Over 8 million high school students in America participated in school-sponsored sports in the 2023-24 school year, a number that has rebounded since the significant drop immediately after COVID. In fact, this number beat the previous 2017-18 year record of roughly 7.98 million, according to data from the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Although California is ranked 41st in terms of overall student participation in high school sports, 28.3 percent of California students participate, including 31.5 percent of boys and 24.9 percent of girls.
At Redondo, 47 percent of students participate in one or more school sponsored sports teams. Senior Jalene White-Short first joined golf freshman year, choosing to try out for it instead of the “super competitive” girls soccer team at Redondo.
“I decided to play golf mainly because I’ve been playing it for my whole entire life,” White-Short said. “So I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just do golf, it’s easier.’ But then it turned out to be the best experience of my whole entire life.”
Nationally, golf is the seventh most common program offered for female students at over 11,000 schools, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. Due to the individual nature of the sport, however, team sizes are smaller, and it doesn’t reach the top ten in number of overall participants.
“Golf is really individual, but if you’re having a bad day, and you’re with your teammate who might also be having a bad day, you guys are having a bad day together, which makes it a little bit better,” White-Short said. “And that’s something that’s very helpful. There’s a lot of memories and tears that have happened, but you’re all together. That’s something that’s really important.”
For senior Erin Hartman, the team is a major reason why she’s “stayed with basketball throughout the years.”
“I have a lot of friends and a lot of people on the team this year that I’ve known since middle school,” Hartman said. “It’s a lot, I’m not gonna lie. During the season, you practice six days a week. You’re at school for more than six hours, and then you’re already mentally tired, and it’s hard because you’re physically tired from basketball, and then you have to come home and do homework. But I think what makes it fun is you get to see your friends every single day. And especially the moments before practice starts, or the time between school and practice, hanging out with them, going to get food. That’s what really makes it worth it.”
At Redondo, most sports practice multiple times a week, and some–like basketball, golf and cross country—practice for multiple hours five to six days a week during the season. For White-Short, golf means a four to five hour commitment twice a week, “much longer” tournaments during the season, and daily commutes to the team’s off-campus practice course. And although she describes this process as “a bonding experience,” she notes that the commute and the nature of golf makes it “one of the biggest time commitment sports.”
Senior Jordan Kissler has had a similar experience juggling high school swim, club swim, and academics. Although he had participated in club swim since fifth grade, he found once on the Redondo swim team that he had to “take a step back” from club in order to keep up his commitments because of the stress it was causing.
“A lot of my last three years in high school have been kind of bent around making time for swim and the other extracurriculars that I wanted to do,” Kissler said. “Teachers are normally pretty good about makeup work and getting things sorted out, but every now and again, there would be issues. There is wiggle room built in for excused absences, but there should be more. It’s very teacher dependent.”
Student athletes must balance academic work and the demands of their sport, while still staying cognizant of their mental and emotional health that requires the same amount of downtime and self care as non-student-athletes. Although studies from the National Assosiation of State High School Association and the National Library of Medicine, for example, have proven the benefits involved with playing high school sports, research as early as 2015 suggests that participation can also exact a mental, emotional and physical toll on athletes. A study by the National Athletic Trainer’s Association found that “many student-athletes report higher levels of negative emotional states than non-student-athlete adolescents,” whether due to the physical strain of their sport, exhaustion due to lower average amounts of sleep, or the overall stress of trying to balance sports with the rest of their lives.
Monica Chernoff, a therapist who works with high school and college aged student athletes, finds that the number one issue athletes face is perfectionism.
“A lot of athletes struggle with perfectionism because their identity and their self worth is connected to their performance and grades, and I think it creates a lot of unrealistic expectations and anxieties and fears of the future,” Chernoff said. “[The second biggest issue] is anxiety, being anxious about the future. ‘What college am I going to get into? Am I going to be starting? Is my coach going to yell at me?’ A lot of performance anxiety. Three is depression. Athletes can get into identity crises because of an injury or really struggle with the sports experience alone and not being able to talk about it. That can lead to an episode of depression.”
