{"id":11433,"date":"2018-09-20T16:02:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T22:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=11433"},"modified":"2018-10-04T23:06:51","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T05:06:51","slug":"powering-through-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2018\/09\/20\/powering-through-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Powering through injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If failure is a part of life, then injuries are a part of sports. Injuries seem to be more prevalent in contact sports like football, soccer and basketball, but injuries can happen anywhere from gymnastics to the gridiron. Over the past several years, the one injury that has left the sports world uneasy is concussion.<\/p>\n<p>A fear of concussions is leading to major rule changes in sports like football, where contact to the helmet area is now forbidden. Several youth soccer leagues do not allow heading the ball to prevent that contact at a young age.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen it comes to concussion, we are looking for them more now,\u201d Head Women\u2019s Soccer Coach <a href=\"https:\/\/hardingsports.com\/coaches.aspx?rc=443&amp;path=wsoc\">Dr. Greg Harris<\/a> said. \u201cWe are more careful with head injuries now than we were three or four years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yes, concussions can be scary, but all injuries impact athletes. Harding\u2019s Head Athletic Trainer Ronnie Harlow said after injury, athletes can go through several stages including denial and depression but also determination.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey can kind of go through a funk because their season may be over, and they don\u2019t know what to do,\u201d Harlow said. \u201cBut after a while they begin to start thinking positively and being making efforts to get back to the field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Most college athletes have trained their whole lives to play at the collegiate level, so when an injury happens, they want to get right back in the game.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost athletes will play through anything\u2014 a shoulder, a knee, an ankle\u2014 because they love what they do,\u201d Harris said. \u201cCoaches and athletic trainers have to be watchful and objective when athletes want to play through injuries, because they know there is more to life than sports.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Harris said the worst part about injuries is not having players as involved with the team. Players spend practice time rehabbing and do not get to go through drills and exercises. He said practice is sometimes harder than the game, and when teammates go through a hard practice together, it strengthens their camaraderie Harris said that it is always great to see injured players and encourage them on home game nights.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt takes a strong person to go through the injury recovery process,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n<p>One of those athletes is Bison\u2019s senior defensive back <a href=\"https:\/\/hardingsports.com\/roster.aspx?rp_id=6327\">Brandon Brice<\/a>, who battled a shoulder injury his freshman season. Brice said he was initially able to play through it, but would need to be in a sling for six weeks and to refrain from anything physical for five months. Brice said the mental effects of the injury were often worse than the physical. After he returned to play, Brice made sure that he was not hesitant in his reactions on the field.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you play worrying about getting hurt, then typically, that is when an injury happens,\u201d Brice said.<\/p>\n<p>Injuries are a part of an athlete\u2019s life. When you get to the college level, most athletes experience some form of injury, Harris said. But the drive and determination to come back have him marveling at his players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo many athletes will go through months of rehabbing an injury just to get one more minute of game action,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThat\u2019s just who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If failure is a part of life, then injuries are a part of sports. Injuries seem to be more prevalent in contact sports like football, soccer and basketball, but injuries&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15109,"featured_media":11434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[149,322,148,323],"class_list":["post-11433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-bisons","tag-concussion","tag-football","tag-injuries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11435,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11433\/revisions\/11435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}