“I don’t know if I will ever be 100 percent back,” says SKHS junior Jessica Graham, a forward on the Girls Varsity Soccer team. On September 30th, against Scituate, as Graham crossed the ball right out side the penalty box, she was taken down hard by the opposing goalie. She was rushed to South County hospital to find out she broke her Tibia plateau, slightly tore her ACL, strained her MCL and shattered her meniscus to pieces.
Guerrino Boni, a physical therapist at Olympic Physical Therapy in Wakefield, says he has seen an increase in severity of high school athlete’s injuries over the last six years. Boni also has helped many SKHS students including Graham recover from these serious injuries.
Where approximately four million high school athletes competed in 1971-1972, today seven million high school athletes compete in scholastic competition while three million others participate in recreational sports.
With more athletes, one would assume, comes more injuries, but there are actually fewer injuries.
SKHS Athletic Trainer, Ms. Morrison says, “We learned how to prevent these injuries, that is why there is less. The injuries are actually a lot more severe”.
Many athletes are playing their one specific sport all year around, where in the part athletes played a different sport each season. This creates a problem of overuse of the same muscles and ligaments. This injury, of overuse, is called a chronic injury according to Morrison.
Morrison adds that the most popular injuries she deals with are the sprained ankle, bruises and bloody noses. The sport that brings in the most injuries though, is football and track or cross-country.
“Football brings in many acute injuries,” states Morrison. An acute injury according to Morrison is one that happened through direct impact.
Derrick Stanton, a senior and captain of varsity football broke his hand in practice, two practices before the first playoff game. The team was running through offensive plays when he made a tackle and landed awkwardly on his left hand.
Nonetheless, Stanton played in the playoff game with a cast he made himself. Afterward, he went to the Emergency Room, where the doctors gave him a hard cast. Stanton played the rest of the season in the hard cast but said he could not play to his full potential with the broken hand.
Approximately 20 percent of high school athletes visit the Emergency Room each year.
Similar to Graham and Stanton, many other SKHS students have faced injuries playing sports this year. Junior Sara Rosa suffered a concussion heading the ball in a varsity soccer game and missed three weeks of the season.
“Every concussion I get makes the next one even worse,” Rosa said.
The Centers for Disease Control estimates more than 300,000 sports-related concussions occur each year in the United States
Junior Taylor Readyhough was also injured playing soccer at last year’s soccer try-outs. Readyhough broke his collarbone and missed most of his season, only being able to play in two games all season. To this day, he feels pain in his shoulder when he plays basketball and icing after every game is a must.
Missing a good portion of a season, especially as a senior, is really disappointing. Senior Liz Clarkin found out she was not going to be able to play for the rest of her soccer season after she broke her Talas bone in her foot and tore a tendon in her ankle. Clarkin said the injury was devastating.
“I really just didn’t know what to do,” said Clarkin. “It took a huge toll on my life; I have never been hurt before.”
Clarkin was thinking about playing soccer in college but being out for three months makes it difficult to be seen by college coaches.
“Stress fractures of the foot, ankle sprains and ligament injuries are all, unfortunately, quite common in popular fall sports,” says Dr. David Davidson, a medical consultant to the Buffalo Bills
Another senior who missed his whole soccer season was Brendan Nolan. A week before school started, Nolan went in for a slide tackle tearing his meniscus.
“Knee injuries are the leading cause of high school sports-related surgeries” according to a study conducted at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
“It was my most important season,” Nolan said. Luckily he was back running within two and a half months and is having a great hockey season, pain free.
“It happens, it is apart of athletics,” said SKHS Athletic Director Mr. Lynch.
Typical overuse injuries in popular sports are runner’s knees, or a pitchers tendonitis, football player’s shin splints, or a swimmer’s rotator cuff. Also, torn meniscus and Tommy John surgeries are seen a lot more often in younger patients today.
Stanton and Graham both play multiple sports. Graham didn’t make it back for indoor track this season, but hopes to be running by February. Stanton also planned on trying out for the SKHS hockey team, but with his surgery being so close to hockey tryouts, he couldn’t.
Stanton still complains of soreness in his hand which could affect his future plans as a football player.
“My hand throbs sometimes, and I get muscle cramps,” he said. “When it is cold I can feel the screws.”
At SKHS, there are 514 athletes with one athletic trainer. Most colleges have three or four athletic trainers for every 120 college students.
Morrison describes that the injuries witnessed in high school students are so severe because the sports are becoming so much more intense. The athletes are starting these sports at such a little age.
The SKHS athletic trainer handled approximately 54 serious injuries last year.
Every year, she said students, like Stanton, keep on playing through injuries.
“Listen to your doctors, and stop playing if you are hurt!” says Stanton.
It’s a theory he now has decided to live by.