Football is one of the most injury-prone sports in America. According to PubMed, as many as 1.2 million injuries are sustained yearly out of the 1.5 million participating in the sport. This leads to a significant part of the football strategy focusing on knowing who is injured and using it as an advantage over the other team. The high school football team had a rough start to the year, having more injuries than the previous year; some players experienced minor injuries, such as a sprained wrist or ankle, while others had to endure worse. This caused speculation about how the team would overcome these early setbacks and prepare them for the future.
Michael Joyner, the head coach of the high school football team, who has been coaching for 12 years, said, “Any play on a football field can result in a minor injury or someone hurting just because, again, it is a physical sport.” This addresses the fact that football is an inherent risk and a sport of which the potential of getting hurt is inevitable. Coaches consider this by always having backup players ready in case something goes wrong during a game. Joyner describes how confident he is in the backups he has prepared, and he said, “It’s our job as coaches to prepare the guys we have available to play; I can’t sit here and say that if we lose our best athletes, that there won’t be some sort of difference. But what I will tell you is that we prepare each guy that has the opportunity to play for us on Friday night the best that we can so that he is in the best position to have success.” Showing that Joyner is putting his best efforts forth ensuring that all of his players are ready in case a situation like this occurs again.
Even with the team overcoming this hurdle, some players were still affected by their injuries. Ethan Wright, a senior, has played football since eighth grade in both right guard and defensive tackle positions. Wright recounted how he tore both his ACL and MCL, along with hurting his hand while hand-fighting on the line. Wright has experienced torn ligaments in previous seasons, resulting in surgery. He also explains how these injuries have impacted his season performance. Wright said, “I have been able to play, so not too bad of an impact. But I’m not at 100%.” Sharing how even with the ability to push through the pain, it still had some effect on him. Even with the raw number of injuries being greater this year, Wright believes that the more serious ones occurred the previous year.
Even with questions and concerns circling near the start of the year, the high school football team appeared to have prevailed over their early challenges. Joyner has prepared his players the best he can for anything they might encounter on the field in the foreseeable future. Overall, the high school football team looks forward to improving and running the fall games.