Although Senior Miranda Steinberg had run before she joined the cross country team freshman year, she too found it “more intense” than she had expected. “You’re running a lot, you’re eating differently. It changes a lot about how you perceive yourself and the world. It becomes more of a lifestyle- a very different lifestyle,” Steinberg said. “I think almost everyone on the team has thought about quitting. It’s a very demanding sport. I didn’t quit because I felt very connected to the team and what it’s given me. And I wanted to give back, because I do love running, and I knew that if I just gave up, it would be giving up a huge part of my life. And I didn’t want to do that because it’s been the best sport that I’ve been a part of.”
Steinberg, White-Short, Hartman and Kissler all agree that the bonds formed on their respective teams have been key factors in the positive experiences they’ve had with their sports; Steinberg and Hartman both describe teammates as being some of their “closest friends.” Chernoff notes that the social aspect of high school sports can both relieve pressure and create their own pressures and expectations for student athletes because of the way that “solid friendships” can “make or break mental health.”
“We want to fit in. We want to belong. We always wonder ‘who are we going to sit with at lunch? Who are we going to go to prom with?’ And being an athlete, a huge chunk of your time is being dedicated to that culture and to that team,” Chernoff said. “And not only your athletic identity but also your friendships are tied to that world. So sometimes athletes go through ‘will my friends like me, if I go extra hard on them during practice, or if I’m a team captain and I have to call out on a friend, am I going to suffer socially? What happens if I hang out with athletes instead of my old friends?’ There’s always that dual relationship of friend and teammate, and there can be not only performance pressure, but also social pressure for teens.”
Team environments can be volatile, especially due to the nature of high school sports teams that means the members of a team change every year. For Kissler, the environment of swim changed from year to year not only with new team members but with new coaches, which meant “team culture” shifted.
“My first year, everyone was super inviting. It could have been that I was a freshman, but it was very inviting. A lot of people were laid back. We’d have team dinners before most meets, where we’d go over to someone’s house and have a two hour long party,” Kissler said. “And it kind of started diminishing after that first year. And then my sophomore year it was more of, let’s get down to business and do stuff. And then junior year was a bit of a mess. There were some personality conflicts on the team. And for the last three years, varsity has had somewhat inconsistent coaching. It’s been a little bit messy having no one who has much experience.”
The relationship between coach and team is another important factor in sports environments. Chernoff notes that high school athletes especially can struggle with pressure from adults including parents and coaches who “have a lot of control over [athlete’s] decisions,” which can be “really dysregulating and scary.” She also warns that it’s “very normal” to want to people-please your teammates, parents, and coaches, which can “add a lot of pressure onto yourself.”
Although Junior Mya Mourad grew up participating in traditional dance, she joined the Redondo cheer team with her friends freshman year and reflects on how “different” the team is, “in the best way possible.”
“The dance environment I grew up in wasn’t super healthy, which is also a part of the reason why I quit. But our cheer coaches, you can tell that they want to see us succeed,” Mourad said. “They do a lot of overtime. I know one of my cheer coaches stays up so late to go over film. They’re very open books. They will say something, and they’ll be like, you can go and tell everybody, I’m not gonna sit here and lie, which I think is really refreshing. I can tell them anything, and it’ll relieve all of the stress. And I think that that has really shaped my view of cheer.”
In part because of her positive relationship with her coach, Mourad finds cheer to be a “healthy and positive” environment, which doesn’t overtax her or her teammates despite how “physically demanding” the sport can be. On cross country, Steinberg is able to help be that positive role model herself as the team manager.
“I feel like I’m contributing to the team in a way that I never could have as a runner. I’ve been doing it for a year and a half, so it’s something that I’ve kind of stepped into a lot more,” Steinberg said. “I get to be there for teammates and just support them. Because I was injured a lot, I acquired a lot of knowledge about how to treat shin splints and muscles and cramps and things that are just like basic health concerns which come up very often, especially in younger girls. And I feel like I can be more of a guiding presence, something that we didn’t have, I think when we were freshmen. It’s really nice to take on a different role and to be able to still run on my own.”
Regardless of internal or external pressures, Chernoff encourages athletes to remember that “perfect is impossible.”
“My biggest advice for athletes is you are going to make mistakes. If you try to be perfect, you’re going to be on the road to perfect land forever,” Chernoff said. “It’s impossible. And the best athletes in the world have to take care of their mental health. They’ve built resilience. It’s more about being able to tolerate learning and mistakes and uncomfortability. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about knowing all the time. It’s tolerating that learning space and also learning how to navigate your feelings and knowing what’s best for you and just acknowledging the pressure that athletes have.”
