Jasper, my oldest, is a big kid. He’s ~200 pounds and is almost 6 feet tall. Even as a freshman he was a big kid and people thought he was much older than he is (I think it might be the beard…). But, on the football field he’s not the biggest, not by a long shot.
As a freshman he was on the JV football team and looked forward to his first scrimmage. Unfortunately, a player on the Serra team head butted Jasper to stop him from continually getting to the quarterback. That head-butt gave him his first concussion.
That guy was a helmet taller than Jasper and thus head-butted him from above Jasper’s head. [As a side note: I think these kids think the helmets and pads make them invincible, but they aren’t, not by a long shot!] Jasper was out for two weeks and he and the coaches decided to move him down to the freshman team.
Later in the season, Jasper sustained another injury and was laid out flat by a dirty hit, blindsiding him. As he lay on the ground, not moving, all I can think of, as I am standing helpless on the sideline, is that I’d like to clock that other kid. Not that Jasper shouldn’t play football; not that football is a dangerous sport; but, man, I want to hurt that kid, teach him a lesson about clean play. It was a total momma bear moment.
When the coach (or medic, I’m not sure exactly who it was) told Jasper while he was still lying on the ground, not moving, that he was being pulled from the game, he shot bolt upright and yelled an expletive. The coach took him out of the game. No arguing. The coach continued to keep him out of the remainder of the game even after Jasper tried to argue that he was fine, that he could go back in, that he was rarin’ to go! “Put me back in coach!” To the coach’s credit, the answer was an emphatic “No!” Better safe than sorry!
It turns out Jasper was lying there, stunned at first, but then stayed there out of frustration, not because he was hurt. I didn’t know all of this until much later, so I’m thinking that Jasper, as talented an athlete as he is, might be done with football 6 games into his freshman year.
A few weeks later at a Boy Scout meeting, the boys were playing basketball, goofing around really, and Jasper slipped and fell and clocked his head on the old, very hard and not springy, wooden gym floor. That concussion hurt much worse than either of the two hits Jasper sustained in football. Thankfully, kids are resilient. Thankfully, kids heal quickly.
Unfortunately, we don’t know what the long-term effects of concussions are. Will these kids have mush brains like boxers? Will they have early onset Alzheimer’s as they turn 50? What will those far-reaching consequences be?
I am not sure what the long-term consequences will be, and I had a very animated discussion with a dear friend over it recently. But we let our kids keep playing football because they love it. We’ve gotten them the best helmets possible and they are learning proper tackling techniques. And mostly, we let them keep playing because concussions can happen no matter what they are doing, whether it is from playing sports, skateboarding, bike riding, snow boarding, driving, or playing basketball at a Boy Scout meeting.
