Athletes get injured. But what happens when they leave the stadium lights and the public eye?
To be a college athlete is to perform. The court, the field, the pool, and the mat are the venues where the culmination of a lifetime of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice comes to fruition.
But performing such feats of athleticism also exposes oneself to risk. With the intensity of collegiate athletics comes an increase in injury risk. The cuts become quicker, the impacts harder, the stakes higher, and the opponents larger and more imposing.
“Injuries are so commonplace in sports that it’s almost an expectation at some point during an athletic career that you're going to have an injury,” Dr. Michael Boyd, assistant professor of orthopaedics at Duke and sports medicine specialist, told The Chronicle.
The data bear this out, too. Compared to high school sports, overuse injuries occur over three times as often in collegiate athletics, and as many as 91% of athletes experience an injury during their college careers. When an injury happens—when the athlete's mission is interrupted—the true hardship sets in. Read more.