Athletes alter their lives to accommodate the demands of their respective sports, be it moving around their schedule, changing their diets or risking their mental and physical health to become a better athlete. But when posed with injury, these sacrifices could lose their meaning. Whether it be a split-second accident or a recurring condition, injuries can strip athletes of their livelihoods and induce extreme mental pressures upon them.
Sports injuries are inherently jarring for high school athletes due to adolescent development. Researcher Erin Haugen from Operative Techniques in Sports Medicine asserts that as athletes reach their years of peak athleticism, usually during high school or college, they’re also at a peak age to experience mental health complications. As a result, it may take longer for athletes to come to terms with their injury, and brace for the impact that it will have on their lives. Senior Hudson Mayes recalls his late reaction to the critical state of his injury, as he sustained a full ACL tear during his sophomore basketball season, which required a nine month recovery.
“When it happened I never thought it would end up being an ACL tear, I thought it would be a bone bruise or that I hyperextended my knee, which I’ve done before. But as time went on the realization set in that it was going to be more long term, and that I’d have to go through the entire recovery process that other people have gone through with that injury,” Mayes said.
Sports therapist Katie Bates notes that sports give athletes an outlet to leave behind the outside stressors of their classes, social lives or any other responsibilities. An injury depletes them of that outlet, and forces them to look towards those stressor activities. Consequently, athletes often initially feel lost during this adjustment period.
“Any person that’s used to doing consistent physical activity and then suddenly stops doing that, is put in a tough spot. There’s a ton of cognitive benefits to being so active. Athletes are able to get rid of anxious energy or anger. They’re able to unplug when they’re practicing or competing, so being unable to do that can be a real hardship for people. They start thinking about all the unknowns, and they give into a lot of self doubts,” Bates said.
Sophomore Callie Chenfu shares the same sentiment. Chenfu, who’s sustained several long term injuries and is currently recovering from an ACL tear, has been out of soccer for almost seven months, which has given her time to consider some uncertainties with her recovery.
“I have a lot of stress and a fear of missing out. I have to watch everyone advancing without me while I’m stuck back here. I definitely think about not being able to come back as good as I was, and having to catch up,” Chenfu said.
The stress and pressure brought on by an injury has a significant impact on mental health, not only burdening the athlete with a physical recovery, but a mental recovery as well, as seen through Mayes’s experience.
“There were times when I went to dark places during my recovery. Basketball brings me a lot more personally outside of just playing, so I just felt down the whole time, almost like I didn’t have a purpose,” Mayes said.
With all the time that’s been dedicated to sports and the life that an athlete has built around it, this feeling of “purposelessness” that Mayes describes is common amongst injured athletes.
“It’s super disorienting. Athletes think ‘everything I thought I was going to do in the future has now been taken from me.’ So now there’s this huge piece of identity that’s lost in injury. It’s a part of your daily life, and it may not entirely make up your personality, but it is a part of who you are. Losing that is very difficult,” Bates said.
During their time out, it’s natural for an athlete to lose touch with their passion for the sport. According to junior Jessi Martin, who sustained third degree tears in her ankle ligaments during cheerleading, her time out has made it “hard” to keep up her love for cheerleading.
“I still really love the sport, and I do really want to get back. I just think it’s harder to be [passionate about] cheer because I’m not able to do anything. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot, and I’m also not able to build up strength during this time. So that contributes too, just being scared all the time that it won’t be the same when I get back,” Martin said.
Martin detailed the disappointment she felt in herself when she got injured, as it affected her teammates and coaches.
“I do feel like I let my team down because I was in a couple stunts for competition, and my teammates and coaches were counting on me for that. I want to get back on the mat with them, but I know I can’t skip protocols,” Martin said.
Physical therapist Amy Mourad adds that athletes can often feel added demand for recovery by their support system, like their parents, who typically facilitate their children’s athletic careers. As a result, there’s more pressure imposed upon the athlete that harms their recovery process.
“A lot of times, I have to have sideline conversations with the parents to help give them realistic expectations of how their child is going to recover. I have to remind them that if they push their child to come back too soon, it might derail them even further and make injuries worse,” Mourad said.
