Sports tragedies

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the threat to women’s athletics that Title IX poses, especially as it relates to policies around permitting transgendered individuals to compete with women.  And for both men and women, boys and girls, I have been a lifelong advocate for the benefits of participating in athletics.

Participation in sports promotes teamwork, discipline, promotes physical health habits and respect for your body, and forges lifelong friendships.  It teaches perseverance, resilience and how to perform under stress.  It often keeps kids from engaging in other, riskier behaviors.  A few years ago, when the Chicago Teachers Union went on strike in the late summer, football coaches urged them to settle---if kids weren’t on the football field, they said, they would start losing them to gangs.

But athletics are not entirely risk free.

College athletic programs in Chicago suffered three devastating losses in recent months, and two in the same program.   In January, Northwestern University lost Jordan Hankins, a talented sophomore on the women’s basketball team to suicide.  In March, a member of the men’s crew team at Northwestern University drowned in a canal where the team was practicing in a tragic accident when he fell overboard into the cold water of the North Shore Canal.  The circumstances of Mohammed Ramzan’s death are still under investigation.   And last week, a student volunteer at Wheaton College was killed when he was struck by a hammer at a track and field meet.  That incident is also under investigation.  Two out of those three deaths will likely involve litigation.

Football, of course, has come under scrutiny in recent years because of the residual effects of head injuries that have shown up in former NFL players.   Last year’s film Concussion raised public awareness regarding head injuries.   Schools, programs and the NFL are doing research, changing rules and coaching techniques and looking to technologies to make the game safer.  Despite these efforts, high school football participation in the sport has declined nationwide.   But football isn’t the only sport that is under scrutiny.   Soccer also has high rates of head trauma, and incidents of concussion in soccer and hockey are higher than in the men’s versions. 

In Chicago, we have become numb to the daily litany of news about youths being gunned down in gang and drug related activity or in the crossfire.   We assume that when we send our kids out to an athletic field, they are relatively safe.  These three tragic deaths of young people coming so close together are unrelated.  But they are a message.  We need to do more in every sport to keep them safe, mentally and physically.    These three deaths occurred in “safe” sports—basketball, crew, and track and field.  What parent could ever imagine that their son would be killed at a supervised track and field meet at a Christian college in a leafy suburb of Chicago?  There couldn’t possibly be a safer place for a young person to be.  But this tragic death happened, and shouldn’t have.  

A group that I have been following is Smart Teams (smart-teams.org), a not-for-profit dedicated to youth sports safety and best practices.  It has a knowledgeable team of contributors that advocate for youth sports leveraging science, medicine, and best practices, to keep kids physically safe and to rid sports of physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive coaches.  I urge my readers to follow this organization (@SmartTeams) and its contributors on social media and to contribute financially if you are able. 

In our tumultuous society, sports can be a real anchor for our young people.  But we need to make it safer, and that’s not just limited to football.    These three terrible tragedies are telling us that more needs to be done, and I applaud the work of the professionals associated with Smart Teams for their part in keeping youth sports  a truly “safe space.”