Dangerous Games: College Athletes at Risk of Injury

May 24, 2007 — -- With improved regimens and added training, it seems as if college athletes are getting larger and stronger with every passing year.

But as linebackers, power forwards and strikers increase their size and speed, some worry that they could also be increasing the risk of serious injuries on the field.

"I think the training of athletes is improving, leading to bigger, faster, stronger athletes," said Christopher Ingersoll, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Athletic Training and a professor of sports medicine at the University of Virginia.

"When you put these big, strong bodies in a situation where they're going to collide with each other and with equipment, these things are going to happen," he said. "Maybe we're playing a little rougher."

This week, sports medicine researchers gained a new tool to assess exactly how much rougher these athletes could be playing.

In a special spring issue of the Journal of Athletic Training, the National Athletic Trainers' Association and the National Collegiate Athletic Association released the largest ongoing collegiate sports injury database in the world.

The data covers injuries recorded in the NCAA Injury Surveillance System over a 16-year period, covering 15 collegiate sports.

The good news is that, as a whole, injury rates appear to be holding steady.

"It is a fairly level curve. There has been no significant increase or decrease over the years," said Randall Dick, one of the study's authors and associate director of research for the NCAA.

"Even though there has been an influx of people into intercollegiate athletics, we are still managing them well in terms of injury prevention," Ingersoll said.

But certain types of injury are still on the rise. And as young athletes train harder, becoming ever more competitive, some worry that the injuries they sustain could have lifelong implications.

Numbers aside, it is hard to dispute the notion that youth and collegiate sports today are more competitive than ever.