Recovering strong
February 8, 2019
Senior Avery Perry had an injury her sophomore year that affects her when swimming for the high school team. Perry works hard to recover so that she can go to state her senior year.
Perry’s injury started while was lifting weights. Perry did not notice that she was injured until later that day when she started to swim and felt pain in her shoulder.
“I was lifting during morning weights and I dropped the weight and ripped my shoulder out of place and tore up my shoulder,” said Perry.
The head coach for the swim team Adam Hall felt like Perry would be affected by her injury when swimming and would affect the team based on how passionate she is for swim.
“When Avery told me she was injured, I felt bad for her. Usually, athletes want to perform at their very best and give 100% effort into their sport. She only has 4 years to participate in high school swimming, so losing out on a year was probably very disappointing for her,” said Hall.
One of Perry’s teammates on the swim team senior Cassidy Elrod, felt upset for Perry when she learned that Perry was injured.
“I was so upset for her because she is so dedicated and she practiced all the time. She even practiced after high school practice. So I was very sad for her that she couldn’t do the thing that she loved,” said Cassidy Elrod.
When Perry was injured, she would look at different ways on getting better than worrying about her injury setting her back from her goals.
“Staying positive and working hard in physical therapy, but not overworking and also a lot of support from my family and friends,” said Perry.
During the time that Perry was injured, Elrod helped her to stay positive and to keep working on getting better.
“I just try to be supportive for her and I knew that it was going to be hard for her, seeing everyone swim without her and so I tried to throw in little fun surprises for her and she was a good cheerleader when she was injured, so I thought that she would need her own little cheerleader,” said Elrod.
Hall felt that Perry was very committed to getting back to swimming like she use to and helping the team out.
“When Avery was injured, what helped her the most is knowing that it was her Junior year, and her injury didn’t end her swimming career. We both knew that her performance after being injured wasn’t going to be at the same level as before her injury. Her Junior year was all about helping heal her injury, and get her back to 100%. It wasn’t going to happen overnight, but instead take some time possibly even more than just a season,” said Hall.
Since her injury in her sophomore year, Perry wants to have her last year of swimming for the high school team to be something special.
“My goals are now to finish out the season strong and to help out the team and to be a good senior and to be a good example to the freshman,” said Perry.
With state coming up in February, Hall feels confident that Avery will swim her best despite being injured her sophomore year.
“Avery this year has completely recovered from her injury last year. She is back to 100%, and is a key part of the team. She is now a Senior and is very close to individually-qualifying for State. She is one of the best swimmers on the team, and is a part of the two already State-qualified relays,” said Hall.
Perry worked hard to recover from her injury from encouragement from teammates and coaches to going to physical therapy. Perry’s past injury is not going to set her back from doing her best at state.
