Larry Stahley has been the Athletic Trainer at the School for nine years. The Gator sat down with him to discuss preseason and early year injuries and prevention methods.

How long have you been at Brimmer and in what capacities have you served here?

This is my ninth year here as the head athletic trainer at Brimmer. I’m in my 4th year as being a full-time faculty member through [working as a] teaching assistant during COVID, and then teaching PE, and now I’m helping teach some Middle School science, 7th grade science this year. I did these past two years ago as well, and I did middle school history last year. So, a little bit of everything, but 9th year as our athletic trainer.

As far as pre-season and early athletics, are there any common injuries that you see repetitively over the years?

In the beginning of the season it’s common for all athletes, all schools, sports. We get a lot of the overuse injuries, so when we start going from zero to having practice every day, we start building up some injuries, whether they’re muscle injuries like small muscle sprains and tears, shin splints, some back pain, knee pain, some things that may not be major long-term issues, but just our body adjusting to playing sports five, six days a week.

I don’t consider being sore and tight an injury, obviously we don’t feel great when that happens, but usually with some stretching and foam rolling and taking care of it, we can get that soreness to go away, that’s normal. First week you’re going to feel terrible, you’re going to be sore. it’s the injuries, the joint pain, those kinds of things that we like to avoid.

 How can athletes work to prevent these types of injuries.

The best way to prevent it is to stay active, do something in the summer, we ask students to play their sport a little bit, it doesn’t have to be on a team, it can be just out with your friends in the yard. Cross country has a standard summer running program, because if you try to go from running zero miles to three at the first practice after summer, you’re going to have pain, something’s going to hurt. So, that’s why we try to, in those situations, limit how many miles they’re doing, how many minutes you’re playing, intensity of a practice for those who are just starting.

 What are things coaches can do to help prevent these types of injuries? 

Coaches are obviously our first line of defense against injuries, because they see you every day on the practice field. Our coaches usually do a pretty good job of sending out summer workouts, I know Mr. Hardman with soccer does, Mr. TBH does as well for cross country. Having a plan so the teams know how to do it. And then in terms of at practice, we really stress, a warm-up and a cool-down, I think we do a good job of doing a warm-up.

I know it can be quick, because we’re traveling and going to other fields, and we don’t have a ton of time, but it is essential that we do it. Sometimes that alone can be a good cool-down to get the body to calm down. But I think the best thing you can do is just promote a healthy lifestyle in their team, if you’re sore, stretch, eat well, hydrate, the more our coaches can promote this to the team and the team can buy in, the more success we’re going to have, the less injuries we’re going to have, and ideally a successful season overall.

 Finaly, this year so far, how do you think we’re holding up compared to other years?

I think we’re holding up a little better than last year. I think last year, for whatever reason, I think we struggled a little bit with some early-season injuries. I’ve seen fewer cross-country issues to start the year, which is odd, soccer is doing pretty well. We have a few minor things that pop up. Again, mostly soreness, tightness, nothing I would necessarily classify as an overuse injury. As we start playing games and the intensity picks up, things do, injury-wise, tend to pick up as well.

You are statistically more likely to get hurt in a game than at practice. But overall, I’ve been pleased. I don’t know if students did more summer exercising and working out, or if our coaches have just done a better job this year of really making sure everyone buys into that we need to take care of ourselves. Let’s do it at practice. Let’s do it at home. Let’s do it during the school day. Whatever we need to do to take care of our bodies, let’s make sure we do it. But overall, I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far.

So far, so good. I hope I’m not jinxing us.