658...Danger In Sports

Football season is now in full swing in all countries that give a damn about the sport, the NAFTA 3. It is a little over 8 years since Korey Stringer, a 305 pound lineman for the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL died of multiple organ failure caused by heatstroke on a day when the temperature was Wayne Gretzky degrees at 11 30 in the morning.

In Post 608...My Third Favourite Sport Is Cheerleading I wrote about the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, an American organization that indicated that cheerleading was the most dangerous sport for women in both college and high schools by a margin of ten. This same organization tells Sports Illustrated's Selena Roberts that in the last decade there have been 28 heatstroke deaths in the States among football players including 6 last years.

This is f'ing crazy.

The big reason seems to be that football coaches, particularly at the lower levels, use water or deprivation of water, as a weapon, a punishment tool.

An example thereof is a case going to court on the 31st of August in Louisville, Kentucky. The defendant is Jason Stinson who is charged with reckless homicide in the death of 15 year old Max Gilpin. August 20th of 2008 Mr. Gilpin collapsed and died while being punished by running gassers with his Pleasure Ridge High School teammates after a not so productive practice. His coach is alleged to have denied Mr. Gilpin water according to witnesses who spoke to the Louisville Courier-Journal.

WFDS

608...My Third Favourite Sport Is Cheerleading

I love it because it is so dangerous.

You scoff but facts is facts my friend, facts is facts.

Cheerleading is the cause of 65 per cent of catastrophic injuries among female high school athletes according to a study published in the most recent annual report from the National Center For Catastrophic Sports Injury Research which shares a home with the national champion University of North Carolina Tar Heels ballers in the Triangle.

Cheerleading also is the cause of 70 per cent of catastrophic injuries among university athletes in the NCAA.

In the years surveyed, 1982 to 2007, there were 109 fatal or catastrophic injuries to cheerleaders at the high school level. The number two sport for fatal or catastrophic injuries was gymnastics at 9.

Let those numbers sink in.

109 cheerleaders f'd up super bad; 9 gymnasts.

109 to 9.

A study in the journal Pediatrics says that the high rate of injury can be tied to the simple truth that cheerleading has grown "...from a school spirit activity..." into applied gymnastics.

Plus it is done without pads and often with coaching that, on a good day, is suspect.

Schools such as Nebraska, which was stung with a 2.1 million dollar judgement against it after a Cornhusker cheerleader ended a double back flip on her head, resulting in partial paralysis, have banned gymnastic routines and things like pyramids.

Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cheerleaders.

WFDS