You Will Never Be Able To Play Sports Again

It was a normal spring night and my baseball game had just started. It was senior night and I was pitching, we had just finish the first half of the first inning. My teammate struck out, it was my turn to hit, I swung for the ball and my leg popped twice. I went down and didn't get back up, My leg was stuck to my chest and I couldn't move it. The visiting team's coach was an EMT he ran over and said ¨this is going to hurt¨ and pulled my leg straight. What had happened was when I swung the bat my leg didn't move and my kneecap dislocated and instead of my ligaments tearing, they stretched and broke my kneecap. This was a challenge for me because this was the first time I had never broken a bone in my life. I went to the doctor and he said nothing was wrong, so my

I was excited for a new beginning in my career, maybe to prepare me for high school in the upcoming years. The idea of beating boys in soccer got me excited, my blood pumping harder through my veins and put an extra spring in my step. It was the first practice of our middle school season, where my life would be turned upside down. I ran down the field as normal, going for another shot on goal, but out of nowhere one of boys came from behind and completely took out my knee, causing me to collapse in pain. Lying down on the field, my sanctuary, the place I saw as home was probably the most grueling time of my life. Injuries were common in my life, but this injury was unlike any other. I could not get up off the field and felt as if there was nothing left in my knee, and every time I tried to get up, I fell right back down. I never sat out a practice until that night and figured one day would be enough. One night was clearly not enough, I was never able to catch back up to my full speed, or be able to cut around the field, which resulted in moving positions from forward, to defense to cut back on the running. I thought this would a temporary position, but I played every game in

Sports has always been a huge part of my life. I would be the one team player who took the sports season a little bit too seriously. I was the number 1 doubles player on my school's JV tennis team. Unfortunately, I fractured my ankle during my junior year and wasn't able to play with my team. I was devastated, but I didn’t allow myself to become disconnected from my team. I became the team manager to allow myself to still play a role in my team, despite my injury. I would record scores to my division leaders and take pictures to post on the website I created for my team. After the season was over, my doctor told me my ankles required surgery to become fully healed. I knew that meant I couldn’t continue to play tennis, but I didn’t want to give

I have played soccer continuously from age 3 to 18. Four years ago, I tore my right ACL. I endured surgery and 6 months of physical therapy, then almost 2 years later to the day, I was told the same fate again. I had torn the ACL in my left knee this time. Why did this awful injury have to strike me twice? Once again, I endured the months of rehabilitation and soon returned to the field. Having to go through this twice as a teen taught me that perseverance and determination will help you achieve what you want in life. Even though I spent almost 2 years away from the field, I still made every effort to be there for my teammates. Some days I didn’t want to get out of bed because of the pain, I didn’t want to go to therapy, and I wanted to quit.

This step lays the groundwork towards my expertise in athletic training. My schooling provides the opportunity to acquire the experience I will apply to different circumstances in the future, and permits me the ability to test my proficiency of the situations. Education forms the way I will react to distinct situations. With this necessary information, I will not only be confident in myself , but I will also have the same confidence in the decisions I make. As time goes on, continuing education will be an essential component which will aid in remaining up to date with regards to revised treatment plans and enhanced

When I broke my Tibia and Fibula playing football my sophomore year of high school, I started to really think about what I wanted to do with my life. I had a lot of love for playing football, and I knew that I did not want to stray too far away from the sport. It wasn’t until I started going to physical therapy that I realized that I didn’t have to, so I decided that I wanted to be a physical therapist, to help other people get back on their feet. However, my junior year, we got a new athletic trainer at my high school. So, I decided to ask Mrs. Pam if she would mind if I shadowed her, to learn more about what she did, and how to help other players with their injuries. She agreed, and I spent my junior and seniors years shadowing her. I learned

It was the aftermath of the Friday night game that I’ve given any signs of an injury, and my family and close ones felt sorrow for me and the following Monday. Throughout my life, peers and elders engraved an image onto me being that sports held a bright future for me, and it will lead to the true path of greatness, and one single injury puts me an aggravating, melancholy rut. Viewing my teammates playing angered me since the injury forced me into a world of therapy for the rest of the season. All the promises I made for myself were undone, athletic scholarships, the path to greatness, and my only school pastime and passion flowed throughout my body and into a pipe dream.

