OT: Tragedy strikes the home town

[RUforJERSEY]

Young Linden football standout dies of apparent head trauma from Sept. 9 game

Sophomore Xavier McClain is the second Union County student-athlete to die this month

www.nj.com

R.I.P forever young man. 😔

 

[TM94goRU]

RIP. The parents should demand testing of the football helmets to make sure they are not refurbished. Semi-Pro football has tragedies like this, due to subpar equipment.

 

[jtung230]

RIP

so sad. My son is playing freshman football and news like this scares the crap out of me.

 

[gef21]

RIP

so sad. My son is playing freshman football and news like this scares the crap out of me.

It terrifies me. I am not necessarily scared of my sons to play the sport of football, but the amount of terrible coaching I see terrifies me.

 

[kupuna133]

It terrifies me. I am not necessarily scared of my sons to play the sport of football, but the amount of terrible coaching I see terrifies me.

I had to step away from coaching because of the lack of integrity and poor fundamentals taught. I tried to make changes from the inside but it was way too powerful of a force to overcome. And I saw it in contact and non-contact sports.

 

[gef21]

I had to step away from coaching because of the lack of integrity and poor fundamentals taught. I tried to make changes from the inside but it was way too powerful of a force to overcome. And I saw it in contact and non-contact sports.

My oldest is just starting to play youth sports, and it is very hard for me to watch bad coaches or bad programs.

 

[kupuna133]

My oldest is just starting to play youth sports, and it is very hard for me to watch bad coaches or bad programs.

Yea luckily the guys I directly coached with (my teams) took it seriously and taught proper fundamentals and sportsmanship. But the leaders of the association and different age groups did not have the same mind set.
It gets tougher when kids get older and you travel to other towns and see multiple generations of bad coaching and sportsmanship. I’m surprised we did not see more serious injuries in some sports with lack of correct form and fundamentals taught.

 

[brgRC90]

I had to step away from coaching because of the lack of integrity and poor fundamentals taught. I tried to make changes from the inside but it was way too powerful of a force to overcome. And I saw it in contact and non-contact sports.

This sounds familiar in a different context. Recently my brother and I tried to reorganize and clean up the kitchen at his church, which has a soup kitchen that feeds 100+ people every Saturday. It's a serious health hazard--the health department could probably spot 20 violations just walking in the door (rodent droppings, pots sitting on the floor next to brooms and mops, weed killer, exposed wires, dishes washed by hand with nothing to sanitize them, counters that are never cleaned with disinfectant, etc). The old hens in charge of the place actually resented the work we did, said we did too much too fast and were more interested in debating where the coffee cups go. People guard their little fiefs and don't accept criticism even when what they're doing is risking people.