High School Football Injuries and Deaths

With summer arriving soon, many students will be relieved to have a strenuous workload lifted from their shoulders. Football players, however, will be putting on shoulder pads. Many of them will soon be heading out to practice in the sweltering heat.

Summer means two-a-days for many football players: one practice, usually early in the morning and another practice in the full heat of the afternoon sun. As coaches and players do their best to prepare for the upcoming season, it is important to remember that safety should come first.

While deaths in NFL training camps make headlines, there are many college and high school level deaths that are not talked about. In 2009, Jason Stinson became the first coach ever to be indicted for reckless homicide in the death of one of his players, 15 year-old  Max Gilpin. A Kentucky jury acquitted Stinson, but the case has been widely controversial, prompting a feature-length story in Sports Illustrated.

As the world of high school football becomes increasingly intense, many coaches are adopting a win-at-all-costs attitude. Consequently, the line between winning and safety, between conditioning and cruelty, is getting more and more blurred. In the highly competitive world of high school football, many parents fear that coaches are not looking out for their kids’ best interest.

Michael Bergeron, director of the National Institute for Athletic Health and Performance said that four of five kids die every summer due to heat. However, Bergeron says that the deaths only tell part of the story. Countless heat-related injuries from summer sports are overshadowed by those in which players die,  says Bergeron, but these heat-related injuries remain a major problem in youth sports.

So what can coaches do? After all, football is a contact sport where some players dominate on sheer athleticism.

But does that mean that high school coaches should be acting like Bear Bryant or Vince Lombardi? Of course not. Instead, they should  back off a bit and realize they are coaching kids—young, impressionable kids who are often wanting to please at all costs.

According to ABC News, Jason Stinson often used peer pressure to push his players. Prosecutors allege that Stinson would deny them water and run them until they quit. Another report coming out of East St. Louis tells of a coach who mocked his players’ injuries until they were afraid to report them.  USA Today reports that coach Darren Sunkett required his players to perform full contact drills without pads and then ridiculed them when they complained of injuries.

According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Demond Hunt Jr., Hunt and another player were ordered to perform full contact tackles without pads. Hunt suffered a broken collarbone and the other player broke his neck (USA Today.) A few months later, Hunt suffered a permanent brain injury when he collapsed on the sidelines in a series of strokes and seizures. Sunkett had ignored signs of concussion. When Hunt complained of severe pain in the head, Sunkett told the linebacker to “quit playing like a little [expletive] and get out there.”

It’s likely that Hunt would not have suffered serious head trauma had his coach let him out of the game. But on a 7A state championship team, winning is everything. With the suit still underway, Sunkett is still coaching, and will be following one of his best players down to San Antonio for an Army Bowl among high school elites. There have been no other consequences.

The suit also alleges that Hunt was given an inadequate helmet without proper lining to alleviate the shock of being hit. These allegations raise another important point about football injuries—helmets.

While many football injuries can be irreversible, there are none so devastating as brain injuries. A Los Angeles law firm recently filed suit against Riddell on behalf of Edward Acuna after the eighteen year-old defensive tackle took a hit to the front of the helmet that left him severely brain damaged. Edward is now partially paralyzed and will require care for the rest of his life.

Surely, it’s a parent’s worst nightmare to have their child taken from them while doing something they love. Unfortunately, cases of football injury and death are becoming more common. If your son has been wrongly injured, please contact an experienced personal injury attorney.

High school football is often viewed as a proving ground for players, but parents, coaches and players need to remember that it is also a game. In the end, it’s how you play the game that matters. Camaraderie and character can be built safely, but a single-minded devotion to winning can put kids in danger that they didn’t sign up for.

–Steven Flores

once you start looking
snooki weight loss 6 People Who Turned the Tables on Government Surveillance