Rialto High School sophomore Thomas Macias reflects on the challenges of overcoming a serious injury that derailed his freshman wrestling season and how he's using it as motivation to come back stronger.
By Valerie Macias
As athletes grow older, the fear of injury is always in the back of their minds. For Thomas Macias, a sophomore at Rialto High School, that fear became reality in 2023 when a serious injury disrupted his freshman year. What should have been an exciting season turned into a tough battle, challenging his strength both physically and mentally.
Macias started wrestling in 7th grade after a friend asked him to join the team at Jehue Middle School. He says he began taking wrestling seriously when he joined Threshold Wrestling Club the following year. This commitment fueled his growth in the sport, pushing him to train harder and set more ambitious goals for himself.
However, everything changed just a month before he started his freshman year at Rialto High School. Macias was sparring at the wrestling gym when his opponent grabbed his legs, lifted him up, and slammed him to the floor. As soon as he hit the mat, his coach immediately told him to stay down and not move, noticing the injury before Macias even realized what had happened.
Macias explains, “I had put my arms out to cushion the fall, which you’re not supposed to do because it can hyperextend your arm, causing your elbow to pop out or in, and that’s exactly what happened to me.” He adds that he didn’t feel any pain for the first 15 minutes, but when he finally looked down at his arm, he knew something was wrong.
Initially, the coaches thought Macias had simply dislocated his elbow and planned to pop it back into place, but when he got to the hospital, the diagnosis was far worse. The doctors told him he had broken a piece of his elbow off and would need surgery to insert a screw to keep the joint stable.
Macias started his freshman year with a scar and a brace to support his elbow. Four months later, his elbow had fully healed, and he was able to return to wrestling. Though his constant fear of re-injuring it kept him from returning to his wrestling gym, he was still excited to see what his freshman wrestling season had in store.
However, all his excitement disappeared when constant pain began to flare up in his elbow. After a visit to the doctor, Macias discovered that the screw inserted to stabilize the joint was the source of the pain and needed to be removed. Following another surgery, Macias was told that he would most likely be unable to wrestle for the rest of the season, having only competed in three matches.
It only took Macias a month to recover from surgery, but he was advised not to finish his season due to the lack of strength in his arm and the risk of re-injury. Macias says, “After the surgery, I felt like my arm was weaker.” Accepting that his season would end prematurely was tough, but he knew it was necessary to avoid further damage and ensure a full recovery.
Macias believes that those 8 months had an impact on his ability to wrestle. He states that during that time, he could have improved and polished his technique at Threshold Wrestling Gym and would have started his freshman season much stronger than he did. The time away from the gym left him feeling behind his peers, making his comeback more challenging than he had expected.
Emotionally, the injury impacted the way he saw himself as a wrestler, with the constant question of whether he was good enough lingering in his mind. He felt as if he had fallen behind due to the months of training he had missed and struggled with the sense that he wasn’t progressing like he should have. Being out for the rest of the season without competing only deepened his frustration and made him question his place on the team.
As the upcoming season approaches, Macias is working hard to make up for lost training and is determined to make it to the podium despite the constant reminder of his injury. While the memory of his injury still lingers, he’s using it as motivation to push himself further and prove that he’s capable of overcoming any setback.
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