Injury also has the ability to put athletes at disadvantage during the college recruitment process. Chenfu notes that being injured during peak recruitment season has instilled doubts in her reliance on soccer for her future.
“I have this fear that when I come back I won’t play as well as before, and that [college] coaches will see me as worse because I’ve gone through all of this. My current coaches even told me to not contact college coaches, because when they see that I’ve had an injury and think ‘Well she’s injured, she probably won’t play the same.’ That’s just how they view it,” Chenfu said.
According to Mayes, there isn’t necessarily an “ideal” time to get injured when it comes to getting recruited in high school.
“I got injured right before the playoffs, so I didn’t miss much of the high school season. So while we were on break, I was more focused on school, and in that way the timing was good. But I did have to miss playing AAU [Amateur Athletic Union] in the summer. AAU is usually when all of the [college] coaches come out, it’s definitely a more active recruitment period than high school season, which puts me at a disadvantage,” Mayes, who later committed to play Division One basketball at the University of California San Diego, said.
Mourad notes that during the rehabilitation process, the pressures imposed upon the athlete to make a fast comeback compels the athlete to try to skip over mandated treatments that would aid recovery.
“There’s people who are used to achieving a lot of things, and then when they get injured, it might be the first time in their life that they struggle on achieving the goals that are set for them. As a result, some athletes tend to speed up their recovery and ignore protocol, which only reinjures them,” Mourad said.
At times, the pressure to recover can also be attributed to coaches who push their athletes to come back too quickly.
“I’ve found that pressures like that start with coaches and parents who really enforce and double down on having their athlete competing at the highest level no matter what. We’ve seen it for years, athletes playing through injury and illness,” Bates said. “There are times where you can push your body, and there are other times where you must rest. It’s just the pressurized culture of sports, it puts people in a position to push themselves in ways that they shouldn’t.”
Taking this into consideration, head football coach Keith Ellison strives to maintain the health of his athletes throughout the season, whether the athlete is on or off the field.
“In my own regard, I find that the best way to keep them protected is a year-round strength program. The more physically fit that they are, they’ll be able to protect themselves in those situations,” Ellison said.
Ellison experienced several long term injuries through his high school, college and professional career. While he tries to prevent injuries, he is also well prepared in the case that an injury does take place.
“You only have so many games within your high school career, so when you get injured, you miss out on a lot of it. A lot of guys handle it differently,” Ellison said. “When they try to come back, there’s also a little hesitation when they play, so I just try to coach them through it and make them the best player they can be.”
To maintain their mental health during recovery, athletes are able to turn to many figures in their lives. Bates explains that athletes normalize “shouldering the burden of injury,” when the most efficient way to mentally recover from injury is to “allow loved ones, coaches, and doctors to shoulder the burden with them.”
Mayes reaffirms that point, as he notes that his speedy recovery was rooted in his support system.
“My parents were always reminding me that there’s more than just basketball, and to just focus on my recovery. In a lot of ways, they kept me grounded throughout the whole thing and made sure that I didn’t try to speed up my recovery. They really kept me motivated,” Mayes said.
Regardless of the obstacles that student athletes face during the initial accident and throughout recovery, there are still many pathways to remain involved in the sport and eventually pursue it after high school.
“I tried to stay somewhat active on social media. I gathered up all of my highlights from that year and I didn’t directly tell [college] coaches that I’d torn my ACL. I just sent out all of the material that I had to [college] coaches. My ACL was a setback but it wasn’t anything that would cut off all of my connections with coaches,” Mayes said.
Injury doesn’t necessarily have to be a setback. For athletes hoping to take their athletic careers even further, injury can act as an extra motivator for an athlete.
“With my players, I try to talk about my experiences. I was injured my first three years of high school football, but I still went on to play on scholarship and eventually play professionally. So I feel like I have good insight for them when it comes to fighting back. The most important thing is to continue to work hard throughout the rehabilitation process and not feel sorry for yourself,” Ellison said.
Whether an athlete is in the midst of recovery or returning to their sport, they still uphold the mentality of an athlete. Even injured athletes keep their head in the game.
“You just have to work even harder. I keep myself busy, and I keep working. That’s really all you can do,” Chenfu said. “I’m getting better every day.”