Monday, April 23, 2012

Injuries

Social Foundations of Coaching student, Jordan Stumph Blogs...

Injury is a negative in any person’s life.  For athletes, especially, injuries are extremely devastating. Injury strips an athlete of a constant and a love in their life.  Without sport, some athletes have a hard time coping with things because they cannot participate in something that they have been doing everyday since they were kids.  What makes things worse is when someone gets hurt right before an important time in the season.  This is what happened to me when I was in high school.  In one of my last meets of the season I tore my ACL while shot putting.  It was a freak accident, but it happened and there was nothing I could do about it.  For a short while I was demoralized.  I was going to have to miss the conference, regional, and state meets in my senior year.  In retrospect, my mindset at the beginning of this period in my life was horrible, but I think it was a pretty natural response to such a disappointment. 

Although I felt lousy and helpless, I did have one thing on my side: my coach.  Fortunately for me, Coach Jordan knew exactly what I was going through because he had torn his ACL when he was younger.  My coach gave me the support I needed to stay positive and helped me find other ways to assist my team.  So, I ended up helping to coach some of the younger throwers for the last few weeks of the season.  If it had not been for Coach Jordan, I might have just wallowed in sorrow for a couple weeks, but he made me feel like a needed and useful member of the team.

The season ended and my summer before coming to Notre Dame consisted of getting ready for school and doing a lot of physical therapy on my knee.  Before I became injured, I had been thinking about trying to walk onto the track and field team to throw.  However, I thought that at my torn ACL would close that door and I did not even bother trying to contact the coach.  When Coach Jordan heard this, he gave me a call and told me to email the ND Throws coach because he had already written an email to send him about me.  Luckily I heeded his advice, and within a matter of a couple months I became a member of the Notre Dame Track and Field team.  If Coach Jordan had not believed in me, I do not think I would have believed in myself.  Earlier this year, when I placed fifth in the Big East in the weight throw, he called me to tell me how proud and excited he was for me. This is a great example of a coach who cares about his athletes’ personal lives, sets high (but achievable) goals for them, and sticks with them through thick and thin.  If I ever become a coach, I want to exemplify these same characteristics so that I can make an impact on the lives of my athletes, just like Coach Jordan made an impact on mine.