Photo credit: Gabby Kaplan

An ankle boot sits next to a football on the floor, representing the risk of sports injuries. According to Stanford Medicine, contact sports pose the most risk for sports injuries compared to non-contact sports. Alexa Kagiwada (‘26) said not being able to play her sport was a big letdown, particularly because she lost many of the skills she had worked hard to develop before her injury.

Whether it is a broken finger or a torn ACL, sports injuries have a profound impact on the physical and mental state of athletes of all ages. According to Stanford Medicine, 30 million children and teens participate in some type of sport every year. Around 12% of those who participate in organized sport get injured annually.

Doctor Bert Mandelbaum is an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in sports medicine and knee surgery. He has also been the team physician for the United States Men’s National Soccer Team since 1994 and is helping them prepare for the 2026 World Cup. Mandelbaum treats a wide spectrum of athletes and a variety of sports injuries.

“If you look at all sports, if you take baseball, if you take soccer and basketball, there’s a term we call ‘burden,'” Mandelbaum said. “The most burdensome injury is an injury to the hamstring, meaning that the highest number of injuries are muscle injuries.”

Mandelbaum said it is his responsibility as a doctor to inform athletes and parents about the general risks and benefits of playing sports.

“At the moment, the benefits outweigh the risks. Our jobs are really to maintain a preventive approach. For example, we have programs to prevent knee injuries in young female athletes,” Mandelbaum said.  “Prevention is really a very important part. It is not only reacting to the injury, which we do, but also developing a prevention side of an appropriate program to minimize the downsides and optimize the upsides.”

Junior Alexa Kagiwada has been playing basketball since she was in third grade. She has played for various clubs in the past few years, as well as playing on the varsity basketball team at Archer. Earlier in the season, she fractured her ring finger when it was hit by a basketball. She said it was a big letdown when she wasn’t able to practice with the team for one month.

“It does not feel great when you really want to be a part of something and you can’t do it,” Kagiwada said. “When you come back, you just don’t have the same sort of skills that you were fine-tuning before, and you’ve got to start over.”

Freshman Maya Cerbo swims for Archer’s team and a club team called Blast Sharks outside of school. She struggled to have full use of her elbow after she crashed into the pool wall while swimming and overextended it. Although painful, she said this was a milder injury compared to ones she has had in the past. She also said that this injury, in particular, made simple everyday tasks difficult.

“It didn’t affect me too badly. But considering that the arm I injured was my dominant arm, it was hard for me to raise my hand because it was injured hyperextending,” Cerbo said. “It was hard to lift certain items. The day after, it was really hard to use a knife to be able to cut any food that I would be having for dinner.”

Even though having an injury was disappointing, Kagiwada also said that experience allowed her to feel more appreciative of the human body.

“I think it was also a time to appreciate my body and what it does for me,” Kagiwada said. “It’s so amazing that normally I can do all these amazing things, and I’m just grateful for the opportunity to heal.”

Sophomore Sarina Hausman tore her ACL through hyperextension while skiing, and she had to have surgery. Hausman was exempt from fitness class for the entire second semester of her freshman year. She said there were pros and cons to her exemption.

“I personally really enjoy fitness. I think of it as an outlet to express, in some ways, how I’m feeling, especially if I’m stressed about the day. So that was really hard,” Hausman said. “It was nice to have the free period, but fitness was definitely an escape for me, out of school and all that stress.”

Sports injury recovery time depends on a variety of factors, including age, the sport and the severity of the injury, as well as how in shape the athlete was prior to the injury. Specifically, Mandelbaum said female athletes in basketball, volleyball and soccer take the most time to heal from sports-related injuries.

“If you look at the most profound amount of time away from sport, it’s usually the young female athlete who plays soccer, basketball, volleyball,” Mandelbaum said. “[The] nine-month periods away from sport after surgery, those are the most profound.”

To aid her recovery, Hausman participated in physical therapy, doing exercises that focused on protecting the knee and building back up the muscles. Not only did she have to regain her strength through physical activity, but she also had to build back up her confidence. One of her main goals was to finally build up the mentality to ski again this past season.

“[Skiing] was a big mental challenge,” Hausman said. “I knew I was physically able, because I had put in that hard work and taken so much time, but it was all the doubting that really stopped me from being able to perform as best as I would want.”

According to the Boston Children’s Hospital, getting injured can lead to mental health problems such as extreme anger, isolation issues, anxiety, depression and even eating disorders. Mandelbaum said he often sees sports injuries affecting athletes’ mental health, as they are not able to do what they love.

“For people who are recreational athletes, the reason why they participate in sport is to have fun and enjoy the benefits of sport,” Mandelbaum said. “Exercise accesses the positive parts of our brain, our muscles, our body, or our cardiovascular system. So when you’re out, you’re not getting all those benefits.”

The way an athlete approaches their sports injury can change how they live their life during the recovery process, Hausman said.

“Like I said, one step back and three steps forward. Not everything’s going to  go your way in life. It threw me a huge curveball, this injury. If I could go back in time, I would obviously change that, but I can’t,” Hausman said. “It’s really how you accept it, and you stick with it. Stick with the things that give you success, like physical therapy, putting in the hard work and figuring out what you need to do to get better.”