In a rather astounding statement filed in court by attorneys for the NCAA, the ruling body for student athletics in the United States has ‘denied its legal duty to protect student athletes’ all the while claiming to have been “founded to protect young people.
Of course this is all just a blatant attempt by the powers that be at the NCAA to cover their collective butts and protect the association from massive lawsuits which are already in the pipeline and headed for a major collision with college athletics as we know them today.
When Frostburg State football player Derek Sheely received a fatal head injury during a summer practice back in 2011, his family filed suit against Schutt Sports, which manufactured Derek’s helmet, the three coaches involved, who reportedly continued the head to head contact drill even after Sheely was carried off bleeding for the forehead… and the NCAA itself.
Had the Sheely family not included the NCAA in their suit, things might not be so hot for Mark Emmert and his associates at the NCAA Commissioner’s office but, it was bound to happen at some point. The long overdue attention and focus being given to how the game of football (especially) physically and mentally affects the guys down on the gridiron banging into one another at high speeds and unpredictable angles had to come to light at some point.
Football head coaches and their often overly enthusiastic assistants must also be called to task for some of the damage that has been done to football players over the years. It has been documented time and time again that head coaches actually encourage players to hurt their opponents whenever and however possible.
I still remember playing junior high school football and having one of our coaches telling us just before a big game that one of the linemen on the opposing team had a bad corn on his left foot and suggesting that we might want to step on it as often as possible. I was 14 years old.
But such is the mentality of the game that we love so well and it’s been going on since the games inception way back in the 19th century. So it came as no surprise that the Sheely family lawsuit claimed ‘utter incompetence, egregious misconduct, false hope and a reckless disregard for player’s health and safety”.
In 2010 the NCAA revised its rulebook adding that each school must create a policy to handle player concussions but, to date, no school has been investigated or punished for violating the rule.
