My youngest son finally gave up football this year (his upcoming junior year) ... to focus on baseball. I didn't want him to do it to focus on baseball (kid's brilliant ... isn't going to be making his money playing a sport), but I'm glad he did it, regardless. We didn't see the severe injuries you saw, but we saw consistent injuries ... every week a couple kids would drop. Knees and heads were the primary injuries, but they ran the gamut. And we have a top program in the area - our JV squad won every game, most were over by half, and our Varsity program is always top notch, so it's not like we were throwing terrible, unfit kids out there who didn't know what they were doing, and they'd just get hurt. And there's no real way to protect yourself from any of this ... other than not participate. Most are freak occurrences.
My son was decent ... didn't have the size/speed combo to be a standout ... he also didn't have that "I don't give an eff about my personal well-being" attitude you need to be really successful at football. There's a kid who is the son of a "hometown hero" - guy who was apparently a big man on campus football player in high school, but never did anything with it beyond high school, but now he's heavily involved in the program, as a parent. Anyway, you can tell the kid is being pushed to be a "tough guy." Kid takes a huge hit, is wobbly, and the dad tells him he's fine and get back out there. Kid's grabbing his shoulder and is told to get back out there. That was in youth football, when he helped coach. There was one time the boys were at a camp for baseball ... the kid somehow fell off a bunk in his sleep and hurt himself. He told his dad, who told him he was fine. He played a couple games over the next couple days and was still in pain, so at the end of camp, they decided to stop by an urgent care. Turns out the kid had a couple broken ribs. But the running "joke" is that it's not a football game unless this kid stumbles around after at least a couple plays. He's a demon out there - aggressive. He's been trained.
There's a kid on the squad who is the son of a local college legend. The dad's situation is unique, in that he overcame a ton of adversity, and actually chose not to focus on pro football (I believe an injury played a huge part), instead moving toward another career option (getting a graduate degree), even though football is what helped him get out of his troubles. So, you'd think the dad would be pretty focused on the kids' academic, not athletic, options, as they're pretty well set, and the kid isn't having to struggle to make it in life. Anyway, now that the kid is playing, the dad just keeps talking about how important football is to growing up right. How it teaches you so many life lessons. Meanwhile, his kid keeps getting head injuries. Year after year. It got to the point where I'm not sure he played in the regular season last year, because he suffered a bad head injury, and the rumor was, he finally was told by medical professionals he couldn't play football any longer. I believe he's back on the team this year. He isn't some monster can't miss kid ... he's got some talent, but he was still going to be JV last year, and probably won't be a starter this year, if healthy. Yet he's out there.
Tiger Illustrated
SUMMER UPDATE: Sammy Brown
Tiger Illustrated
CLEMSON FOOTBALL AUGUST CAMP: Additional scrimmage nuggets
Tiger Illustrated
CLEMSON FOOTBALL AUGUST CAMP: Saturday Night Scrimmage Nuggets
Tiger Illustrated
Takeaways from Clemson's first scrimmage of August camp
Tiger Illustrated
CLEMSON DEFENSIVE BACK SUFFERS SIGNIFICANT INJURY