Injuries Are The Part Of Football We Hate To See Happen
I’m sure by now many of you are aware that football players from St. John Vianney and Marlboro High Schools suffered serious injuries during their games on Friday night. There is no reason here to go into details of those injuries except to say the best we can all do right now is offer our thoughts and prayers to Aaron Von Trease and AJ Schwartz along with their families, teams and school communities.
Of course when something like this happens it will always bring up arguments about the dangers of a contact sport like football. Players running into each other even at half speed can certainly result in serious injuries and even if there is little or no contact players can suffer major knee and leg injuries. It is the nature of the sport that these things occur and while safety concerns have been addressed on all levels football is and likely always will be a contact sport.
As someone who played it 50 years ago and has followed it ever since high school football is a much safer sport today than it was back in my high school days when schools did not have certified athletic trainers and often you were taped and treated by an assistant coach or even “friend of the program.” If you got hit and were a bit woozy then someone would break open an ammonia cap and stick it under your nose and once you said you were fine it might be back in the game. Those things don’t happen today and the athletic trainer is the one who makes the decision whether or not you can still play. As for equipment….well everything is light years ahead of what was used in the 70’s and 80’s and all for the sake of safety.
Whether or not a young athlete plays football or any other sport involving contact is at the end of the day a family decision. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to this but remember that every sport comes with some risk of injury. As one who feels strongly in the value of athletics I believe the rewards outweigh the risks but I know a couple of families who may disagree with me.