Athletes Navigate Physical, Mental Obstacles on Road to Recovery
Injuries are inevitable when it comes to playing sports. From a muscle strain to a season-ending injury, all bring physical and mental hardships.
Head athletic trainer and associate athletic director for students’ health and wellness Brad Bluestone said the biggest mental challenge is “the fear of going back to activity and being ready.”
“There’s always that block that they get when they have physically tested out right, but on the mental side getting over the initial injury,” he said.
Bluestone said he believes no matter the athlete, there is a good chance an athlete will struggle mentally or physically throughout the recovery process. “Everybody has their ups and downs with serious injuries. There are a lot of different places it can occur [ups and downs], but in general it’s fairly frequent. Just about everyone goes through something,” Bluestone said.
The Bellarmine athletic training staff is dedicated to get athletes returned to their sport. “The goal is to get you back out there. To get you back out there again. You’re going to have ups and downs but trust the process. It may not be going 100% smoothly all the time, but everyone is working in the same direction to try and get you back,” Bluestone said.
Bluestone has been an athletic trainer for 41 years and has seen many injuries. The mental and physical battles for athletes after a serious injury have remained consistent throughout his career, he said.
Paula Struck serves as a sports mental health therapist who gets to work directly with athletes and teams. Struck said the recovery process is like a rollercoaster. “The process of mental and physical recovery is not linear or congruent. Different situational and personal factors impact mental recovery from injury such as the context of the injury, the psychological trauma of the injury, and the perception the individual has of their resources and capacity to cope with the adversity,” she said.
The mental battles do not stop once an athlete is cleared to return to practice and competition. Struck said, “Research shows that medical clearance can increase anxiety for athletes as worry and doubts arise.”
Bellarmine women’s soccer player Haley Flynn is returning to her sport after suffering a season-ending ACL tear last year.
Flynn tore her ACL and medial and lateral meniscus in August 2025. She had a manipulation surgery due to her knee flexion not being able to go past 60 degrees. “I couldn’t bend my knee just sitting down in a chair,” Flynn said. “That pushed me back another three months.”
She said her biggest mental battle is learning to trust her knee again. “Sports movement is different than everyday movement, so trusting that I can run, and jump, and cut, and even get hit or going for tackles has been the biggest mental battle so far,” Flynn said.
Flynn said the recovery process is “weird,” but also said she is happy to return to her sport. “I am just grateful to put cleats on, be on the field and be back in practice.”
Trevor Geddes, a Bellarmine baseball player who suffered from a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament that will require Tommy John surgery, said hearing the news of having to get surgery was devastating.
“Obviously devastated at the time but once you let it sink in and realize how much of a blessing it is that it’s not a permanent injury and that you can come back from it helps,” he said.
Geddes said he’s mostly struggled with the fact that he, along with all athletes, sacrifices so much time and effort to be an athlete, and when injuries happen, it has an impact on the time he gets to spend around teammates, missed opportunities to travel and his contributions to the team.
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