Injuries to multi sport athletes

During a recent mentoring session with a coach he asked if back in my day, we had kids miss a whole season with an injury. I said it rarely happened. Most of the time when it did it was an accident. Somebody tripped over something, or they ran into something and got hurt. Occasionally, and I remember it happening once in high school, did I see a player get hurt during a game that caused him to miss the rest of the season.

But today, you see or hear about it often. With 3000 kids a day going to emergency room for sports related injuries, and so many more kids playing youth and high school sports, it is no surprise that the amount of injuries has increased to children playing sports. Single sport athletes are 2-8 times more likely to get injured than multi sport athletes according to AAOSM.

He then said he knew a multi sport athlete that had 2 knee operations and at 16 was now facing more rehabilitation for his latest injury.

I told him that one of trends I was witnessing in youth and high school sports was kids playing on the edge or over it. In the last soccer game I watched, two kids go up for a header and the one kid, who was not going to get the ball recklessly slammed his head into the other player breaking his nose. I saw a hockey player take 5 strides and slam a kid into the boards separating his shoulder.

One of the most important things we are trying to teach at our talks, seminars, and workshops is community. Play hard but fair. Opponents should be able trust the opposing players in a game, or even their own players in practice not to do something stupid. Parent should not encourage this behavior in the stands or on the way to the game in the car. They should not congratulate their kids in the car on the way home either. They should say to their kids that sportsmanship and class are an important part of youth and high school sports