You Have to Pay The Price of Being an Athlete

© rumbum.com, Stephanie Ballesteros

Scotty Broome at Board Up Miami

As an athlete, you sacrifice many things in life. Sometimes you miss family time, you give up your privacy or even put yourself in dangerous situations. Anyone who plays a sport knows you’re prone to injuries and there’s no escaping it. It’s something that comes with the job: scars, cuts and broken bones. One common injury in sports is a torn ACL. The acronym ACL stands for anterior cruciate ligament. It’s a tear in one of the four ligaments that are crucial to the stability of your knee joint. To Australian wakeboarder, Scotty Broome, this was a huge blow.

The 24 year old has been a professional for about 6 years but has been wakeboarding for about 12 years. During his time wakeboarding, he has had two ACL reconstructions on his left knee. He recently recovered from his second one, “It’s been about 8 months since my second surgery so, I literally just started riding again.” After a year of resting Scotty has been focusing on getting back on a board, getting fit, healthy and just taking his time. He adds, “For me right now it’s all about being fit, healthy and strong. I would like to be able to ride in every event I can. Simply lots of training and lots of riding.” Not taking care of yourself could result in bigger consequences like completely blowing out your knee and even worse, something an athlete never wants to hear, “never being able to practice the sport you love.” So Scotty knew that it was crucial to his health to take time out, “When you’ve done it (wakeboarding) for 12 years and it’s your profession you have to take out this much time.” During his year off, he traveled around to different wakeboarding events, attended clinics and gave wakeboarding lessons. Now that he is fully recovered, he competed at Board Up, his first competition since being back, “At the moment every trick feels so cool and so fun because I haven’t done it for about a year.”

Scotty has devoted his entire life to wakeboarding and says, “For me its something I enjoy doing with my mates, I like the idea of being able to go out on a boat, hang out with my friends and listen to music. Spending a good day on a boat and having some fun.” but his favorite part is the fact that you never stop learning, “the possibilities for progression are endless so it’s always fresh.” As for now, Scotty hopes to attend every wakeboarding competition he can and hopes that was the last of his injuries. At least for a long time.