There are over 8,000 sports in the world; soccer being the most-watched sport with over 3.5 billion viewers. Through all the adrenaline rush people get from watching sports on the big screen, many don’t realize the mental and physical toll sports can have on athletes.
Many sports are considered contact sports, such as football-which can cause injuries as minor as a scratch, to as big as a career-ending injury. But most players chose to come back after their injury and play through it.
AL basketball player Creighton Bracker-who had knee surgery in February of 2024- said the surgery takes a physical toll.
“It’s (the post-surgery recovery) the constant pounding on your knees, it’s pretty physical, so trying to make sure your body’s in the best shape.”
Sports can also have a major mental toll on athletes. Being a student-athlete is a challenge for some because of the problem of schoolwork piled on top of your focus on your sport, especially when a majority of the sports at AL have practices every day after school.
“My mental point for me was like I was getting down on myself after not doing good in sports,” AL and select team softball player Jocelyn Ridder said. “It’s just that I get down on myself too much.”
The strive for perfection and success in sports can have the most mental toll on a player. If you don’t execute something right in your sport you can be hard on yourself for not doing it the way you expected.
But striving for perfection and success in sports can also affect the coaches too. Coaches are in charge of running the team and the game, their responsibility is to make sure their athletes are doing their best and winning their games.
AL football coach Peter Kilburg said, “If injuries happen, it’s more of just prevention icing, getting them to rehab, getting them as quickly back into game-like shape as we can get them to get them back on the field. It’s the same thing with track. If it’s any sort of leg injury, it’s pretty much immediate shutdown because we want them to be full health for track.”
Sports can have many mental and physical tolls on athletes. The strive for perfection and success can mentally affect an athlete, and injuries can get to their body and have a toll on their performance during games. But the positive to playing sports can be the family on the team that you make. Like Kilburg said, “Once you get into high school, it’s more of a brotherhood aspect where you’re a lot closer as a family.”
