Sports are dangerous — everybody knows that. It doesn’t matter what sport you play, there is the ever-present possibility of injury. Edwardsville High School athletes are no strangers to injury. The athletics program has seen multiple broken bones, cuts, concussions and torn ligaments every year. This year is no exception.

One sport that springs to mind when people think of injuries, is football. The intense contact sport is infamous for injuries.

Senior Joe Jackson suffered a severe injury when he tackled the returnee during a kickoff return. “I got pushed into a dog pile and landed on my leg in a funky position,” Jackson said. The funky position that Jackson refers to resulted in a sprained ankle and Achilles tendon.

“I’ve been icing my ankle every day, using therabands to strengthen my tendon and I’ve been stretching the muscles,” Jackson said.

Football isn’t the only sports team to already see injuries this year. Another contact sport, soccer, has had its own injuries already.

In the week before its first game, seniors Bailey Winfield and Justin Lowry went up for a head ball and collided mid-air. Winfield was left with a minor concussion that caused Winfield to sit the bench for the first few games of the season.

“Drew [the EHS sports trainer] told me to take it easy for two weeks and not risk progressing the concussion to a further stage,” Winfield said. “He also told me that bright lights and loud noises would give me a headache; and he was right.”

Soccer’s first game was against Granite City. Freshman Mohammad Hamad was thrown to the ground after going into a tackle with a much bigger opponent. The collision of the tackle broke Hamad’s wrist.

“The doctors at the hospital told me that I would have to wear a cast for four to six weeks and take it easy for a while — which meant that I couldn’t play soccer for at least a week,” Hamad said. “I listened to their advice about taking it easy for a couple days, but I was back out that weekend for our game against De Smet.”

Still, other sports have seen injuries. One girl volleyball player, senior Camrey Saye, has been having problems with her SI joint (where the back and hips connect).

“It will just pop out of places sometimes whenever I play,” Saye said. “I’ll take some Advil and hope that Katie (another EHS trainer) can pop it back into place.”

Perhaps Winfield said it best when he offered an explanation as to why athletes step back onto the playing field even though they’re hurt.

“All sports have the capacity for injury,” Winfield said. “Athletes know and accept this every time that they step onto the field. We just choose to risk it because we’re doing something that we love.”