Professor and player speak about the danger of the contact sport
Headlines declaring highschoolers dead after playing football have recently sparked questions and outrage regarding player safety regulations.
In New Brockton, Alabama, 14-year-old Semaj Wilkins collapsed at football practice and later died at the Enterprise Health Center. The Coffee County coroner said it was a medical emergency, but the exact reason has not been made public.
In Selma, Alabama, 16-year-old Caden Tellier was severely injured after being tackled during a game. A day later, at the University of Birmingham hospital, Tellier passed away from a head injury that resulted from the tackle.
“First, your thoughts and prayers go out to the families and the communities these players were a part of,” said Dr. Robert Mathner, the assistant director and professor for the School of Hospitality, Sport and Tourism Management. “Your first thoughts from a practitioner’s perspective are, ‘was there anything that could have been done to prevent those types of injuries or deaths?’”
Mathner acknowledges all the details of each case are not released. He explained in these situations, it’s important for athletic organizations to look over every incident and see if anything needs to be changed.
“I think, in general, every state has particular rules and statutes, and in some cases, even laws regarding high school athletes,” Mathner said. “Any time you have an incident, it gives a lot of school districts pause in terms of reviewing their protocols.
“It always gives the opportunity to review those types of situations to make sure there isn’t anything from a negligence perspective.”
This is something Mathner thinks athletic organizations should already be doing on a regular basis to prevent so many incidents like these from occurring.
“We should be making sure we’re utilizing the best practices in the industry to minimize opportunities where students can get injured,” Mathner said.
Football is known to be a physical sport. Mathner thinks it’s important for people to understand there isn’t anything that can be done to eliminate all the physical risks when being an athlete.
“All you can do is try to minimize the risks by putting in good policies and procedures and having effective risk management plans” Mathner said.
One Troy University student, who used to play football in high school, agrees with Mathner.
“You feel really bad for these players and their families, but I think it’s just a risk athletes of any kind are willing to take,” said Shaun Higgins, a junior business major from Opelika, Alabama. “You know it’s going to be hard on your body, and you just try to do everything you can to not get hurt because at the end of the day, we’re all just hungry for the win.”
However, on the collegiate level, Mathner said there are more resources to better prevent certain injuries and incidents.
“They have more resources to be more proactive and prevent some of those things.”
Mathner does acknowledge major injuries and incidents have happened in sports on the collegiate level, and they still happen.
“Over the years, student athletes have passed away from heat-related and traumatic injuries in all of the divisions,” Mathner said.
Mathner is not saying there was any negligence done by the coaching staff for Wilkins and Tellier. He thinks the close-to-home situations can be a lesson and a precautionary tale for other athletic organizations.
Along with Wilkins’ and Tellier’s cases, there have been five cases around the country this year where football players have died due to participating in the sport.
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