Essay About Sport: The Journey of an Athlete

Have you ever had a time where life just gives you an awaking view on things? I am an athlete, a pretty good one if I do say so myself. When you run Track and Field, your health and muscles are key components to racing and competing. Early along this school year I got hurt, I torn my meniscus playing football. The doctor told me that I wasn’t going to be able to run or compete this year. The process of constant therapy and recovery on the torn muscle wasn’t easy, but I managed to get through it and was able to compete in the season and make it as far as Regionals. Prior of never having a big injury, it taught me that you have to sacrifice putting in the work to chase your dreams. 

Let’s take it back in time to last year, my sophomore year in high school, I had a minor injury on my knee playing football which cause me to be out for about 4 weeks. I had gotten cleared by the trainers, who were helping me recover throughout the time being. Regardless, I felt there was still something wrong with my knee because despite being able to run, I knew it hadn’t healed properly since it would ache with tightness and soreness occasionally. I was aware I had to be cautious with my knee during track season. Last year, my sophomore year in high school, was my first year doing hurdles, I was previously a 400-meter runner and participated in the 4x400 meter relay. I would wear my knee brace every day for practice, being scared that I would end up hurting my knee again. Even though I was new to hurdles and didn’t have the proper form to jump the hurdles, I had the basic mechanics and speed in between the hurdles. My ability to run pushed me to work myself up to be one of the top hurdlers in the Rio Grande Valley.

Being a new up comer and being one of the best hurdlers in the valley really gave me high hopes for myself. Every meet I was breaking my own personal record with my time improving in the 110 and 300 meter hurdles. I was on my way to be #1 in the valley. I remember this clearly, it was a week before we had our spring break for school and we heard the news about this new disease that came from China, which was called COVID-19. No one really thought of it too much, so we went on with our daily lives. I kept training and practicing hurdles for my next upcoming meet, our district meets. Spring break comes along, everyone was out at the beach and living their lives. On the other hand, there was me, working out, lifting weights, and mentally preparing for the big meet. Soon we get an announcement from the school that we had one more week off cause cases of the corona virus were here in the valley. Eventually, we find out that school was cancelled for the rest of the year because it had become a deadly problem and cases largely spread. A part of me was mad that my track season was over, but another part of me was excited to start summer early.

The whole summer was a whole experience for me, I went out with friends and did a lot of new things like fishing and traveling. I do regret not working out all summer because I know I could’ve had more potential as an athlete. But we all have to experience life at one point in our lives. I did, however, stay active playing basketball with the team from my school. I knew my knee wasn’t recovered fully or it was still potentially damaged because while playing basketball there were times it would mess up by just a plant of the foot. I would give it time to rest since rest was the only way of healing it, I didn’t know exactly what was wrong with it. So, summer goes by, with all the great memories made with friends and the joy of playing basketball with the team. Incoming junior year of high school was something we all never experienced before, virtual school. I started off the year with football, playing as a wide receiver at the varsity level. The start of the football season felt great, I had no worries of my knee getting injured. But sadly, 3 games in, going up against Edinburg Bobcats was when this tragic injury occurred. In the middle of the third quarter, I line up on the starting line and wait for the quarterback to snap the ball. “Ready…Set…Hut Hut!” The play wasn’t designed for me but my objective was to clear the corner by running him out to the sideline. On my third or fourth snap I feel a snap on my knee and I fall with no one making physical contact with me. In pain, my teammates help me up to the trainer’s table since I wasn’t able to walk on my own. We tried stretching it out until I realized I couldn’t fully extend my leg, my trainer looks me in my eyes and tells me, “It might be a torn muscle.” Me being worried of my athlete career being over and the pain of my leg, I had trouble sleeping that night. We went to doctors the next day and told me, “You have a torn meniscus, unfortunately you torn it pretty bad. You will have to undergo surgery and therapy to fully recover.”

This devastating injury was a big barrier to get across from my junior year of track and field was supposed to be the year that I get my name up in the boards for colleges to notice me in hurdles. I knew I had to take recovery and therapy seriously. Over the next 4 months, I went to therapy three times out of the week and stretched my legs daily. Therapy was very tough, we had to put muscle in my leg since I was losing a lot of muscle due to the surgery and injury. Luckily for me, I was cleared to begin jogging right before the track season started. I progressed to certain speed on the hurdles and in the 400-meter run to where I could compete at the meets. The time had come, I had quality to advance to area meet for the 110 hurdles and 4x4 relay. It was time to show my talents after a tough year of recovery. I had vision of my current life as a movie, the movie where the star athlete goes through the heartbreaking injury and works so hard that at the end, he wins it all. In the 110 hurdles, the race starts, “Runners of your marks…get set… Go”, I lead of in starting hurdles being 1st place. Until the last hurdle, I start hitting the hurdles with my knee and loose balance in midair, causing me to run into the last hurdle and pushing it to the ground with my arms. I still finished the race in 2nd, but despite being able to qualify for the regionals meet, I got disqualified because of the hurdle I knocked down. And just like that, I was finished with hurdles. My team and I still was able to qualify for the regional meet, placing 3rd in the 4x400 meter relay. Although my one true goal since freshman year was to make it to regionals, I had failed myself due to being disqualified on the hurdles. I couldn’t let it faze me; my team needed me for the 4x4. At the regional’s meet we came short of making it to finals (top 8). We did go out to compete and being a young team of juniors, we have next year to improve and get to where we want to be.

As am I writing this, I am not satisfied on how I did this past track season. You should never be satisfied where you are in life, even when you are winning. You got to strive to be better than yourself. A motivational speaker once said, “I don’t really have an idol, someone to look up to, my idol is my future self. I want to work to where I vision myself in the future.” I am currently training and working hard to achieve my goal of gaining that college scholarship. This past year, was an event in my life that made me realize that the summer I took off to have fun instead working for my goals would have made an effect on my performance. But it happens, life hit you harder than rock and you have to adapt to the situations. This whole series of events gave me a wakeup call that working hard and following your dreams can give you a superior amount of power to be where you want to be in life. I will keep working on myself and my track career until I am satisfied with the results.