Injury in College Sports
Are athletes paying a physical price for playing college sports? Most athletes will tell you about all the benefits that come with being an athlete on a college campus, however they are also at risk for chronic injuries later in life if not during their career. In today’s generation, you see athletes (or parents) pick a sport and stick with it and spend hours dedicating their life to a sport for the chance to play collegiality.
Many of the athletes that sacrifice playing in college reach the highest level of competition, because their sport doesn’t have a professional league. Getting a full ride scholarship is the goal for many of these athletes, and they spend the time in middle school and high school to make sure this dream comes true.
However, elite athletes playing college sports could be on track for chronic injuries later in life. The injuries that these athletes accumulate and preserve through in college affects their bodies years after their athletic career is over. College athletes are subject to have more health problems than someone who hasn’t stepped on a court or field before.
A study done by Indiana University discovered that, Division I athletes were more than twice as likely to have physical problems that limited their daily activities and exercise. Sixty-seven percent of these former athletes said they had suffered a major injury and 50 percent said they had chronic injuries during college, compared with 28 percent and 26 percent, respectively, among non-athletes.
Competition v. Practice
Men’s football has the most injuries each year, and more injuries happen in practice than competition. The article “Concussions Can Be More Likely in Practices Than in Games” mentioned that football players are more likely to get a concussion from a game than practice. Not only do we see these results with football but with other sports as well.
In every college sport the majority of injuries come from practice, which could be from the extended hours, stress from school and other factors, or trying to claim your sport in a game or competition. In most collegiate practices, the athletes will run more plays, shoot more free throws, and take more turns than they do on game day. Over exerting your body can cause more injuries, because the athlete isn’t receiving the proper amount of rest.
Psychological Effects on Injury
In college, an athlete has more responsibilities which adds more stress and worry. Having this extra stress and worry is mentally draining and can causes injury just like over training your body can.
According to Sportsmen,there has been a consistently demonstrated relationship between one psychological factor — stress — and athletic injury risk. Most athletes don’t realize how mental health can affect your body physically. In high school almost everyone gets to play and when you are the best on your team you always get to compete. However, in college everyone is the best which makes it hard to get into the starting line up. This sometimes drives athletes to push themselves too injury in practice, because they are trying to prove themselves.
Injuries affect athletes mentally and emotionally as well as physically. When athletes injury themselves and they can’t participate in their sport it takes a toll on their mental health. They aren’t allowed to practice and do what they love everyday. Most injured athletes lose their identity and who they are as a person because their sport defines them.
Athletes’ Perspective
Two Central Michigan University athletes have experienced injury in their sport careers. Charlie Wright (CMU Gymnast) and Ryan Taylor (CMU Track and Field Star) have a discussion about how they have experienced pain and injuries in their sport. They expressed how they handle pain and injury and how it effects them mental.
Charlie Wright is on the Central Michigan gymnastics team and she has done gymnastics since she was four years old. She had shoulder surgery along with other injuries that have kept her from participating in her sport. She went into detail about her experiences at CMU.
Charlie goes into details about her injuries:
Have you ever lied about an injury?
No, I have never lied about a injury, but I have pretend like im okay or down played my injury
How do you determine when you’re ready to get back on the field after an injury?
To determine if I am ready to get back from a injury it is a team effort. This is a trial and error system. This means starting small and working your way back up to full game time where you do a little see how it feels and then add more. Also it is a collaboration with the trainer to see when you are able to progress farther or if you need to take steps back.
Do you feel pressure from the coach to return sooner than anticipated from an injury?
Yes, I have felt pressure to return to sport sooner then I was ready for. This was to be for the benefit of the team and because I was not doing the job, I was brought here to do I was pressured to do my job.
Do environmental conditions affect the level in which you push yourself to?
Yes, environmental conditions make a huge difference. A positive environment that is competitive pushes you to your full potential. It not only makes you better, but it makes your teammates better as well. A negative environment makes it very difficult to push yourself to your potential because if your unhappy you’re not going to want to put the work in to get better.
When you get injured, what’s your thought process?
My thought process is: Ow this hurt, then what first sets in is optimism and be positive that everything will be ok it’s just a little set back. Once the injury starts to set in and your stuck doing nothing and watching everyone that’s when you lose hope, and it leaves the longer your stuck doing nothing.
What behaviors do you engage in to manage pain/injury?
To manage pain one behavior is to start with taking pain medications. If that does not help, then you get medical imaging. After that then it is a removal from sport if the pain does not subside.
Do you think the violence of your sport will affect your life years from now?
Yes, I believe that due to the extreme impact my body has taken from this sport and the injuries I have acquired I will be affected years from now for sure.
Physical Price is Worth It
Pain and violence is something that is unavoidable in sports today. From a very young age athletes learn that pain is going to be something they are going to deal with in their sport. They learn that pain is a sign of weakness and will happen, so they have to get use to it. Athletes carry this mindset throughout their entire career which harms them as they get older. In college they push though pain and get injury because of the physical and mental demands of collegiate athletics. After getting the perspective from collegiate athletes, they realize that they are paying a physical price for playing college sports but it is worth the temporary fulfillment. They firmly believe that when they are older their bodies will suffer from the stress they are enduring right now. Doing what they love and aspired to do since they were little is more important and the pain that will affect them years down the road.
