They cheer from the stands. They watch their teammates run, jump and score. They watch with the hope that their team will win without their contribution. And they see the sadness in their teammates eyes for they know their presence is missed on the field.

This is the life of an injured athlete. Whether they are out sick for a day, out for a couple of days with a pulled muscle or are out for weeks with a concussion or an IT band. It can be just as painful mentally as it is physically to be benched.

“I broke my fifth metatarsal in the first three minutes of our first indoor soccer game of the season,” senior Brady Hocevar said. “I was excited I was able to come back from my injury during the playoffs to help support our team. In the first round game against Fowlerville, I scored a goal to help us advance and then in our second round game against Owosso, I slid for the ball thinking it could be the last game in my high school career and ended up breaking the fifth metatarsal in the exact same place as before.”

In football, where players take multiple hits and tackles during the game, it’s no surprise that head and neck injuries top the list. Injuries to the knees and ankles are second. But players do not get hurt just during games. Many player injuries occur during practice.

“I got hurt during our first varsity football scrimmage. I was hit and went in the air and landed fine, but another player landed on my knee popping it out and tearing stuff,” junior Mitchell Adams said. “I dislocated my kneecap and it ended up tearing my Medical Collateral Ligament (M.C.L.) and a bunch of tendons around the patella and I tore my Medical Collateral Ligament somewhat. I was out for two and half months.“

From a national statistical standpoint, cheerleading accounts for nearly two-thirds of all catastrophic injuries in female athletes. However, Tony Benson, a physical therapist at Fenton Physical Therapy, has a completely different perspective of this.

“The majority of injured girl athletes I see are soccer players and basketball players,” Benson said. “With the soccer players it’s usually knee injuries. With the basketball players it is usually injuries to the ankles.”

Sometimes athletes end up injured from something that they would never think would possibly injure them.

“I impinged a nerve in my leg in the lower quad area. Our outdated drumline equipment resting on my leg caused the injury when I was in marching band,” sophomore Dominic Dimambro said. “Instead of training with my [cross country] team, I worked on whatever I could during practice, whether that was riding the bike, doing ab workouts, or physical therapy exercises. Even when I couldn’t practice and wouldn’t be competing for the team for nearly the rest of the season, I still went to practice every single day to help out in any way I could, because that’s what being apart of a team is all about.”

They miss being a part of the team setting. It is a high school experience they only can have for four years, and if they miss one of these years due to injury, it can be very frustrating on the athlete.

“The one thing I missed most while I was injured was not being able to be with my teammates on the runs.” Dimambro said. “I felt kind of lonely being on my own.”

It’s not all about the practices that athletes miss, but the games they miss, too.

“The hardest part was going to practice every day and not being able to work with my boys,” said Hocevar. “And then to go to the games and just watch every single time.”

Some athletes think the worst part about going to the games is the injured athletes are forced to watch as their teammates take the field, and know that they can do nothing to help with their chances of winning. It is something emotional the ahtletes suffer from other then the physical pain of an injury.

“The worst part about being injured was definitely missing the games,” Adams said. “It was really hard to watch my teammates play and me knowing that there was no chance to get out and play in the game.”