Overcoming Injury

A season-ending injury is something that every athlete will fear, but only a few will experience. As a five-foot-eight freshman in high school, the volleyball team was after me to sign up to play in their upcoming season. Sure enough, at the end of my first day of high school, I was on my way to volleyball practice. As the volleyball season passed, I was learning more skills and I was improving as a player. Along the way, I got to know and love my teammates. They became the people I went to and from class with, sat and ate lunch with, and waited to be picked up from practice with. Throughout our season, we celebrated our victories, sorrowed some losses, but most importantly supported one another regardless.

The end of the season came, and the day of the last game had come. I felt that feeling when you’re unsure whether you’re excited, nervous, or both, but the most important thing was that I stayed focused. The game kept the stands on their toes the whole time. Volley after volley, attack after attack, the score was never more than a few points apart, but regardless, the other team was winning.

As the final match had begun, the opposer served the ball, and we had gotten a decent volley going when suddenly, a hitter on the other team rode above the net and sent a powerful spike my way. I dove for ball, received it, but fell onto the ground. My entire body fell in one direction while my left leg stayed put. I head a terrible “pop!” and felt a blast of pain shoot down my leg. The next thing I knew, I was lying across the backseat of my mom’s car going to the emergency room. I had X-Rays and one very long MRI that gave me what I thought would be the wort news possible. I left the hospital that day with my leg completely immobilized, a crutch underneath each arm, with a script for weeks upon weeks of physical therapy in hand.

Upon returning to school, my friends, who happened to be cross country runners, noticed how blue I was feeling about the fact that my volleyball season had ended. They were determined to get me feeling better. They suggested that I come watch them run in one of their upcoming races. At that race, a realization came over me that I never would’ve expected. I wanted to run cross country and the only thing standing in my way was finishing physical therapy. I had never worked as hard as I did in therapy that spring. Limping around in an immobilizer became walking in a leg brace. From there jogging on the treadmill became summer training for the upcoming cross country season.

That first season of cross country became that one thing in my life that nothing else could fulfill be quite like it did. Running cross country led to running track in the winter and spring. As a senior, I became captain on a team that was strong, fast, and mighty. Teamwork that season led to a state championship, which became the most rewarding experience of my time in high school.

Today, if I ever have an experience in which I must overcome something difficult, I remind myself of when I decided to run cross country and think to myself that whatever it is will lead to something better in the end.