Gosh, many of you went to some unusual high schools based on the sports you are listing.
As a HS senior on the wrestling team, I suffered what felt (to my ultra-fit, endorphin-charged 17-year old body) like a moderately painful wrenching of my right shoulder. I followed the time-honored sports medicine regimen favored by high school coaches everywhere in the 90s:
- Here’s some ice.
- Walk it off.
It got better, but it never really got better. In hindsight, in view of all the troubles it’s given me since then, I have come to believe it was probably a sprain and rotator cuff tear, a suspicion shared by the orthopedist I finally went to see twenty years later. It will be fine for months or even a year or two, then I’ll do something to tweak it and I’ll be OneArmedStamp for a month. Exercises I learned from my PT a few years ago definitely help shorten those episodes, though.
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To me, the bolded text indicates a time cutoff rather than a location. The tally thus far (my high school had most of these):
football 4
cross-country
tennis
basketball
skiing 3
motorcycles 2
volleyball 2
Traction Park
Snowboarding
Car Crash
Running 3
Wrestling 2
Ballet
Equestrian 2
Being Clumsy (me) 1
Fielding at silly point. 14. Concussion. I think I am still a bit kooky after that episode.
Right arm is slightly bent due to a compound fracture when I was 9, playing soccer, fell awkwardly after a tackle.
A series of not-so-bad knee injuries in gymnastics during HS probably led to the more substantial tearing up of my knee shortly after high school, also doing gymnastics. (To be clear, I did club gymnastics and wasn’t on a HS team.)
All of my joints crack, due to a wide range of sprains and a broken ankle and a probably a concussion, but only my knee gives me trouble 20-odd years later.
True, but the OP specifies “sports injuries”. In general, motorcycles, cars, Traction Park and clumsiness are not sports (I would be an elite athlete if it were). Ballet is arguable, but most schools would not include it in the athletic department.
I dislocated my wrist over a decade ago while playing football(?). I’m not sure if the bone was fully put back in place. It only occasionally bothers me.
If tobogganing counts as a “sport”, I have one - I managed to smash my head into a fence doing this (unexpectedly hitting ice); as a result, I sometimes suffer dizzy spells when my head is at a particular angle. The docs told me I damaged my inner ear.
Not me, but a friend I know who was into powerlifting and football in high school now had many problems with his spine that his medical team thinks can be linked to high school activity.
I was a professional competing on the Grand National circuit and I WAS an elite athlete at the time. If you don’t think so, lets see some of the folks you do consider athletes throw a bike sideways at 90mph+ and break 120 in the straights. Or just watch “On Any Sunday” and report back to us.
I have compression fractures in L1-L4 after being thrown of a horse at the canter depart in the 80s. After it healed I got along for many years with just some mild problems. Now it’s so bad I have to do 30 minutes of ‘prescription’ at home physical therapy, twice a day, for the REST OF MY LIFE. I miss one session and I feel it the next day.
Oh, yeah, got thrown off a horse in the late 90s and landed on my feet, it tore up my knees. Now twice a year I get Synvisc shots. (Now that I think about it, the knee injuries could be from the time I jumped from the back of a bolter when he was about to run into a barn exterior wall in the 70s, hard to tell)
I got thrown off a horse in the 70’s and knocked out cold and had short term memory loss. I guess dementia is in my future.
I have a bad toe from when a horse stepped on in in the early 60s.
You’d figure I’d learn.
I have figure skating injuries too, but they haven’t bothered me yet.
Maybe we need some clarification from the OP.
While kopek’s example is clearly an example of high school age athletes competing in a physically hazardous sport, my impression from the OP is that (s)he was asking for events that happened under the official aegis of the school system, since it was a branch off a thread about HS football injuries.
Are we talking about high school-era sports injuries, or high school sports injuries?
Trashed my right knee at high school playing (Aussie Rules) football. Massive hyperextension I’m guessing (never had it confirmed) would have snapped the ACL at least and messed up some other things.
Country town in 1980 the kind of medical treatment was minimal. Treated for “strained ligaments”, had a few sessions with a chiropractor which only provided more pain and that’s it.
For the first couple of years it was pretty unstable until I finished growing and learned how to manage it. ie, I learned to run on rails. Playing football or anything, straight line was the go, any lateral movement would likely result in knee caving and me going down in a screaming heap.
Once I had it figured I played football into my early 20’s and even some social games into my late 40’s, even played some pennant level squash for a bit (which required lots of concentration on how I was moving) and it generally behaves itself but some days I wake up and it just doesn’t want to work.
