50 million, a lot of high profile athletes have come out and talked about their allergies such as Serena Williams’ peanut allergy or Adrian Peterson’s shellfish one.
But to see Hurns is allergic to grass is a different story. However, he isn’t the first athlete who has dealt with environmental allergies that have made it tough for them to play their chosen sport.
Tiger Woods said he received allergy shots as a kid for pollen, but still gets bothered by pollen on a golf course. Golfer Ian Poulter is allergic to different types of grass, yet plays on it every day. Australian Swimmer Ian Thorpe has won five Olympic gold medals, but as a kid he was allergic to chlorine.
According to ESPN, Hurns discovered he was allergic to grass by accident. When the wide receiver was in high school he was diagnosed with a seafood allergy. The allergist then did more skin testing to see if Hurns was allergic to anything else, and that’s when grass came up. It solved all of his problems and explained all of his rashes after practices and games.
The upside is that Hurns doesn’t deal with breathing problems occasionally cause by an allergy. Instead, he just gets rashes. The wide out said sometimes they barely come up and other times he has to take Benadryl if there’s a severe breakout.
“Sometimes I break out. Sometimes I don’t,” Hurns said. “… At times it gets pretty aggravating, but for the most part it’s been holding up good.”
The Jags’ wide receiver seems to be dealing with the allergy okay. Hurns recently signed a four-year contract extension worth $40 million dollars. He was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2014, and has caught 115 passes for 1,708 yards and 16 touchdowns in his first two seasons in Jacksonville. The yards and touchdown numbers are the most by an undrafted player in his first two seasons since the league merger back in 1970, according to ESPN.
While Hurns seems to be okay, now we all know why he is itching, both figuratively and literally, to get off the field every day.
[ESPN]
