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DJ Wellons
Professor Biddinger
English -111
29, October 2015
Sports Related Injuries
There is nothing like the feeling of playing high school sports. Whether it’s Friday
night lights, last second game winning shots, or a last minute goal to win the championship. High
school sports are some of the most exciting activities to participate in. More and more students are
participating in high school athletics each year. The number of students that participate in high
school athletics have grown from four million in 1972, to 7.2 million in 2006 (Bachynski).
According to the New York State Interscholastic Athletic Programs brochure by Robin Runyan, a
writer/editor for LinkedIn, 95% of the 500 students in the school participated in school athletics;
moreover, 92 % of the students who participated in these athletics said that their high school
experience was more enjoyable (Runyan).
With the number of students participating in athletics, multiple factors begin to take place,
whether it be positive or negative. All of these students participating in sports could be a leading
cause to the trend of sports related injuries, but there are reasons to why high school students
continue to participate. High school athletics can create more social, mental, and physical
enjoyments throughout high school and even the rest of life; however, with all of these positives,
there are also a multifarious amount of negatives. The main problem with high school athletics are
sports related injuries. The phenomenon of sports related injuries has been on the rise for quite
some time now. The reasons for this trend is mainly from the result of a lack of coaching
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techniques, athlete’s physical body conditions, poor technique performed by the player, and
equipment failures.
High school athletics can provide a number of opportunities for students to obtain. With
all of these positives also mean there are going to be multiple negatives. One of the major
disadvantages about participating in high school sports is the potential risk of injury. In the
average year, high school sports can have about two-million injuries, 500,000 doctor visits, and
30,000 hospitalizations. The average rate of injuries for students in high school is 2.4 injuries per
1,000 athletes. When an athlete gets injured, they will not be able to participate in their sport due
to the restriction from their injury.
This is different in every sport though. Kathleen E Bachynski and Daniel S.Goldberg,
both who have a PhD in Sociomedical Sciences, has done a study on the amount of injuries that
