8-year-old dies during football practice

http://www.comcast.net/articles/sports-general/20090805/Player.Dies/

This usually happens more at the high school and college level.
Obviously, it didn't give the whole story, how hard the practice was, how much water the kids were allowed to drink, if the kid had some sort of medical issue, etc.
I can see tough Batan Death March-type practices at higher levels, but what good does it do to run 8-year-olds, most of whom have never played football before, into the ground?
Maybe it gives the coaches a chance to show how tough they were when they played, but do the kids really care about that?

 

What makes you think they were running the kids into the ground?

 

What do you think happened?

 

There's really not enough detail in the story at all to determine the boy's cause of death, like what smallpotoatoes said.

Terrible, though.

 

Do you always paint in broad strokes?

 

Anything could have happened. The story doesn't provide enough information to draw the conclusion they ran the kids into the ground.

 

The most likely scenario is that the child had a pre-existing, undiagnosed issue. I guess teh "Run them into the ground" thing is posssible, but it just doesn't seem likely.

 

Kid could have some medical condition, could have been hit wrong, could have asthma. My experience is that youth football players aren't run all that much but it's possible on the first day the coach could have had them running.

 

That appears to be a different kid. This one is 12.

 

Sadly this might be another player. It lists his age as "12" .

 

Oops. Sorry.

I deleted the post, which I should have been more careful about. Looks like two youth football deaths early this week, which is what threw me as I scanned. I wasn't expecting that, thinking I was reading another story in a series of links about the same boy.

Sad. My condolences to both families.

 

More often than not an undiagnosed pre-existing condition is the cause for a practice death.

But it's always more fun to paint all football coaches as sadists, so don't let me rain on your parade.