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Pop Warner Football Blowout Yields Five Concussions, Coaches Since Suspended

With all the information that has been learned about concussions in recent years, particularly in football, it's become an increasingly pertinent question: Would you let your child play football?

Well, some Massachusetts parents are probably regretting their decision to do so, as five Pop Warner football players, all between 10 and 12 years old, suffered concussions while losing last month 52-0, according to The Boston Globe. The Tantasqua Pee Wees came out on the losing end of the game to a team from Southbridge, and may have lost more than a game in the process.

The fallout of the incident has been very serious. All five of the children who suffered concussions missed at least some
time from school, and at least one has yet to return to the field.

As for the adults involved, the coaches of both teams have been banned for the rest of the season and placed on probation for 2013, at the discretion of Central Mass. Pop Warner. All three officials working the game have been banned from the league for life, and even two league officials — who attended the game but did nothing to intervene — were also suspended. Those two officials were a brother of one coach and the wife of the other.

Worse yet, staff members with medical training actually evaluated the children but did not consider their conditions to be serious. They were allowed to return to the game and continue playing while concussed, and their head injuries were only diagnosed after the game.

Moreover, the Southbridge team should never have been allowed to run up the score, as a mercy rule was simply not enforced, leading to at least one more concussion.