College Athletes Injury

12/1/2016
Research Paper
One of the worst things that can happen to a person as an athlete is getting an injury. This can destroy the motivation and emotions of the person that has poured there whole life into the sport just to have it stolen away from them in a brief instant. This mental and physical damage is what many athletes who get critical injuries feel once the damage has occurred. Even with strides in the medical field making injuries less permanent, the fact that we cannot perfectly heal the athletes causes a lot of damage to not only the physical recovery, but the mental one as well. Even though many sports differ with rules, style, and many other things injuries are all similar.
An athlete can be injured in many ways, from tears,
This is shown by statsitics on livestrong.com detailing college athletes injuries. According to Livestrong of the 380,000 athletes at a college level 12,500 get injured each year with 25 percent of those injuries being serious life and career threatening injuries. The statistics all point towards one sport in particular for the most injuries however. According to the statistics college football is the most dangerous sport not only 36 injuries per 1,000 athletes but also with there concussion percentages. College football athletes are at a very dangerous percent with there concussion statistics with 34 percent of all college football players having had one concussion and a staggering 30 percent having dealt with two or more concussions before in their lives. While female athletes are for the most part not competing in as dangerous and the males they aren’t safe either, according to the statistics female athletes are up to 5 times more likely to experience ACL injuries as their male counterparts but suffer much less head injuries (Livestrong.com Page
From MMA to football many sports at the professional level boast incredible injury rates almost as if they are trying to compete with each other. The biggest of course, is football, which has many stories every year about traumatic brain injuries leading to many serious injuries. One of the biggest cases in the past 6 years was the case of Jovan Belcher in 2012. Belcher was a Kansas City Chiefs linebacker who killed his girlfriend and then himself found in his autopsy to have had serious brain injuries leading up to the homicide and suicide. Another case in 2011 was very similar with former Chicago Bears player Dave Duerson who shot himself in the chest to preserve his brain for studying in a last act of knowingness of what he was going through. These 2 cases have not been a minority however, as according to studes on PBS.org 87 out of 91 deceased NFL players had serious traumatic brain injuries leading up to there deaths. While football is the biggest offender overall some sports beat it out in terms of pure brain injuries. The one that does by a wide margin is the MMA and all it’s incredible amount of head and brain injuries (PBS Page