I also managed to do my left knee on a rope swing at the beach trying to protect my bad knee and did my left ankle as an adult playing a social footy game, but neither of those were high school sports. The ankle gives me more grief than the knees, some mornings it just won’t bend and I have to walk round for the first 10 minutes with that foot pointing out sideways instead of front.
That’s why I said “in general”. I think you’ll agree that most high schoolers who injure themselves on motorcycles are not doing so on the professional racing circuit.
And my “elite athlete” crack was directed entirely at the concept of “clumsiness”. I had no intent to imply that auto and motorcycle racers are not athletes.
My right knee bothers me from time to time when climbing stairs. Not a serious problem, but it has collapsed under me a few times, so I do need the handrail. I’m unsure what sport did it when I was younger (I did a few sports), but I tend to call it “my old football injury,” as I did play football, and it is certainly possible that football caused it.
I was curious about injuries suffered while playing school-sponsored sports.
We didn’t have a ski team, but we did have ‘skiing’ as a PE option. Or maybe it was a ski club. I don’t remember. Either way it was weird, considering I lived in the Mojave Desert. We went through the motions on a grass slope on the school grounds. Were it not for that on-school instruction, I mightn’t have injured myself at Tahoe.
More college aged (most HS aged was still amateur) but ----------
Clarification understood. But I will debate that the people racing on the amateur level, from ages as young as 5 or so through high school or beyond, are no different from junior forms of football or baseball. They are all trying for the same things - fun and that very rare chance to make a living at a sport they enjoy playing.
Think of it this way – the kid blasting around the local dump or woods is like the kids who play football (or at least “kill the man with the football”) in the back yard. Some of those will have enough skill and understanding enough parents to allow them to participate in some local AMA amateur motocross or other forms of racing - our version of “varsity and JV”. A much fewer number of those will do well enough to attract local sponsors to allow them a shot at the pro circuit (call it college ball). And an even fewer will be good enough to make it to a “factory ride” - the same as being picked for the Seattle Seahawks.
In my day and age (late 60s through the 70s) to make that last jump you were pretty much a young adult (17-27) and a mixture of athlete, businessman, engineer, mechanic ----- and frankly part daredevil. Now with the different forms of “X-game” and “Supercross” the ages tend to be lower by a bit. But I really don’t see it as different from interscholastic sports. (some schools and colleges have supported or at least allowed race teams in motorcycle and cars). And possible more “physically athletic” than some such as shooting or bowling - although they require the same (or superior) skills in some respect.
I’m not saying this to bust your chops but I would seriously consider watching the original “On Any Sunday” - I believe its on YouTube. Again, it is dated - backflips and trick riding has replaced pure speed in the public mind as the ultimate form of two-wheeled sport for the moment. But it will give you a different idea on just what is involved and the background that creates a professional.
Again – broader paintbrush than you would imagine. I have known high schools to allow “motocross” or other racing teams. More as clubs but they do the same with many of the other sports as well. Registering and being recognized gets the kids shop time and approved time off from classes for competitions. Back in the 70s when motocross and hare-scrambles were really big at least six of the high schools around us had “teams” (and Pitt had a fairly good auto racing team) and a sort of unofficial traveling trophy for the end of the season at Shoeff <sic?> Raceway.
So next time make a list or expect some minor drifts! 
I’m not trying to be a ballbuster here, kopek, but based on what my original question was inspired by and then my later clarification, I think it’s pretty clear what I’m asking. Are there any Dopers who are still suffering due to injuries they received in school-sponsored sports?
I get that you enjoy motorcycles and are proud of when you were a competitor. Unless, however, your school had an official motorcycle team, your experience and injuries aren’t what interests me here. In about the same time period that you described, my brother and I were enthusiastic dirt bikers, so if you want to open a thread about how awesome we were back then, I’m in.
" How many here are still bothered later in life by sports injuries you suffered while in high school or earlier? For the purposes of this thread, we’ll make HS the cut off point." If you wanted to limit it to WPIAL, you should have said so.
Maybe in Beaver you just strike a rock and some professional pops out of the ground but for us normal mortals, even if we advanced, we got our share of breaks and bruises starting as kids and went past them. And we’re still reminded today of things we did in our teens and earlier.
So break what balls you want to, I’m not just “motorcycles are cool” - I’m trying to fight some ignorance still lurking around out there. Somewhat about bikes but more about “high school athletics”.