The End

 

The media has a way of capturing athletes in a certain light. It seems that the world has forgotten that a human being lies within the athlete. Athletes get emotional , have hobbies , have thoughts and feelings , and are so many other things beyond the label that society chooses to place them in. When in comes to injury in the athletic community it is often a taboo subject or one where all of the details are not received. When career threatening injuries happen to an athlete most outsiders see it as thee ultimate ending for that person. As if an athlete doesn’t have more layers than one, as if being an athlete is all they’re capable of. 

 

My journey of being an athlete climaxed in  highschool and took a turn for the worst when I entered the world of collegiate athletics. I suffered many career ending injuries and incidents and prevailed and persevered through the most physically,mentally, emotionally and spiritually draining times in order to continue to pursue my dream of being a stand out collegiate athlete who wanted to eventually be in the olympics. After my first injury my freshman year of a torn ACL and strained hamstring I was confused about who I was as a person, and about the emotions and mental state I was in. I worked hard to overcome my own emotions and invested in my future self and career with the down time from my severe injury. I interned with the University’s Football program and began to network and make connections at an early age. 

 

Early on in college I came to the realization that sports were only a temporary hobby and that there was so much more to life and to myself than being an athlete.

 

This project is to highlight my journey and bring attention to a community of athletes that the end is inevitable and that it is okay to be done. Most athletes are taught to keep personal information about injuries to themselves due to “competition”, but this project is here to end that stigma and it starts with me. This project is me being very open about my injuries and what I was truly thinking when going through career threatening injuries. Not only does this project address injury and the fact that we must one day have to stop competing in our sport, but it introduces a new beginning and how there is so much more to the athlete than competing. 

 

Community is important when it comes to athletics , and I want my project to serve as a start of a place where athletes can come together without fear of judgement to share their story whether they are healthy, hurt, competing , or medically retired. I want the topic of the “End” to become a more comfortable and less “taboo” topic in the  future and have also included ways other athletes can contact me on my website.