Media overplays HS football deaths and downplays deaths in other sports

[BPsTheMan]

...or "downplays" is not accurate. The media completely whitewashes deaths in sports that aren't football.



So you think football causes the most student-athlete deaths per year across the country? Guess again.  Football was fourth on a list according to data from the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research.  The group at UNC compiled data from 1982-2011. and the results may surprise you


https://www.sportsafetyinternational.org/what-are-the-deadliest-high-school-sports/



In the past two decades, there were 282 deaths as a result of high school football, or 14.1 annually. This year there's been seven, about halfway through the season. In short, the rate of football deaths has remained completely constant.

The chances of dying during a high school football game have also always been absurdly low. 1.1 million high schoolers play the sport every year, so even if the rate of death doubled overnight, they'd have about a 0.00001% of dying before the season is out. In fact, high school football isn't even the deadliest high school sport; it's less dangerous than water polo, softball, and field hockey, and roughly as dangerous as lacrosse.

What then justifies all the sudden media attention? It should go without saying that every sporting death is a tragedy, especially when the victims are so young. But hundreds of high schoolers die every day of equally tragic causes and fail to make front pages and television screens across the nation. Why should football be singled out?


http://www.mediaite.com/online/media-coverage-of-high-school-football-deaths-is-sensationalism-at-its-worst/

[HiggiePiggy]

Football is singled out because of pro football. Seeing the effects of concussions in the nfl. All those other sports ahead of football aren't talked about because the popularity is no where near the same.

[BPsTheMan]

Football is singled out because of pro football. Seeing the effects of concussions in the nfl. All those other sports ahead of football aren't talked about because the popularity is no where near the same.

so the media overplaying the football angle is the excuse for the media overplaying the football angle

got it

[hogsanity]

Unless I have lost the ability to read, there were still more deaths in HS football than any other sport, maybe all other sports combined. I realize they were talking about deaths per # of players, but still far more deaths in football.

The real question is how many of the deaths in any sport were a direct result of injury? I mean people die while playing just about every sport, usually due to un-diagnosed heart conditions, but how many as a direct result of injury during a game ( I did not look at all 73 pages of the report ).

The safety question in football though has almost entirely focused on head injuries and the lingering consequences, not on fatalities due to game injuries. Just last week at our local HS, the head trainer had to call multiple players parents to tell them their kid had suffered a concussion, and this was just the 1st week in pads. No one seems to care anymore about how many ACL's get torn, or shoulders dislocated, it is all about the head injuries.

[The OTR]

Unless I have lost the ability to read, there were still more deaths in HS football than any other sport, maybe all other sports combined. I realize they were talking about deaths per # of players, but still far more deaths in football.

The real question is how many of the deaths in any sport were a direct result of injury? I mean people die while playing just about every sport, usually due to un-diagnosed heart conditions, but how many as a direct result of injury during a game ( I did not look at all 73 pages of the report ).

The safety question in football though has almost entirely focused on head injuries and the lingering consequences, not on fatalities due to game injuries. Just last week at our local HS, the head trainer had to call multiple players parents to tell them their kid had suffered a concussion, and this was just the 1st week in pads. No one seems to care anymore about how many ACL's get torn, or shoulders dislocated, it is all about the head injuries.

that's not what the above link says

[EastexHawg]

Unless I have lost the ability to read, there were still more deaths in HS football than any other sport, maybe all other sports combined. I realize they were talking about deaths per # of players, but still far more deaths in football.

The real question is how many of the deaths in any sport were a direct result of injury? I mean people die while playing just about every sport, usually due to un-diagnosed heart conditions, but how many as a direct result of injury during a game ( I did not look at all 73 pages of the report ).

The safety question in football though has almost entirely focused on head injuries and the lingering consequences, not on fatalities due to game injuries. Just last week at our local HS, the head trainer had to call multiple players parents to tell them their kid had suffered a concussion, and this was just the 1st week in pads. No one seems to care anymore about how many ACL's get torn, or shoulders dislocated, it is all about the head injuries.

I have had numerous concussions in my life and it has been decades since I played organized football.  I can think of two that came from football.  I also knocked myself silly jumping a ramp on a bicycle, getting knocked into the corner of an open door by my 280 pound friend, and from the hood on a 1966 International Scout flying open and hitting me hard enough to leave the imprint of the top of my head in it.

Have I slipped mentally?  Some people would probably say so, but not that I can tell.

Newsflash:  No one lives forever.  We're all going to die.  Excuse me if I'm skeptical when I hear about a guy who ingested all kinds of steroids and controlled substances committing suicide or otherwise dying and his demise being instantly attributed to head trauma from football.  I know at least three ladies who have died from dementia/Alzheimers and as far as I know none of them ever played middle linebacker or broke up the wedge on kickoff returns.

[hogsanity]

I have had numerous concussions in my life and it has been decades since I played organized football.  I can think of two that came from football.  I also knocked myself silly jumping a ramp on a bicycle, getting knocked into the corner of an open door by my 280 pound friend, and from the hood on a 1966 International Scout flying open and hitting me hard enough to leave the imprint of the top of my head in it.

Have I slipped mentally?  Some people would probably say so, but not that I can tell.

Newsflash:  No one lives forever.  We're all going to die.  Excuse me if I'm skeptical when I hear about a guy who ingested all kinds of steroids and controlled substances committing suicide or otherwise dying and his demise being instantly attributed to head trauma from football.  I know at least three ladies who have died from dementia/Alzheimers and as far as I know none of them ever played middle linebacker or broke up the wedge on kickoff returns.

There is risk in anything, no doubt about that. And, as usual, the pendulum always swings to far. We have gone from a " walk it off " mentality to a " oh man you got your bell rung you have to sit in a dark room for 3 weeks " reaction. Was the head injury risk underplayed for decades, I think so. Is it now being overblown, I think there is no doubt about that either.