By Jesus Cortez, Staff Reporter
A lot of athletes have been told at some point to “leave it all on the field.” Historically, top competitors have become legends by overcoming incredible odds or playing through pain. But glory often comes at a cost, and for athletes at the highest levels, pushing their bodies to the brink can mean extended time away from the game.
For college athletes, lost time is particularly critical, as they have limited opportunities to compete before their eligibility expires. In addition to recovering from physical injuries, they may also face the emotional challenges of anxiety and uncertainty. This can make the road to recovery seem a lot longer.
Men’s basketball guard Za-Ontay Boothman is eager to return to the court. For the better part of the past year, the senior from Buckeye, Arizona, has been recovering from a shoulder injury. The Toros posted a 22-5 record and shared the CCAA Regular Season Championship last year, but Boothman was sidelined before the start of the NCAA Div. II Tournament.
Since then, he’s watched as a redshirt to preserve his final season of eligibility. If there’s a silver lining to Boothman’s injury, though, it’s the time he’s had to reflect on his eventual return to the Torodome. As a redshirt, he can still train and stay involved with the team.
“Injuries can give you a hard time mentally,” Boothman told The Bulletin. “I have seen it happen, but for me personally, I went into my rehabilitation very open-minded and optimistic, and I carried that throughout the whole process for sure.”
Boothman is pragmatic about his recovery, over the past eight months, has learned to approach the process one day at a time. He said he’s feeling healthy enough to be on the bench.
“I have had shoulder problems a few times- I’ve commonly popped out my shoulder but I always come back stronger,” said Boothman.
Andreas Forslund has seen a fair share of injuries during his time as the squad’s assistant coach. The team’s chemistry was a key factor in their success last season, and Forslund knows that keeping a positive atmosphere is essential for their championship hopes this year.
“Injuries are always going to mess with your mind—you get taken out of your routine and now you’re just going from one day to the next, sitting on the couch or laying in bed for four weeks,” Forslund said. “It is a tough thing for the team, because you don’t know if you’re going to come back as good as you were.”
Graduate guard Alex Garcia can relate. In 2021, a car accident further aggravated an undiagnosed injury to Garcia’s hip—a bone fragment was slowly tearing at the cartilage.
“I was driving my little brother to practice one day, and a dude ran a red light and hit me on the driver’s side of my car and tore the cartilage even more,” Garcia told The Bulletin.
The nature of the injury made recovery a frustrating ordeal. Garcia said he had to visit three doctors before one was able to identify the problem.
“If they had known what it was right away and performed the surgery, it would have been much better,” Garcia explained. “It’s infrequent for basketball players to get this injury, and they still don’t know how it happened.”
The time away from basketball had an adverse effect on Garcia’s mental health. Some days he just didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he would spend hours alone staring at the ceiling of his room and thinking about the game he had dedicated so much of his life to.
Like Boothman, Garcia approached rehabilitation with intention. He began with what he called “weird workouts” that avoided using his hips. Garcia eventually made his way back to the Torodome, only to suffer another setback—a broken sesamoid bone in his big toe. His recovery was much shorter—about two months—during which he focused on his faith to stay motivated.
Although getting injured again so soon was demoralizing, Garcia said he pushed himself through the experience.
“Let’s say you were working on a doctoral dissertation, or a book for a whole year that was hard and took you a long time, and then somebody deletes it the night before you submit it to a publisher—that is what it felt like,” Garcia explained.
Injuries are an expected part of college athletics but long-term, extensive injuries have been rare during his career at CSUDH, Forslund said. He, Garcia, and Boothman all credited the trainers at Toros Athletics for helping student-athletes stay healthy, conditioned, and ready for competition.
“Our trainers have definitely pointed us in the right direction to get help,” Boothman said. “They got me in touch with a physical therapist, so I would definitely say the university has an adequate level of getting us help.”
