HIGH LIFE : A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Football Injured 35% of High School Players, Study Shows

Thirty-five percent of high school football players suffered injuries last school year, according to a 1988-89 study by the National Athletic Trainers Assn., which compiles statistics on high school athletes.

Among the group’s findings, which are reported in the September issue of Better Homes and Gardens:

* The injury rate for wrestlers was about 30%.

* About 23% of basketball players--boys and girls--were injured.

Most injuries were minor--those that sideline an athlete for less than a week--and 70% of them occurred during practice.

“Romeo and Juliet” is the most widely assigned literary work in public high schools, according to The Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, State University of New York-Albany, and reported in the September issue of NEA Today, the paper of the National Education Assn.

Shakespeare’s classic drama was assigned reading in 84% of the schools. “Macbeth” was read in 81% of the schools, followed by “Huckleberry Finn” and “Julius Caesar” (70% each), “To Kill a Mockingbird” (69%), “The Scarlet Letter” (62%), “Of Mice and Men” (56%), “Hamlet” (55%) and “The Great Gatsby” and “Lord of the Flies” (54% each).

Placentia resident Leland Riker, 18, an El Dorado High School graduate, has been awarded a full scholarship by the Houston School of Ballet and is attending the school until June. He has danced in a number of local civic ballet productions and with companies in Milwaukee and Oakland as well as in two movies.

“Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.”

--Shakespeare (1564-1616)