As many sports seasons come and go, each team inevitably loses players due to injuries. As student athletes, injuries don’t just affect the sports season, but also affect students’ daily lives. Determination and the will to get back up is a key factor to get on the road to recovery.
While the rest of the team is constantly practicing, achieving goals, and working to get better, injured players are forced to work on recovering by resting and getting back into the habit of training with Jason, the athletic trainer at Pleasant Valley High School. “When I tore my MCL, football practice was a little traumatizing. While all of my teammates were out on the field freely running around having fun, I was trapped in a room doing knee recovery workouts for the majority of the time,” senior Cedric Fierce said. Working to strengthen and build your body back to its normal state is not an easy task.
Many students said that their injuries caused pain and discomfort in everyday things during school such as, walking up or down stairs, jogging, or carrying things. Struggling through a six-hour school day can put a damper on your determination and effort to get your strength back to its normal state. Pleasant Valley offers many accommodations to help students with injuries, such as elevator passes, students to assist you to and from classes, and even wheelchairs. “Going down the stairs is the worst,” said senior, Carlos Rivera. “It causes so much aggravation on my leg muscles since I tore my meniscus. It really makes it a struggle to do things I did with a breeze a few weeks ago.”
As injuries can affect one’s physical state in a negative way, they also have the potential to improve building one’s mental toughness. The road to recovery can include physical therapy workouts and ice. While working out is limited, many athletes are encouraged to work on strengthening the areas of their body which have not been injured. This helps build muscle in other parts of the body since you’re losing strength in the injury-affected area. This process ensures that after recovery, the athlete will come back to their sport in a much better condition.
Relationships with the athlete and coach can be potentially tarnished due to being out for a long period of time and not being able to communicate properly. “Thankfully my relationship with Coach Larson hasn’t changed. Communication is a big thing when it comes to figuring out when I can come back and what I can do to stay in shape and stay strong. As for the team aspect, we will always be close even though I am unable to help them during wrestling like I used to,” explained Rivera. Rivera hopes to come back stronger than ever and lead his team to victory just in time for the end of the season.
