It’s the worst concern for any father or mother whose baby performs sort out soccer.
It occurs in varied communities all through the nation yearly, to high-school gamers. This week, Medrick Burnett Jr. of Alabama A&M died of a head harm he sustained on the sector final month.
Burnett, a redshirt freshman from Lakewood, California, suffered the harm on October 26, in a recreation towards Alabama State.
Via the Associated Press, Burnett died on Wednesday night time. He was 20.
And soccer life goes on, because it at all times appears to do. Few if any will determine to cease taking part in after they hear about Burnett’s passing. Most will reconcile it by saying, as Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa did final month, “There’s simply danger in any and the whole lot and I’m prepared to play the percentages.”
The NFL hasn’t had an in-game fatality since 1971, when Lions receiver Chuck Hughes died of a pre-existing coronary heart situation. In July 2009, then-Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer predicted a participant would inevitably die throughout an NFL recreation.
“The fact of the matter is . . . anyone goes to die right here within the NFL,” Palmer mentioned on the time. “It’s going to occur.”
It virtually occurred in early 2023, when a routine hit triggered commotio cordis for Bills security Damar Hamlin.
If/when it occurs, what’s going to occur to the NFL? Given that the demise of Medrick Burnett Jr. has been obtained extra like an afterthought and fewer like the key story it needs to be, those that play soccer in any respect ranges doubtless have a propensity to shrug, to treat the state of affairs as a fluke, and to maintain going.
That’s to not say anybody ought to cease. Everyone has the fitting to interact in a broad vary of dangerous behaviors. Many take far larger dangers than soccer gamers do, for a lot much less cash. (Hell, some pay good cash for the push of staring down severe harm or demise.)
The level is that, when it occurs, there appears to be little or no soul looking out or reassessing. As Joe Burrow mentioned after Tua’s severe concussion from late September 2022 towards the Bengals, “Part of what we signed up for. You’re gonna have head accidents. You’re gonna tear your ACL. You’re gonna break your arm. That’s the sport that we play, that’s the life that we stay and we receives a commission handsomely for it. I feel going into each recreation, we all know what we’re getting ourselves into.”
More than a decade in the past, as soon as the dangers of mind accidents turned clear and apparent, many assumed soccer would wither and die. Some within the media appeared to really be rooting for that to occur, twisting themselves in knots to tie any and each retirement to considerations about concussions.
And right here we’re. In late 2024, the sport is stronger than ever. The individuals who play it settle for the dangers. Even if accepting these dangers entails pretending to not discover when the dangers come to fruition for another person, within the worst approach potential.
