To all the injured athlete's that are going to be out for a long time and possibly miss their season, I want you to know that you will get through it. It is always difficult to be injured and not get to play, you may even feel useless and not needed. To think about everything you could be doing to help the team and actually not be able to do it is a feeling that really takes a toll on someone. I'm going to be honest here, there will be those feelings of denial, anger, sadness and even guilt. It is not an easy situation to be in. You are going to be in denial. You won't believe that you actually have a severe and long-term injury. You are going to tell yourself that you can try to suck it up and play, but you can't. It's difficult to accept the fact that you are not allowed to play the sport you practice and work so hard everyday to do. You will then most likely feel sadness. You will be so upset that this happened to you. You will constantly be thinking back to what happened and wonder why it happened. You will think about what you could have done to prevent the injury. If you just didn't turn that way, if you were taken out of the game just a minute before, if you would've actually followed your routine and not broken your superstition. Sadness will overcome you and you won't want to go to practice because it will make you upset to be there just watching your teammates do things that you aren't allowed to do. There will then be anger. You will get annoyed that you can't do the things that you normally do. Whether that be running, jumping, walking, lifting things up, going up the stairs, being able to carry your own plate. The frustration will get to you and be unbearable. The anger might overcome you and you won't want people help you do anything because it makes you feel even more useless than you already feel. After anger there might be some guilt. After you see your team lose a game that you know they should have won you will blame yourself for that loss. You will say to yourself, if only I could have been out there. You will also think, if I wasn't injured we could have won. It's okay to have all of these feelings at some point or another. It's common and it would be weird if you didn't have them. You just really need to stay strong during this entire recovery process and surround yourself with people that will not only stay positive, but that will also be willing to help you with whatever you need. The injury you have to deal with makes you stronger and you might hate having the injury but you now learn a different side to the game. The side where you not only have to be positive but you have to help your team off the court as much as you would if you were on the court. This is a tough process but I promise you, you will learn so much about yourself and what it means to be a leader from the sidelines that at the end of all of this, when you can go back on the court you will be a wiser and new type of athlete.