Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports
 | Simon & Schuster, 2008, Hardcover |
|---|
Amy Steadman was destined to become one of the great women's soccer players of her generation. "The best of the best," Parade magazine called her as she left high school and headed off to the University of North Carolina. Instead, by age twenty, Amy had undergone five surgeries on her right knee. She had to give up the sport she loved. She walked with a stiff gait, like an elderly woman, and found it painful to get out of bed in the morning.
Warrior Girls exposes the downside of the women's sports revolution that has evolved since Title IX: an injury epidemic that is easily ignored because we worry that it will threaten our daughters' hard-won opportunities on the field. From teenage girls playing local soccer, basketball, lacrosse, volleyball, and other sports to women competing at the elite level, female athletes are suffering serious injuries at alarming rates.
The numbers are frightening and irrefutable. Young female athletes tear their ACLs, the stabilizing ligament in the knee, at rates as high as eight times greater than their male counterparts. Women's collegiate soccer players suffer concussions at the same rate as college football players. From head to toe, female athletes suffer higher rates of injury, and many of them play through constant pain.
Michael Sokolove gives us the most up-to-date research on girls and sports injuries. He takes us into the homes and hearts of female athletes, into operating theaters where orthopedic surgeons reconstruct shredded knees, and onto the practice field of famed University of North Carolina soccer coach Anson Dorrance.
Exhaustively researched and strongly argued, Warrior Girls is an urgent wake-up call for parents and coaches. Sokolove connects the culture of youth sports — the demands for girls to specialize in a single sport by age ten or younger, and to play it year-round — directly to the injury epidemic. Devoted to the ideal of team, and deeply bonded with teammates, these tough girls don't want to leave the field even when confronted with serious injury and chronic pain.
Warrior Girls shows how girls can train better and smarter to decrease their risks. It makes clear that parents must come together and demand changes to a sports culture that manufactures injuries. Well-documented, opinionated, and controversial, Warrior Girls shows that all girls can safeguard themselves on the field without sacrificing their hard-won right to be there.
Title: Warrior Girls: Protecting Our Daughters Against the Injury Epidemic in Women's Sports
Sales Rank: 28366 in Books
Author: Michael Sokolove
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2008-06-03, Hardcover, 320 pages, ISBN: 0743297555
Package Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches, 1.3 pounds
- the Walking wounded...vs Its all in the game...
- Girls/women wreck their knees EIGHT TIMES as often as boys/men in team sports.
Are you stunned by that? I am. DOnt let your daughters become athletic has beens by 18 and candidates for knee replacements because of poorly designed and monitored training. This book shows what is an overwhelming need for girls and women to train smarter, rather than tougher,… More reviews
- Good First Step on Important Subject
- Heard the author on Dr. Oz's radio show and purchased the book, as a result. Overall, the book was an interesting read, but it was often redundant. The title suggests that a wide range of sports would be covered, but the author primarily discusses soccer and basketball. As the parent of a competitive figure skater, I have noticed injury "epidemics" in this sport,… More reviews
- Warrior Girls
- This book is highly recommended to all the young ladies and their parents involved with soccer. It is very interesting to learn that we have all forced these new expectations on what we all believe is necessary to succeed. It would be doubly interesting to hear from the Mia Hamm's and Brandy Chastain's of this world as to what our girls should be doing realistically since it appears… More reviews
- Not enough prevention information
- Unfortunately, the book is mostly comprised of anecdotal stories and interviews which the author uses to convince us that there is a problem with ACL injuries in women's athletics. There are about three pages in the end that suggest solutions to this problem. The author himself seems conflicted as to whether the problem is truly over-participation in a single sport or just a factor of the number… More reviews
- Wish I'd found this book 6 months ago
- My daughter recently tore her ACL playing soccer at the club level. She was a freshman in HS, at the time. I wish I had come across this book before that fateful day and not a month after.
Warrior Girls is well-written, well thought out, and well-researched. The first chapters are grim with cautionary tales of promising female athletes… More reviews
