Tackle football is one of the most dangerous sports that can be played because of the high rate of injury. In my life, I have experienced many injuries due to football, such as: a concussion, torn ligaments in my right ankle, and four broken fingers, scattered variously over the course of my football “career,” as one could call it. When I tore the ligaments in my right ankle in seventh grade, it was probably the most painful injury I have ever experienced.

I remember the day of my injury like it was yesterday. I was attending St. Paul Lutheran School at the time and the heat was very extreme, staggering even, as we walked out of the air conditioned school building into what felt like the Sahara Desert. Our teacher, Miss Kratz, told us that we could go outside and have free time, since we could not concentrate on what we were learning. She gave my group of friends one specific rule: to not play tackle football. She said that she had some tests to grade and would trust us to be responsible, since the first grade teacher was already outside with her students.

As soon as we went outside our group unanimously agreed to play tackle football, due to the fact that the first grade teacher had no idea that we were told not to play tackle football. We assigned captains, I was one, and then picked teams. Since we were playing tackle football, I was given the position of running back because of my extraordinary ability to break tackles at the time. I was doing very well, gaining quite a few yards and almost scoring every time I touched the ball.

About halfway through our free time, we were very close to our own end zone, probably on the five or six yard line and it was decided to hand the ball off to me to get away from our own end zone. After the ball was snapped and handed to me, I ran past our two man offensive line, and I was off. I was not very fast at the time, and not much has changed, but I kept running through tacklers. When I was about fifteen yards into my run, I stepped in a hole in the lot of St. Paul’s very imperfect lot, which is about fifty yards long.

Though there was a dull throbbing sensation in my ankle, I kept running, I was determined to score on this play. Like an NFL pro, I had to play through the pain. About thirty yards in, my friend Brandon tried to ankle tackle me on the same ankle I stepped in the hole with. The tackle did not work well for him, because I dragged him for about ten yards until he let go. However, in that ten yards, my ankle started to hurt even worse, so bad I had to hobble the remainder of the field into the “end zone.” When I reached my destination, I collapsed to the ground, breathing quite heavily, I noticed the red hot pain that I was experiencing in my ankle. As I was laying there I was holding back tears because, after that run, I had to be tough in front of my friends.

I laid in the end zone for a good five minutes until I could pull myself to a standing position. I could barely walk as I limped pathetically to a nearby bench. Putting any pressure on my now swollen ankle was excruciating. I told my friend Sam to go tell the teacher that I was injured and couldn’t climb the stairs to return to the classroom. She came outside, worried that I was more seriously hurt than this because Sam can be just a tad dramatic at times.

After Miss Kratz came outside, my mom was called and I was taken to the emergency room. After sitting in the waiting room for three hours, I finally got to take x-rays on my ankle. When the x-rays came back, the doctor said that I had torn all three ligaments in my right ankle, nearly in half. If they would have completely torn, I would have had to have surgery, but since they were not torn all the way, I had to wear a walking boot for about eight weeks. I was told by the doctor that I would have been better off if my ankle was broken because the healing period would have been shorter.

Although tackle football is a very fun activity to partake in, it is necessary to take the proper precautions and listen to those in authority about rules and regulations so injuries can be avoided.