On every athlete’s mind is the potential of being hurt, but what injuries would be career-ending injuries? A few professional athletes like Nick Chubb, Damar Hamlin, and Aaron Rodgers have been injured recently. These professional athletes all suffered injuries, some worse than others, showing there is no way to eliminate the risk of injury, even in the high-skilled levels.
The Washington Post reported that out of all high school athletes in the United States, more than 5.2 million injuries occurred from 2015 to 2019, according to research presented this month at a meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Tyler Harbin, a sophomore, who plays soccer, has suffered an injury before and has even been close to a career-ending injury.
“The turf caught my knee and I fell,” said Harbin. “I was told my ACL was close to tearing. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, so I was thankful.”
According to US News, knee and ankle sprains and strains, along with head injuries such as concussions are the most seen injuries in high school sports. The athletic trainer, McKenzie Myers, deals with injuries in high school students almost daily.
“Something I see often would be regular ankle sprains, and concussions happen a lot more often than people think they do,” said Myers.
Myers believes many second or third injuries in high school sports could be prevented if athletes would stick with the programs they are assigned after their first injury.
“It gets hard to get athletes to stay with the program through the injury,” said Myers. “A lot of times I can get them back to playing but once they start feeling good they think they don’t need to come and see me. When is the best time to come and see me? So we can prevent the injury from happening again.”
According to Quote Wizard, football is the most dangerous sport for children ages 5 to 14, while basketball has the highest number of injuries among people ages 15 to 24.
“I see most of the [football] injuries because there are more of them,” said Myers. “But I would say it is pretty well distributed between everybody, obviously the smaller teams I don’t see as much, like golf and tennis, but other sports I see a lot.”
Every player has to decide for themselves when enough is enough. It may not be a physical injury but a mental one. Kyle Mccoy, a sophomore on the tennis team, believes he would quit if he ever got to a point where he needed to.
“I think I would quit–I’m not willing to destroy my body or get burnt out,” said Mccoy. “I’ve seen them [Tennis players] destroy their bodies, and I don’t understand it. This tennis player, Rafael Nadal, had tears of ligaments, and he still kept trying to play, there was no point, he was just ruining his body. ”
Kelsey Lykins, a sophomore on the volleyball and basketball teams, has been through many injuries and chooses to continue against all odds.
“I’ve had probably ten to twelve injuries, but I don’t think I’ve reached a point where I would want to quit,” said Lykins. “I think that someone should take a step back or take a break when they are physically and mentally killing themselves, or pushing themselves to the point where they are making themselves sick.”
