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My 11 yr old son loves baseball and is pretty good. He is left handed, throws hard, and throws strikes. 2 weeks ago, he was at the first all-star practice of the season. While diving for a ball, his left arm gets caught under him and he ends up with a partial tear of his UCL (elbow). Needless to say, baseball is over this year.

He goes to physical therapy everyday and wears a large bulky brace on his left arm. He figures with baseball over (he still attends practices and games, just can't play) he can still work-out for football (running, leg workouts). Out here, middle school football is a huge deal.

Earlier this week, he loses all the sense he was born with and goes to a friends house with his buddies. They all decide to climb on a Ranger (very large quad) and ride around. Needless to say, they roll it and my son's right arm gets pinned under the quad and breaks it.

While at the ER, reality does not sink in until I tell him I am not wiping his ass!

Any other hard luck/injury stories would be appreciated so I can pass them along to him.

Tell him not to drink for hours straight and then lackidazically venture up a poorly lit street towards the local bar scene, only to fall 4 feet down INTO an uncovered construction site on a sidewalk.

Always pay attention, have your wits about you, or at least go with a buddy.

Where is "out here" again, Slappy?

Springfield, USA

GGB - Western PA

He had to sit through watching his team get bombed last night (not that way Seth).

Slapshot, I had a similar thing.

While I was in college, I delivered ice crea (in tuxedo tails) for Steve's Ice Cream. One day I had to deliver to the athletic dorms to one of the Football players and his cute little girlfriend. He had both arms in casts and the casts were attached to a support that encircled his chest. As I left, she was spoon feeding him.

When I got back to the store I told the rest of the screamers what happened and said that that was true love. One of the girls said that wasn't true love, wiping his ass later was.

Convey to your son that injuries are a part of being an athlete, to keep his chin up and work extremely hard during his road to recovery. Speaking from recent experience, injuries are unfortunate but sometimes they can also be a blessing in disguise.

For your son in particular, the injury(ies) occurred at the tail end of the season. This will provide him with plenty of time to focus on the many of the aspects of being a youth-athlete that typically are ranked low on the priority list. (strength, speed and agility, conditioning, etc.)

My advice to you would be to have your son begin to keep a daily training log which consists of anything training related. Simply have him jot down, (or have him describe to you, for you to jot down) what activities he completed throughout the day. In the beginning allow the activities to be random but as time passes begin the formally structure his activities and introduce some activities into the program that you feel he would benefit by from doing. Obviously your son will have limitations on what he can currently accomplish but there are many exercises that he can be doing that “Daddy coaches” either are not aware of or simply don’t think about. The biggest buzz in sports training continues to be speed and agility and visual acuity training. Speed and agility exercises can be accomplished with something as simple as having him straddle next to a line on the ground and rapidly jumping side to side across the line. Then change it up by jumping and forward and backwards on the line. Visual acuity exercises can be as simple as widening his eyes and rolling them clockwise and counterclockwise for about 30 seconds in each direction. OR randomly post the letters of the alphabet, (or numbers) on a wall, have him stand about 3 feet from the wall while another person quickly flashes a beam of light from a flashlight to a letter / number. Have him recognize and point to the letter / number as quickly as he can. Speed up the process for a bigger challenge. Conditioning: Have him WALK up and down the staircase to your home. Time him to monitor how many times he can go up and down in three minutes. After he begins to increase more and more trips up and down the steps, add sets to the routine.

In my opinion, the biggest factors when overcoming injury is; consistency in recovery training, (mentioned above), encouragement, (be involved in his recovery training. Check his training log on a daily basis. Have him take his log to his therapist when he is scheduled for a visit. Not surprisingly, once most therapists recognize the motivation their patient is displaying he/she will typically provide unsolicited helpful training suggestions. Finally, and most importantly, do not rush to get back onto the field. Being on IR sucks but if you what to hit the ground running following an injury take your time and train with a purpose.

Oh, … find somebody that can teach him how to lay out for a ball properly. The roll over injury should NEVER occur when executed properly.

Thanks for the stories and advice. Fortunately, his physical therapy is through a group that specializes with sports injuries and athletes (they are contracted with the school district).

His doctor has been telling him how skinny his arms are and he is strengthening his left arm right now. He will be given medical clearance in about 2 weeks for agility drills.

I will give the daily logs a try. Thanks again.