Could You Have Prevented Your Ankle Sprain?

The story of my high school ankle injury and how knowing what I know now would've changed everything

It was 1993 and I was heading into my Sophomore year. I had worked hard all summer and was ready to take my football game to the next level.

I had done sprints, run stairs, worked with a collegiate athlete who randomly adopted me one day after seeing me work on the track. He showed me the drills he worked on that helped firmly place spin moves and jump cuts into my subconscious.

I was ready to go. I had loads of confidence and I felt like no one was gonna stop me.

The coach saw my newfound confidence and placed me in the starting lineup. After a freshman year of being the tackling dummy of the 2nd team, I could finally show what I had behind the starting line and I was doing that.

A couple weeks in, the coach of the Junior Varsity got a new job and moved. He left his roster to the new guy taking over, but the Varsity head coach came in, not knowing anything and told the new guy that it couldn’t be right that I was running with the starters and removed me.

Being angry was an understatement. I had earned this position, but I figured you know what, I’ll show this new guy from the second team.

Unfortunately, the second team was a compilation of guys who not only had very little experience playing, but got pushed around. I found myself barely being able to get a handoff before being tackled.

And then one summer double day afternoon it happened. Someone caught me in the backfield and rolled on my ankle. I couldn’t walk. I think I limped home and maybe my parents took me to Kaiser… I don’t remember, but dealing with Kaiser in the 90’s meant you were sent home and told rest and take some Tylenol or Motrin. I had no Physical Therapy other than my grandmother telling me to soak my ankle in warm water and vinegar.

Was that ankle sprain preventable?

I doubt anything could’ve prevented that ankle sprain. It was a contact injury.

But could the severity been lessened by actually training my ankle joint?

Possibly… We’ll never know.

Injury Prevention is all the rage and I think that although the intentions are positive, the notion that something we do will prevent us from getting injured is a bit of an overreach.

I firmly believe that “failure to prepare is like preparing to fail” and that a prepared body is more likely to be able to withstand and weather life’s storms.

There’s the old saying that…