Many athletes at Woodside suffer from injuries every season, yet most people don’t understand the mental and physical challenges involved in recovery. 

Football, in particular, is a grueling sport, and many football players at Woodside get injured every year. When players get injured, they’re forced to sit out on the sideline and watch their team play. According to junior running back Evan Frampton, this process has been “annoying” and “transformative”. Frampton broke his collarbone against Homestead on Oct. 11, only four plays into the game, and now he’s out for the year. 

“[The process of recovering from this injury] has been annoying,” Frampton said. “I don’t like watching the practices and the games and not being able to play. It changed my perspective, it makes me not want to take football or any other sport for granted.” 

Junior Manny Navarro suffered a broken foot last winter during soccer season, the injury became worse after he was sidelined since he dealt with muscle-loss in his leg. It made the process of recovering much more difficult for him mentally and emotionally. 

“[The process of recovering from my injury] was hard because I lost all the muscle in my leg,” Navarro said. “[It made it hard for me physically] but [the hardest part mentally and emotionally] was having to sit out and watch everyone else play.”

While some athletes like Manny struggle with muscle loss and the emotional toll of watching from the sidelines, others, like junior Luca Marks, endure lengthy recovery programs.

“Recovering almost took me the whole season, but the physical therapy at the Stanford Medical Foundation was high-class,” Marks said. “I had the best assistance for recovering, and I recovered as quickly as possible.”