Recent deaths put spotlight on contact sports. Should kids be playing?

Scott Eveland, 34, uses a wheelchair and depends entirely on caregivers 24/7 to eat, bathe and communicate.

Seventeen years ago, he was a linebacker for Mission Hills High School in San Marcos. On Sept. 14, 2007, Eveland collapsed on the sidelines after sustaining a head injury.

It was his second head injury within a week. He had complained of headaches from a concussion sustained the previous week and asked to sit out the game.

“The trainer said, ‘You don’t have to play,’ but the coach overruled him and put him in,” said Diane Luth, Eveland’s mother. “And that was the last of the Scott that we knew.”

Head injuries continue to plague youth football. So far this school year, a middle school player in West Virginia and a high school football player in Alabama have died from head injuries.

An effort to ban tackling in high school football has been met with strong resistance. A state bill banning children under 12 from playing was scrapped earlier this year after Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would veto it.

However, the California Interscholastic Federation, the state’s governing body for high school sports, has implemented several changes in recent years to keep student athletes safe. These include limiting full-contact practices to two days a week and limiting practices to four hours a day and 18 hours a week.

And coaches are now better trained to look for signs of head injuries.

“I don’t think back then (when I was playing) people knew what’s going on and we just kinda played,” said Jon Goodman, the head football coach at Escondido Charter High School. He was a high school football player 30 years ago.

Goodman said the game is much faster because of technology like instant sideline replays, so the chances of kids getting hurt are greater.

“They know it’s happening faster,” he said. “So it’s even more paramount today that you educate the youngsters on what the proper technique, what the proper angles are.”

But technology is also making the sport safer. Goodman has used Guardian Caps — soft-shell helmet covers — during practice for the past 10 years. The NFL started using this technology this year.

He’s also using what’s known as “Riddell Insite.”

“There’s a sensor in the helmets that tell a reader how much the kids have impacted (in) a hit,” Goodman said. “And then that reader tells my athletic trainer, ‘Hey, you need to look at this youngster to see if he’s sustained a head collision.’”

Escondido Charter High parent Brian Fonseca used to coach Pop Warner football. He said the sport is safer than ever.

“We have a professional trainer on practice,” he said. “They’re waiting for things happening. If any kid gets hurt, nobody gets back on that field without the trainer giving the thumbs up.”

Daniel Melara, an athletic trainer from California State University, San Marcos, said there are risks to any sport, but there are also benefits, such as social skills, teamwork and leadership.

“In order for these young athletes to benefit from sports, they need to survive them,” he said.

Melara said there is a growing consensus that children should start contact sports later, but that research is still in its infancy.

“I think, at this moment in time, most brain science, if you will, will have a recommendation to start contact sports, or blows to the head, around 14,” he said.

But Melara said that’s a conversation parents need to have with the coaches and staff. He said a coach’s attitude influences how a team approaches injuries.

Eveland said his coach was to blame for his injury, which ended his dream of medical school.

“I think that the coaches need to do a better job listening to their players,” he said through his mother. “Make sure parents know this.”

Luth said she would still let her son play football if she had to do it over again. The sport was not the problem, she said. The coach was.

“Who’s watching your children? It’s really it,” she said. “The crux of it is who — because there’s great coaches out there. I wish Scott had had that coach.”

Eveland’s family sued the San Marcos Unified School District and settled in 2016 for $4.375 million.