Down for the Count: The Painful Consequences of Sports Injuries
Originally published in the Fall 2018 Issue (Volume XII) of Harvard-Westlake’s Big Red Magazine.
Jake Kelly ’20 felt a sharp pain shoot through his left leg as he hit the turf after a four-yard gain on a muggy Friday night in August. It was late in the third quarter of the Wolverines’ football opener against Birmingham and a fresh start for a young squad after a disappointing finish in the 2017 season. Hobbling back to the sideline, Kelly told himself to shake off the pain, blaming the young season for highlighting his rustiness. He bent his knee a few times to test its mobility, correcting his limp on his way to the huddle. He knew that he couldn’t afford an injury. In addition to being the most important year to him, his junior season was a product of the years of practice and dedication to the sport he’d come to love. Kelly hoped the pain would wear off in a couple days and that the injury would subside in a few weeks. He considered almost all the possible scenarios, except one: a season-ending ACL tear and nine months of rehab.
Injuries have always been a consequence of sports. According to the NCAA, there were over 41,000 injuries from 2004 to 2009 in football alone. All it takes is one hit, one cut, or one swing to snuff an athlete’s hopes along with their season.
Sports fans are guilty of moving on from the player’s injury before the athlete can even get up off of the ground. Humans naturally embrace the “next player up” mindset and, by the end of the game, many fans simply assume the injury is just another “part of the game”.
“There’s a pervasive sense that athletes are superhuman, not only in their abilities to perform athletically, but also in their morals, their ability to handle pain, disappointment and injury,” sports medicine expert Dr. Deborah Saint-Phard said in an interview with the New York Times.
According to the New York Times, injuries can alter both lifestyles and mentalities, and depending on the degree, can cause a dramatic change in one’s life. Kelly said that he had to face a lot of new pressures after he went down with his ACL tear, including the pressures to perform better in school and to find new activities to pursue.
“I was in shock at first when I heard it was my ACL,” Kelly said. “I immediately felt a lot more pressure to succeed in school and find something else to do with my life. It was really difficult to have to deal with the fact that I was going to be out for the rest of the season.”
Kelly’s injury was another key loss for the Wolverines program head Michael Burnett in a season full of injuries including Loyal Terry ’19 and Brendan Kang ’20. Burnett, who just wrapped up his first season at the school, said he had to constantly switch the lineups to accommodate for all of the injuries this season. Burnett said that the last thing he wanted was to simply draw up the X’s and O’s and conform to the “next player up” mentality.
“With these types of injuries, we try and offer some sort of managerial role for the players for them to stay engaged in the game,” Burnett said. “Jake is one of those guys who is always eager to help out, even if it isn’t on the field.”
Regardless of his managerial position, Kelly was still forced to sit the entire season and watch as his teammates battle through the season and ultimately lose in the first round of the playoffs.
Kelly was far from the season’s only injured player. The field hockey team lost Bella Guanche ’19 to a season-ending ACL tear of her own only a few weeks into the season. It was a Thursday in September and Guanche made a cut to the left, buckling her left knee and ending her season before it had really begun. As a rising senior on a field hockey team that won the LAFHA Championship just one year earlier, Guanche was forced to watch from the sidelines as her teammates fought for a second consecutive championship.
“I was pretty upset when I found out that I couldn’t play for the rest of the season,” Guanche said. “It’s frustrating when you put in all of this work only to have to sit out the whole year.”
Guanche has met with a physical therapist for the past few months for two to three hours a day. Each session consists of hundreds of repetitions of knee-bending in order to build up the strength that was lost in the tear. Guanche said that one of the most challenging parts of such an injury is simply “getting around” every day. She said it often takes well over five minutes to get from class to class, not to mention all of the stairs and pain caused by every step. She now wears a brace on her left knee and uses crutches to help her take the pressure off of her knee. Guanche said she began to appreciate the smaller things that the average student tends to take for granted. After all, she said she has shaped her life to accommodate her injury, and she said that it has taken a toll on her interests and priorities. Ever since that practice in September, Guanche’s life has never been the same.
“This injury has definitely affected many sections of my life,” Guanche said. “I had to shift my focus from field hockey and my teammates to the repair of my knee, and that is the last thing I would want to do, especially so early in the season.”
Like Guanche, Jaida Hodge-Adams ’19 is no stranger to knee injuries before the beginning of the season. In Hodge-Adam’s case, her injury was the result of weeks of constant stress and pressure as a senior on the girls’ volleyball team. After returning from a break in early August, Hodge-Adams jumped to swing at a ball in practice and landed awkwardly, causing a quick pain to surge down her leg. This was the final blow after hundreds of small abrasions to the ligaments in her knee.
“To go down before my senior season really upset me,” Hodge-Adams said. “But my teammates were so supportive and I was able to connect with them more even if it wasn’t on the court.”
Hodge-Adams was officially diagnosed with a degeneration of her patellar tendon. Her injury required hours of physical therapy and inactivated her for the rest of the season.
“Even with all of the support and love from my teammates and coaches, I still felt like something was missing,” Hodge-Adams said. “I wanted to be out there.”
“We were obviously very sad that [Hodge-Adams] was not able to play her senior year, but understood in looking at her long term volleyball career this was what was best,” program head Hayley Blanchard said. “Because we knew she would not be able to play this season, she focused on school rather than volleyball, but still came to our big matches and practices when she was able. It definitely made it more special the days she was with us since we didn’t see her every day.”
“It hurts to be sidelined for my last season,” Guanche said. “It was great to support everyone, but it just wasn’t the same.”
Despite playing different sports and living different lifestyles, Kelly, Guanche and Hodge-Adams all share one thing in common: they know the consequences of a season-ending injury. None of them asked for it. None of them could have prepared for it. And none of them knew what was in store for the future. Each of them experienced first-hand what it was like to be a part of team that they didn’t get a chance to play on. Each of them experienced the pain, the isolation, and the helplessness of watching their team win or lose from the bleachers.
“The hardest part of it all was definitely watching my teammates play knowing that I couldn’t do anything,” Kelly said. “At times, I felt useless.”
All three of these athletes said that their injury has had a significant impact on their lives. They all acknowledged and appreciated the support of their teammates and coaches for finding ways keep them involved in their programs.
“It was obviously really tough not being able to play with my teammates on the court,” Hodge-Adams said. “But the relationships we formed off the court were so strong that I still felt like I was part of the team.”
The simple principle of inclusion boils down to pure humanity. These teams don’t have to include the injured player in their warm-ups or in the coaching booth, but they choose to anyway. They love and respect one another to an extent indescribable to many. After all, these teams are a family, and they’re not going to leave one of their own out in the cold.
“I have no idea where I would be without my teammates’ love and support this season,” Guanche said. “I can’t thank them enough for helping me get through this.”
