Nearly half of the injuries that are obtained by students at Morton East come from playing a sport.  

 In a random survey of 95 Morton east students, 38 students reported they have been injured while playing in a sport. In the school performances of student-athletes, many of them, unfortunately, get injured and are off their current sport season. Most of them do not admit to these injuries because of their show-stopping performance to getting scholarships to further their education and possibly play in professional sports teams. It is reported that more than 3.5 million student-athletes get hurt annually playing sports or participating in recreational activities. 58% of student-athletes confessed in a survey that they played while injured because it was either an important game or they couldn’t let their team down. Statistics reveal that 90 percent of athletes report some kind of injury. Coaches often complain that they feel pressure from parents or players to be put back into the game after recovering, even though some athletes expressed feeling weird when coming back.    

Different sports can contribute to different injuries.  

“In soccer, there’s a chance where you can get hurt when you’re one on one with a player, for example, you can tear your ACL or sprain your ankle,” Junior Adriana Moreno said.

Injuries don’t just come when playing one on one, they also come with making wrong movements.  

“There’s a couple of risks, there’s not much in wrestling but in rugby, you can get a shoulder injury or if you do something wrong it’s very easy to hurt yourself,” Senior Jesus Velazquez said. 

The different risks that occur in different sports can and are challenging, students sometimes even feel useless when injured.  

The most challenging part about being injured is the fact that you will have to sit out for a couple of games instead of playing, no matter how much you want to play,” Junior Adriana Moreno said.  

With these injuries come various struggles that an athlete takes on every day. 

“Not being able to run, walk or even go up the stairs is the most challenging part,” Senior Ariana Baez said.  

Being injured isn’t just a challenge for the players, but the coaches have a hard time as well.  

“The most challenging part of having an injured player would be bringing them back to competing at the right time. If you bring them early, they might hurt themselves again and that may cause them to be out for a longer time period. I’m always on the side of caution, reserving my players so they’ll be better, ” Varsity Soccer Coach Jim Bageanis said.  

While some coaches think that bringing a player back is a challenge, others say that watching their players not being able to help is the hardest part.  

“Seeing the players upset that they aren’t able to help the team is the most challenging part of having an injured player,” Lead East Science teacher Jonathan Depke said.  

 Most athletes tend to conceal their pain so they wouldn’t miss out on practice. Keeping a minor or even severe injury secrete can lead to bigger consequences in the long run. Would a player come forward and admit to an injury?  

“It depends on the athlete; some kids really don’t like being off the court so they’re going to kind of let their injury linger, but then I can notice it if they’re not playing as hard or as well as they normally do but a lot of kids as Ms. Manouzi said come to me right away,” Badminton coach Josh Scaletta said.  

Other staff members are also available to students if they ever get hurt.  

“At least five students a week come in to report an injury. A major injury I’ve dealt with was a knee dislocation,” school nurse Jasmin Hosley said.  

But some students take a bold step to admitting their pain.  

“When I get injured, I usually go up to the coach and tell him because I don’t want to be out for the season,” Junior Adriana Moreno said. 

Surprisingly, Morton’s freshman girls’ volleyball coach believes that more injuries occur in practice due to the girls not taking the sport as serious compared to games.  

“There may be more injuries during practice because there’s more fooling around and not working as hard as in the game,’’ Lead East Science teacher Jonathan Depke said. 

On the other hand, Morton’s varsity soccer coach believes that more players get injured in games rather than in practice.