Injuries are a part of playing high school sports, which can affect students’ lives off the field. These injuries can cause many students to lose class time and have less motivation to go to school when they can’t play the sports they love.

“For a lot of our kids, it’s what brings them to school and what makes them try in school,” said Athletic Director and men’s soccer coach Jose De La Rosa. “When you take that away, it takes away the thing that you work hard in school for.”

Sports are a big part of the high school experience. It can encourage many people to seek higher education and help students go to college. It is also beneficial for students’ health, mental and physical. When it’s taken away it can lead to struggles, and the benefit gets replaced by hardships. As stated by students that were interviewed.

More often than not, students are able to keep up with their school work and maintain the grade they had before being injured. When asked if he’s ever noticed an injury-related decline in grades or productivity, math teacher Lee Chretien said, “Concussions for sure, usually for any [other] sort of normal bodily injury, no.”

Nico Woodall suffered a concussion last month. “My grades stayed pretty strong except for my grade in ceramics because I couldn’t do any of the work while at home,” said Nico. He had to catch up a lot at home, and in the classes that he couldn’t do at home, he struggled.

Students that were asked whether or not being injured affects their motivation said that it definitely did. Junior Clea Jimenez said, “With any athlete who has been away from the sport they love, I believe they would face a slight decline in their mental health.” This was a very common theme throughout the school’s athletic staff that spoke on this topic. The main issue with students getting injured is that their mental health is affected in one way or another.

Being taken away from a sport where you can have a future in is particularly hard on your mental health.“My mental health was affected by this injury because I thought I wasn’t going to retain the potential that I had before,” said senior Andy Romero. This was especially hard for him because he had been injured all his years of high school. “This was getting on top of me so much because of the number of injuries I’ve been through,” Romero added. An outlet he had through this time of being injured was people in his life telling him to keep going. “At the end of the day, I knew that I wasn’t alone, I had numerous people who believed in me, especially my family.”

San Rafael High School has been taking action to try to get students to avoid or recover from an injury quicker. With a new trainer and a lot more preparations and steps for when a student gets injured, it is faster than ever to get an injured student back on the field. “No, I would say that with Ysa (the athletic trainer) there are fewer injuries because there is a lot more injury prevention,” said Jose. He seemed to be a very big advocate for injury treatment and prevention believing that it is very important for students to notice and accept that they are injured and need time off. This is so the injury can be treated and not turn into a lingering problem. “A lot of people think our athletic trainer is here to stop people from playing when it’s the complete opposite,” said Jose.

Concussions were, to Jose and Mr. Chretien, the type of injury that affects students’ grades more than others. “Concussions are particularly insidious, it’s difficult to know your healing,” Chretien stated. This suggests that even the recovery process from concussions is more difficult for students.

Student-athletes being injured is a pretty common occurrence within high school sports. It is essential to know that these injuries don’t just affect their physical health, but also greatly impact their mental health through students’ motivation and overall enjoyment at school.