As the football season progresses, sophomore Ryder True (23) has had to watch from the sidelines. True tore his ACL in the game against Sterling. True had to sit out the whole game that night, and is going to have to miss the rest of the season. True will end up missing his wrestling season in January as well.

He has been at all the practices and all the games, True has been in the training room everyday after school with Athletic Trainer Alan Parker doing his workout to help him recover faster. True says, “The workouts are going good. Alan is helping me a lot with my range and motion, and helping me get ready for surgery. He is also helping me keep my strength in my legs.”

True has been looking at the positives in this injury more than the negatives, True says, “The positives about missing the season is that I get to work on my mental toughness, work on my strength, and how I can handle not being in a sport.” Being an athlete could hurt people’s mental health, but it can also help them with it because then they can become so much stronger. 

A lot of athletes look forward to playing their sport in college and being successful within it. There are so many injuries that can ruin those chances, but True doesn’t have one of those. True still has two more years of high school to worry about college, and this injury he can recover from. True says, “I don’t think it will affect me in college because I have two years and I will be able to handle having a brace and get used to it.” With two years of high school left True still has plenty of time to work hard and show colleges what he can do.

Being an injured athlete could be a lot because of how bad people want to get back to playing, and it makes them miss that sport. With injuries people have to work on it or else if they rush into playing then they could easily make their injury worse.