BOOM! CRASH! The Regis Jesuit football team isn’t showing any mercy to the Douglas County players. Player after player on the Douglas County side is getting blown up by the Regis players. It seems like on almost every play, the crowd is holding their breath silently after a Douglas County player hits the ground and the trainers run out. After seeing all these injuries take place, the thought that crossed my mind was, how are these injuries truly effecting our students mentally, and how do these injuries vary based on our different sports?
Regis Jesuit students are effected by athletic related injuries because we have 28 total sports including both boys and girls. Most sports have around 4 teams which means that many Regis Jesuit students are athletes. As I read in an article from the NCAA, injuries in sports are often inevitable, or bound to happen. Therefore, many Regis Jesuit students will be injured in their sports, causing them to possibly have specific mental effects.
Student-athletes have a high possibility of having long-term mental effects from injuries. The NCAA shows how injuries are often unavoidable in sports and how they affect athletes’ health. “For some student-athletes, the psychological response to injury can trigger or unmask serious mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, disordered eating, and substance use or abuse.” This information shows how athletes’ brains can respond to an injury, resulting in many different mental health issues. These effects may not be applicable to all athletes, however, all sports do have their own special injury risks.
All sports have different injury risks, from football to cross country to field hockey. Regis recently went to the state playoffs in softball, tennis, cross country, and field hockey. The football team also just concluded their season after losing to Valor Christian in the state playoffs. Injuries have consistently effected all of these teams in their playoff contention. There were some near season ending injuries for some players in all of these sports, some were unfortunately season ending.
In football, the Regis Jesuit team was playing at Mullen, our classic Catholic school rival. Everyone in the crowd began to hold their breath as our star running back, Kiahn Martinez, hit the ground hard after a huge blow. There was a scare for the whole team and everyone watching thinking that he had a serious concussion or other injury. Kiahn did not have a serious injury, however, we often have that kind of worry in football.
In cross country, freshman Zach Churchill could not participate for about half the season after a critical foot injury from running. After Zach’s injury, Regis qualified for state and competed there last weekend. Regis fell short as Dakota Ridge took the state championship. Regis overall had a great season despite not winning state. However, if Zach wasn’t out due to injury, he could’ve helped the Regis Cross Country team in their efforts.
There were many more critical injuries during the Regis sports seasons. However, we saw examples of Regis students who were effected by injuries, and we do not yet know the effects of these injuries in the future. Regis’ students and opponents could be seriously effected from athletic injuries later in their lives.