Here at Rocky Mountain High School, students are very competitive in all things, especially when it comes to sports. With sports though comes injuries, many athletes at Rocky have gotten injured while participating in a sport.  

Rafe Richardson (Sport: Wrestling)

What injuries from sports have you gotten while attending Rocky?
“I tore my labrum and dented the head of my humerus wrestling for Rocky. It happened in the winter of 2019 while I was a sophomore at a meet against Meridian High.”

Do you still play the sport after being injured?
“Doctors told me it would be dangerous to keep wrestling and my parents asked me not to, so I stopped wrestling.” 

What did you do to recover and how long did it take?
“The recovery took a little more than a year, with 3 months of physical therapy, a surgery, a couple months in a pillow sling, and 3 more months of physical therapy.”

Would you still have played the sport knowing you were going to be injured?
“I would’ve wrestled either way had I known I would be injured. The sport was incredibly important to me before I got hurt.”

Are you angry about your injury in anyway?
“I’m disappointed at having lost my junior and senior seasons, but I’m not angry. These things just happen in wrestling and all sports sometimes.”

Should the school or sport be stricter to prevent these injuries?
“There should be more strict rules about what injured athletes are allowed to do so they don’t continue to exacerbate the injury after the incident occurs and a diagnosis is presented.”

Has anyone else on your team had the same injury?
“I don’t know if others have the exact same mechanism of injury, but I do know if at least two other wrestlers who have had labral surgeries because of wrestling injuries. Dislocated shoulders can suck.”

Isiah Nichols (Sport: Rugby)

What injuries from sports have you gotten while attending Rocky?
“My worst sports injury was the concussion that I got in a rugby game last year.” 

Do you still play the sport after being injured?
“I am still playing because rugby is my favorite sport.” 

What did you do to recover and how long did it take?
“To recover it took a lot of rest and I had to cut out physical activity and cut down on schoolwork.” 

Would you still have played the sport knowing you were going to be injured?
“I still would have played if I knew that the injury was going to happen because rugby is a high contact sport, so I knew the risk when I started playing.”

Are you angry about your injury in anyway?
“It’s hard to be mad at how it happened because I remember very little from that day, but I am mad at the timing of my concussion because it was right before state.”

Should the school or sport be stricter to prevent these injuries?
“There aren’t many new restrictions that can be put in place to protect players because rugby is such an aggressive sport, so head injuries are hard to prevent.”  

Has anyone else on your team had the same injury?
“Several of my teammates have also suffered from concussions.”

Rian Roach (Sport: Basketball) 

What injuries from sports have you gotten while attending Rocky?
“I hit my head on a girl and the smacked the floor it happened in my basketball game against Meridian.”

Do you still play the sport after being injured?
“I still play the sport because it is fun/ I went through the phases of running and exercising to slowly get back into basketball.” 

What did you do to recover and how long did it take?
“I still would’ve played knowing I would’ve gotten this injury. I’m not angry at the person who hurt me, it is life and things happen.”  

Would you still have played the sport knowing you were going to be injured?
“I mean, fouls are kind of part of the game.”

Are you angry about your injury in anyway?
“Well, it was partly my own fault because I got up as fast as I could and played out the rest of the game all dizzy and concussed.” 

Has anyone else on your team had the same injury?
“Nobody else has gotten a head injury but we had a girl hurt her ACL and other get a high low ankle sprain.”