You do NOT want me covering your kid's HS football game

So with the end of the season - since for some reason, I never tend to be assigned postseason games - I've looked back over the year and realized what a weird trip it's been.

Let's say I covered 10 games. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's in the 9-11 range. In five of those games, someone's been seriously hurt.

In Week 3, a kid suffered a neck injury and had to be airlifted from a nearby parking lot. (He ended up being fine.) A few weeks ago, I was waiting to interview a coach after the game; all his kids have left the field except one, who's laying on his back. He's conscious and knows the basics of the moment - the day, where he's at, what his name is - but beyond that, he's gone. He had a doozy of a concussion. Last week, a kid injures his neck with :54 left in the game; the coach bolted early and the former AD didn't have any details. He was loaded onto a gurney and taken to an ambulance.

And that's to say nothing of a game I saw last season: Home team is trailing. Visiting team has penetrated deep into home team's end; drive stalls and they're forced to try a field goal. On the third down play, a kid from the home team - he committed to a I-AA school, so he's no slouch - breaks his leg. Long delay as an ambulance is called. As they're waiting and this kid is laying on the field, a cold front moves in and it gets nasty - pouring, windy and a lot chillier. By the time the visitors line up, the field goal - makable in normal conditions - is a lot more challenging. They miss. While it wasn't the game-deciding play, it did turn the momentum.

So am I just bad luck, or have you guys noticed an increase in serious injuries?

 

it's you

 

I'd be more concerned with why I never get assigned postseason games.

 

So you're the one...

 

You're costing those kids scholarships!

 

And they try just as hard as everyone else, too!

 

I don't think there's an increase in injuries, I think there's an increase in the reaction to the risk of liability for injuries. Last year I saw the ambulance at more games than I had in the previous 20-something years of my playing/working life. "Just in case" was always the answer from coaches.

Kid got AIRLIFTED from the parking lot and he turned out to be fine? That's one hell of an overreaction. Yes, if it was my kid, yadda yadda. But if the ambulance comes out every time there's a kid with a singer, things are getting out of hand.

That might be worth a trend story.

 

Please go cover a Tim Tebow game...

 

Tremendous.

 

it really was.

 

It really wasn't.

 

No. It was.