The First Step Back: Facing the Road to Recovery
Under the glare of the Friday night lights, the play looks completely routine: a sharp cut to the outside, a leap for a loose ball or a textbook tackle. Then comes the sound every athlete dreads — the sickening pop of a ligament, the violent crack of a collision or a sudden, sharp shock through a lower back. In less than a second, the roar of the crowd fades into a muffled blur. The referee’s whistle blows, the athletic trainer dashes onto the turf or the court and a teenager lies motionless, watching their entire season or athletic career unravel in real time.
It is a scene replayed in gymnasiums and on fields across the country every week. Senior Molly McDermott lived that nightmare twice. “During the game, I got pushed in midair and landed on one foot. My knee just crumbled. When I stood up, I couldn’t put any weight on it. I remember thinking, ‘Oh God, not again.’ I knew something was wrong,” she recalled. “I was tearing up as I got off the court, which is something I never do. At that point, I hated sports and thought I’d never play again. I had to learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. My knees weren’t necessarily bad; I just didn’t trust myself anymore, and nothing felt the same.”
High school sports demand high-contact, repetitive physical strain and relentless dedication, exposing young bodies to sudden trauma and long-term wear and tear. For student-athletes balancing academic deadlines, varsity expectations and college recruiting pressures, a major injury does far more than pause a stat sheet. In a single second, it strips away their daily routine, separates them from their teammates and forces adolescent bodies — and minds — onto a long, uncertainty-filled road to recovery.
The path to recovery requires understanding the specific physiological and psychological forces across different types of injuries. Studies from the American Academy of Pediatrics highlight that high school athletes face distinct structural vulnerabilities due to active growth plates and developing neuromuscular systems.
During high school, an athlete’s physical capability and competitive drive often evolve much faster than the joint-stabilizing mechanics required to protect them. Whether dealing with catastrophic joint tears, brain trauma or chronic spinal strain, navigating the road back demands a close look at the medical research and personal sacrifices behind each injury.
Unequal Access: The Resources Behind Recovery
Rebuilding an injured body demands structured physical therapy and strict compliance with medical timelines, yet facility access varies widely across school districts. Medical experts consistently emphasize that rushing the rehabilitation process or returning to high-impact competition prematurely significantly elevates the risk of re-injury, making long-term care essential, regardless of the specific injury.
However, a national report from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association reveals that only 37 percent of public high schools employ a full-time athletic trainer. This shortage forces many students to seek external care, creating financial barriers for families while leaving young athletes without daily on-campus monitoring.
The difference in available resources is evident, as colleges and higher-level athletic programs often benefit from greater funding, better facilities and more advanced equipment. WHS alumnus and Seton Hall University baseball player Tomas Cestero, who underwent Tommy John surgery during his first year of college, said, “Access to D1 facilities and athletic trainers was really important. There was always someone I could ask for help, and they always had the resources I needed.”
For high school athletes facing catastrophic trauma, recovery often begins far from a school weight room or training table. For junior baseball player Anthony Labin, who suffered a traumatic brain injury during a baseball game in Cooperstown in middle school, physical rehabilitation meant navigating extended stays across two separate hospitals — spending three weeks in Albany, NY, followed by another month in New Brunswick — after undergoing two major brain surgeries at just 12 years old.
Access to specialized inpatient care provided Labin with structured daily access to various medical teams, dedicated physical therapy spaces and speech specialists. This amount of rehab is needed for serious athletic injuries and is a crucial part of their recovery. But this level of continuous specialized care can cause significant financial strain for some families.
The Injuries that Change the Game
ACL Tears:
Over the past decade, ACL tears have become more typical in high school athletes, as teens have begun playing the same high-intensity sports year-round without rest. This injury is often followed by months of physical therapy.
“I did balancing exercises until [I could] walk normally, then I transferred to running exercises and activities and finally weight training,” said senior soccer player Ava Jasina.
According to clinical data from U.S. Soccer’s “Recognize to Recover” initiative emphasizes that extending post-surgery rehab to at least 9 months cuts secondary ACL re-injury in half, a vital standard given that up to 30 percent of adolescent athletes suffer a second tear. Over those nine months athletes will go through intensive rehabilitation, on not only their knee, but their mindset as well. Although recovery is not the same for every athlete, this timeline gives the general criteria for an ACL recovery.
During this rise of ACL tears, it has sparked a bigger conversation about year-round specialization and overuse injuries among youth athletes. High school athletic programs increasingly incorporate neuromuscular training programs, such as dynamic warm-ups focusing on proper landing mechanics, course ability and hip strength, into weekly or even daily practices to help protect athletes before tears occur.
WHS girls soccer coach Katherine Wertheimer said, “We implemented a program called ‘FIFA Fridays’ for ACL prevention because there’s a lot of research out there about the exercises that are incorporated in the program. In 2017 we had two or three ACL tears during the high school season, and more recently most tears that have occurred have been outside our season, so I would say it has been successful.”
This program is not implemented into the boys soccer program at WHS as many professionals, like Dr. Melissa Christino, have said that females have wider-set pelvises causing their knees to be prone to slanting inward, placing their ACLs under great strain. Just their body composition alone leaves women three to six times more likely to tear their ACLs than men, without any other factors being considered. To put this into perspective, at WHS, in the past five years the girls soccer team has suffered seven ACL tears whereas the boys team has only had two.
Yet, their body structure is not the sole reason for ACL tears to occur in females. Another recent discovery is that the female menstrual cycle puts women’s bodies at a greater risk for ACL tears. According to students.bowden.edu, women are more likely to tear their ACL during the ovulation phase of their menstrual cycle, which is when the hormones release relaxin and estrogen peaks. Relaxin causes a relaxation of tendons and ligaments, while estrogen causes a reduction in ACL tensile strength and an increase in laxity, which results in a weaker ligament causing a higher likelihood for tears.
