Playing sports is a place where you get to meet new friends, experience new things, and overall make great memories, especially during your high school years. 

Yet, sports also bring anguish along the way. One of these negative aspects is getting injured, especially your senior year.  

Starting out  

Senior Yarit Rodriguez has been playing basketball since she was 6 years old at her parents academy in Mexico. 

Once she came to Salinas and to Alisal High School, she wanted to join the basketball team and to try and get any scholarships for college through basketball. “My dad and my sister came to Salinas two years before I did,” Rodriguez said. “I moved here with them to have a better education, future, and basketball opportunities.”  

Rodriguez also joined the track and field team her freshman year and later joined the cross country team her sophomore year. ”My best friend who was doing track saw me playing basketball and told me to join the track team,” she said. “Muñoz saw me running in track freshman year and he believed I had a lot of potential to be on the cross country team.” 

Bitten by the injury bug 

Throughout her sports career, she got injured several times, limiting playing time. 

During her junior year, Rodriguez injured her ankle during cross country at the Mount Sac Invitational. She stepped wrong going downhill, but she continued to run despite her sprained ankle. “If I am honest, I just wanted to PR and secure my place in the varsity team championships,” she said. Even with her injured ankle she was able to PR with a time of 22:26. Unfortunately, that effort would cost her.

After her race, the doctors told her she had a high ankle sprain and would not be able to run the PCAL Championships the following Saturday. 

Had she not injured herself, Rodriguez would have been able to run varsity in league and also run at regionals that year. “I was really sad because I did PR and that was the first year the varsity girls won league in school history in cross country,” she said.  

During her healing process, Marisol Rasul, the sports medicine teacher, was a big support to her. 

Rodriguez would go into her classroom everyday during lunch to get treatment until it was over, which was around the end of March. During this time, Rasul guided her through her whole treatment, helping her not only physically, but emotionally as well. 

She was always pushing herself to get better, but Rasul would always help her slow down and become more patient with her healing process. “I’m really glad to have someone like Ms. Rasul right next to me in this process because she inspires me to study kinesiology and support student athletes just like she did with me,” Rodriguez said. 

Throughout her process, her family and coaches helped her understand that everything happened for a reason and to stay positive throughout rehab. 

One of her coaches that really motivated her to keep trying during rehab was her cross country coach Steven Muñoz. “He knew that I was very disappointed because I worked so hard for that and he saw a big potential in me,” she said. “But he was always telling me ‘Keep your chin up’ and that helped me to keep trying my best.”

Although she was disappointed and had to go through a lot of healing, she decided it was best to not dwell on the past and focus on her upcoming season, basketball. 

Unfortunately, Rodriguez got injured again, but this time during practice. She collided with one of her teammates during practice causing her to blackout and get a concussion. 

She was out for a whole week due to the concussion and couldn’t practice or go to games. However, she kept a positive attitude because it was only one week of staying off the court until she was able to come back. 

Although she managed to avoid injury the rest of the year, the injury bug would bite her again her senior year.

Senior year setbacks 

She got injured again in cross country at the beginning of the season and she suffered a partial tear on her IT band, which caused her to not run for three weeks. 

Luckily, she was able to come back and be the top JV runner for her cross country team at the end of PCAL championships. She was also able to be one of the alternates for CCS that year for the varsity team. “I was really sad about being an alternate, but I’m proud of myself because I never gave up,” Rodriguez said. “I never stopped trying to be part of the varsity team”  

After coming off a great cross country season, Rodriguez still had basketball. She had many goals in mind for her last basketball season – winning league, going to CCS, and making it to state. 

The start of her season was a bit troublesome because she wasn’t able to concentrate and play as she usually did. She had personal problems to deal with that sometimes interfered on the court. Nonetheless, she tried to persevere and do her best. 

During the second league game against Salinas High, Rodriguez jumped while playing defense, but she landed on her ankle wrong, spraining the same ankle she had hurt the year prior during cross country season. “I got really scared because I was wearing an ankle brace and it still hurt so bad,” she said. “This time was worse than the first time that I twisted my ankle.” 

This injury was one of the hardest injuries that Rodriguez had to face. Since it was her senior year, it hit harder for her, especially not being able to support her friends or finish her season off. 

She missed supporting her friends before a game, being there for them for away games or practice, and overall just playing the game. Rodriguez worked hard through recovery to be able to play again, but she knew she had to slow down and be patient. With the help of Rasul as well, she was able to keep positive and take it each day at a time. “I was working really hard to come back to basketball season,” Rodriguez said. “Then I decided to not rush because it was painful and I knew I had to slow down on the process and take my time.” 

Rodriguez knew she wasn’t going to be able to come back to basketball because of how long the healing process would take, which was around 3-4 months, so she focused on her recovery for basketball, and she decided to keep a positive mindset to get ready for track and field.

Staying on track

For track season, she focused solely on high jump, since she was barely coming back from her injury and wanted to take things slow. 

She was trying to break her PR in the high jump of 4 feet 6 inches and break the school record. Unfortunately, that did not happen but she was still able to qualify for PCAL Masters. “I’m not disappointed because I came back from an injury and I’m really glad I was able to jump my senior year,” she said.

Overall, she was able to have a better track season than what was originally planned after coming back from a big injury. Rodriguez has gone through a lot of injuries within a two year span but nonetheless has always continued to persevere. 

With the help of her coaches and Ms. Rasul, she now knows the importance of patience and taking your time with recovery. Although she was sad about missing a good chunk of her basketball season, she always kept a positive attitude and tried not to dwell on what she couldn’t control and focus her mind on something else. 

Rodriguez is grateful to have played sports since she was little, it has taught her so many lessons in life. Both through her coaches and just life experiences as well, such as patience. 

With all these experiences, she has decided to not play any sports next year at UC Santa Barbara, but she will be majoring in Pre-Biology to become an athletic trainer. “I have gone through so many injuries that I would like to help student athletes to overcome their fears and be able to recover from their injuries like I did with Ms. Rasul’s help,” she said. “She is the one who inspired me [to become an athletic trainer].”