Everyone has something they’re talented at, and many people have to try multiple things before they find their talent(s) that they have. As a child, my parents like many others had me participate in multiple activities. For example, I took dance classes, played a great amount of sports, and was a participant in many plays. In my freshman year, I tried running track and field. During the course of it, I developed shin splints and I proceeded to go to the athletic trainer. The athletic trainer here, Todd Korabek, has a system that works for the whole program. New injuries will see an aide, and that aide will then write up a card for them which lists their name, sport, injury, and body part. The aide doesn’t write the injury because only the athletic trainer can diagnose. After the athletic trainer treats all old injuries, he evaluates the new injuries, which happened to be me at that moment. Watching the aides assist Mr. Korabek really inspired me and his profession intrigued me.

When I found out that I had a bad knee I was absolutely devastated. It took five doctors to find out what exactly was wrong and it turned out to be way worse than my family had anticipated.

At the start of high school my life began to take a turn. Up to that point my life had been predictable. I had the same friends, played the same sport, and was still an introverted person. My life was bland. Baseball is what I grew up playing throughout my childhood. It was that sport I looked forward to practicing, playing, and enjoying. As I started to get older, the people and coaches I played with changed. I began to play less, and wasn’t improving every week like I had hoped. I even tried out for the school team, but I was cut. For these reasons, my dedication to this sport was deteriorated. Trying out for the school team wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it’s what I presumed everyone expected of me. Once I ran passed this realization, I stopped playing baseball. This is not how I envisioned the future.

My Physical Therapist told me, “ If you work hard and do all your exercises at home then you will be back to baseball in 10 months, but you will probably not be able to make it back to play your senior year of baseball.” With that being said, it basically took all the motivation I had built up out of me to do well in therapy. Why work hard in something if you know that it’s not going to get you where you want to be? Questions like that lived inside of my head for days, the thoughts of not being able to play my senior year suffocated me at night. Leaving me wide awake until my eyes could not bare to stay open. Why me? What did I possibly do to deserve such a harsh injury and set back? I was trapped inside of my own head. For weeks I went through the motions not only at physical therapy, but also with my life. Before getting injured I thought I had everything figured out. Then it seemed like life just slapped me in the face and laughed. My only motivation for doing well in school was Baseball. Since I had that taken away from me I had no reason to want to do well in anything. I was falling behind in my classes, but most importantly I was falling apart as an individual. These types of behaviors and actions went on for three to four

One day I was exercising and I went for a light jogging and I stepped on the outside of my foot and felt a pop and warm sensation. I did not think much of it and it kept hurting on each stride. I had the tough guy ignorance in me and continued to exercise which I think made it worse. I got home with my adrenaline drained and my pain skyrocketed, I could barely withstand the my own bodyweight. I woke up the next morning and my foot looked like a white T-shirt stained with grape juice, swollen imitating a potato. I was in pain limping from my room to the restroom and kitchen. I couldn’t even more my pinky toe, it was not pleasant not being able to even put on my sock. The only bright side was not being able to squat and run until death, which I hated.

With a little fear in her eyes, Briana looked afraid of the first ball she would ever catch. Briana was a student of mine that I worked with through an Adapted Physical Education program taught by UNT’s Kinesiology Majors. Briana was diagnosed with cerebral palsy after birth and was hit by a drunk driver at the age of 5. Due to her previous condition and the accident, she obtained speech impairment and partially paralyzed right arm, and poor motor control. Although she enjoyed being active, she was very limited on what she could do physically, mentally, and financially. After a few weeks into the program, she proved to me that she had potential to progress physically and cognitively, but she lacked the resources and help she needed to continue. It was the hope and excitement Briana had when she learned to throw, catch, and kick a ball that made me eager to teach her everything I could in the span of 10 weeks. Throughout my time with Briana, I realized the passion I have for bringing hope, possibility, and opportunity into one’s life. In fact, three months later I was able to use that same passion and apply it to my job as a PT Technician. Becoming a technician gave me an insight to the field of Physical Therapy and a drive to further educate and succeed academically for my patient’s success. Being able to see the connection between my education and my clinical experience has helped me further understand the treatment my patients undergo and has increased my want to give more

I began to get serious playing time my sophomore year and we were having a phenomenal year (we won state in fact). As we moved through our season, the last regular season game came along. In the fourth quarter of the very last game we were beating a district rival with 10 minutes left to play. We had just scored and we kicked off to them. He was running down the side like and as i stopped to make the tackle.i blew out my left knee on a kick off. When i tell you its hard to beat a pain like that i’ve broken every bone you can think of, I've been stabbed,

As I sat there and let the doctor examine my knee and diagnosis me with a “left knee sprain”. I started to cry. I already knew the outcome that I had a torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). I tried to continue to play on it until one time I was playing in a tournament, and I went up to block a girls shot and landed on my