Concussions:
Head injuries present a uniquely deceptive threat: they are invisible to the eye, yet profoundly disruptive to neurological function. During a game against Rumson-Fair Haven, senior lacrosse player Justin Giacalone suffered a concussion that immediately removed him from play.
“I hit a kid, fell and stood up. I got all wobbly and fell back down,” Giacalone said. “After the game, I got checked out by the trainer. They told me I couldn’t take the team bus home; I had to go straight to the hospital.”
Giacalone’s recovery followed a strict step-by-step, return-to-play protocol mandated for adolescent concussions: an initial week of absolute physical and cognitive rest, followed by progressive 20-minute stationary bike rides, light runs, non-contact drills and finally full-contact practice once cleared.
The intensity of head trauma can range from mild to severe. Most high school athletes deal with simple concussions that display symptoms like headaches and dizziness. But for some, like Labin, a severe brain injury comes with long-lasting effects like memory loss. Labin said, “I don’t remember anything from that day, but I remember waking up in the helicopter for a second and wondering where I was. I was really scared.”
An additional layer of complexity is added when an athlete is wrongfully evaluated. According to Sway Medical oftentimes, whip lash, a neck injury caused by a forceful, back-and-forth whipping movement of the head, is sometimes diagnosed as a minor concussion leading to inaccurate treatment of the athlete.
When an athlete is wrongfully diagnosed with a concussion, they are incorrectly instructed on how to recover from their head or neck trauma. Whiplash causes the tissues of the cervical spine to deform well beyond their normal structural limits, and incorrectly treating this can cause cervical spine damage which affects the body in all aspects.
Chronic Pain:
Not all injuries happen in a sudden, dramatic way. Many build silently over months of repetitive stress, leaving athletes to navigate the gray space between discomfort and structural damage.
Junior soccer player Juliet Stahler endured months of persistent back discomfort that doctors initially dismissed as routine muscle tightness. “When it got to a point where I couldn’t walk anymore because of how bad it was feeling, I realized it was more than just a muscle strain,” Stahler said.
She was then diagnosed with chronic back and hip flexor pain, shifting her recovery from seeking a quick cure to managing long-term pain mechanics through core, glute and hip stabilization. “I’ve gone to doctors who said I’m going to have pain for the rest of my life as I play sports. So now, I just push through whenever I can.”
Similarly, senior lacrosse player Koby Waldman faced chronic stress fractures in both his back and foot. After refracturing his back and later suffering a foot fracture during the high school season, Waldman was faced with a high-stakes choice.
“The doctor told me, ‘If you can, try not to practice too much. There’s a 50 percent chance it fully breaks through, 50 percent chance it’ll be fine, and you can take that chance,’” Waldman said. “I took the chance, and lucky enough, it didn’t [fully] break.”
Beyond the Physical: The Mental Toll of Injury
While bones mend and ligaments heal, the psychological impact of a severe injury often outlasts the physical healing process. For high schoolers whose social circles, daily schedules and self-worth are deeply tied to athletic performance, any injury suddenly strips away their identity.
The emotional weight of sitting out is often harder to handle than physical rehab drills. Only about 55 percent of high school athletes return to competitive sports following major surgical injuries like ACL reconstructions according to the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“It sucks, to be honest,” said senior Gianluca Ciucci. “It was pretty hard, especially right after my surgery, watching the football team play on television and me not being able to be there. It really affected me.”
Junior Conor Dunn remarked, “It was definitely the mental aspect of it that was hardest, just not being able to play hockey and do the things I like to do.”
To keep injured players from falling into total isolation, coaches often step in to pivot the athletes’ roles within the team structure. “You have a talk with that individual to see where they’re at,” said boys basketball coach James McKeon. “If they’ve been part of the program, there are ways you can still keep them involved, whether that’s helping manage or assisting on the bench, so they still have that team aspect.”
When an athlete is finally cleared to return, a new hurdle emerges: kinesiophobia, the debilitating fear of physical movement and re-injury.
For Waldman, playing through back and foot injuries required constant mental vigilance. “From the mental side, being hurt and watching your team play is hard, and from the physical side, it’s constantly worrying about re-injuring it, having to do a bunch of extra stretching and warming up.”
This heightened awareness permanently alters how recovered athletes approach their sports. “I noticed after my injury that I have to warm up, or else my knee will not feel good,” Ciucci said. “I ice every day and use Normatec compression boots every day just to get the swelling out. I take recovery so much more seriously now.”
Stronger Than Before: Finding Strength Through Recovery
Despite the grueling physical demands and mental strain, navigating a severe injury often leaves high school athletes with a deeper sense of resilience. For many, the road back forces personal growth that extends far beyond high school athletics.
“Looking back, it definitely taught me how to overcome big challenges in life,” Dunn said. “There are going to be hardships, and you just have to get through them. There will be good things at the end.”
For others, time away from the game rekindles a newfound passion for competition. “I actually appreciate sports more now,” Stahler said. “Being away made me realize how much I wanted to be playing and how much I actually care about being on the field getting that adrenaline rush.”
The path from the trainer’s table to the game is rarely linear. It demands medical access, consistent physical therapy and mental toughness.
Yet for those who navigate the physical pain, the isolation of the sidelines and the anxiety of return, the ultimate reward isn’t just a cleared medical report, it is the victory of stepping back onto the field or court stronger than before to the game they love.
