Overcoming Crushed Dreams

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Looking at my strengths assessment it does nothing but support my story that I told you. Adaptability was listed first and this couldn’t describe me any better. I live in the moment. I see my future as a place that I create out of the choices that I make right now. I have learned to discover my future one choice at a time. Yes, my dream was to play college ball, but that wasn’t what I was meant to do. I decided that I don’t need to resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. I need to expect these to occur. My other strength was being a relator. I believe this describes my attitude towards my relationships. It states that being a relator pulls you towards people that you already know, and this is the reason I was so upset with how I didn’t give those the kind of respect that they deserved. They care about me and I care about them and I derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around those supporters. Responsibility is the last strength I am going to talk about. The assessment says that I take psychological ownership for anything I commit to, and whether large or small, I feel emotionally bound to follow it through to completion. If I can’t finish something I am so apologetic and that still doesn’t seem like enough to me. I feel as if I have to make things right before I go on with anything else. When people come to me for help, I can’t turn them down, that just who I am.

According to Erikson’s theory of development I was in the adolescence stage in my life. I strongly agree with him, because like I said before, after experiencing such a heart-breaking situation I had to figure out who I was. For awhile I regretted putting all the work I put into playing basketball that summer because the whole time I could have been hanging out with my friends and making memories like I had initially planned. But a wise man once told me not to live my life with regrets. I decided to turn my negativity into something positive. I found who I was and that was someone who wanted to encourage others that it is okay to chase your dreams. Conquering them would be even better, but you have to start somewhere and that is giving younger kids the chance to have a dream. I’m thankful for my situation because it made me realize how thankful I am to have such a supportive family, team and community. If it wasn’t for my injury it may have taken me quite a bit longer to realize how blessed I am let alone if I ever realized.

That summer I put so much time into something I really enjoyed doing. The workouts I was doing had me feeling better than I have ever felt. If it wasn’t for that I don’t believe I would have been as successful. If you want to be the best you have to work for it, and that was something I told myself everyday. My body felt the healthiest it had ever felt before. I would go home from a long day at the gym and get the right amount of rest I needed to be ready for workouts the following day. I was confident and satisfied with myself and it was easy for me to avoid stress. After my injury, the stress hit me like a train. I no longer could workout the way I was before so when I came home from a long day, it wasn’t easy for me to get the rest that I needed. My body wasn’t getting the chance to regenerate itself. I would lie in bed at night and ask myself what if questions. I couldn’t get basketball off of my mind. According to the Wellness and Stress PowerPoint there is a quote that states, “Either you control your stress, or stress controls you.” As I look back at it my stress was definitely controlling me at that time. I knew it was time to make a change and that is when I decided to make my relationships with everyone healthier.

Research Findings:

The topic I researched was just simply sports injuries. Injuries occur in any sport whether they are minor or major. If the human body is being active there is a chance of hurting yourself. I found a very interesting article that claimed a study showed that, “female collegiate athletes have been reported to have a higher rate of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury compared to male collegiate athletes” (http://ajs.sagepub.com/content/33/4/524.short). Although, I wasn’t a college athlete just yet it still occurred that I was at higher risk than a male athlete. Doctors told me they have found for some reason when a girl is experiencing her menstrual cycle she is at an even higher risk than before. I don’t remember the reasoning for this, something to do with the blood cells and so on in your body. Another reason I believe girls experience this injury so much more is because they don’t have the body type of boys. Boy’s bodies are built and almost seem as if they are meant to be active while girls can be strong and all that, but not anything close to a boys. This is why it is so important to stay healthy and strong. Yes, I was in the gym and lifting weights a lot, but physical therapist have showed me different ways to stretch out before any activity. If I would of done this before the fourth quarter of my last game ever, I might have experienced a minor injury to my knee, you know something that was operable. I can’t say if I were to do that it would have been a minor injury because doctors say it is very rare to tear every ligament in your knee at one time. Especially playing basketball, they see this kind of injury in snow skiing a lot, but not as often in basketball. It was sort of like a freak accident. Something like the Paul George or Kevin Ware incident, but mine was my knee instead of a bone. Another study I looked at was, “The Effect of Neuromuscular Training on the Incidence of Knee Injury in Female Athletes.” In this study they took a group of trained girls, untrained girls and a group of untrained boys throughout the high school soccer, volleyball and basketball seasons. The study states, “There were 14 serious knee injuries in the 1263 athletes tracked through the study. 10 of 463 untrained girls, 2 of the 366 trained girls and 2 of the 434 untrained boys sustained serious knee injuries” (http://ajs.sagepub.com/content/27/6/699.short). This study proves that trained athletes are less likely to experience an injury, but definitely doesn’t limit you from not getting one at all either. In my eyes it is best to keep your body strong and healthy throughout sports because your risk of injury is much more less than what it would be if you weren’t willing to put the work in to really succeed in the sport. I have so much sympathy for those who love the sport they play and have to sit out due to injury because I have been in their shoes, I still consider myself in their shoes. When I go to the rec here at K-state and I see people playing a couple pick up games of basketball it gives me that urge to go put my huge brace on and play every