Tragedy in Sports: Is Danger Just Part of It?
I’ve only seen the replay of the crash that killed Dan Wheldon once.
I don’t care to see it again.
The 15-car pile-up that took the IndyCar driver’s life Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway was painful to watch. Cars flipped and spun. Metal crunched. Fire plumed. The 33-year-old father of two suffered blunt force trauma to his head that ultimately killed him.
The incident spurred a conversation Monday between myself and Gina Mizell, one of our Oklahoma State writers.
Which would you be more likely to approve of your child being involved in: auto racing or football?
Football has its dangers, including short-term and long-term injuries. Psychological issues involving former pro and college athletes have become a hot topic in the sports world, as well they should be, but there is still so much we don’t know about those types of problems. Beyond that, there are hundreds of kids playing football in youth leagues that lack adequate medical oversight. Yes, there are ambulances and athletic trainers at most every high school game. But what about elementary-school tackle-football leagues? The costs of having such medical personnel there are prohibitive, but the dangers still exist.
Would I want my child (or brother or nephew or friend) playing football with such risks?
As we tragically saw last week with the death of Edmond North High football player Ryan Smith, football can cost players their lives.
The same, unfortunately, goes for auto racing.
A story like Wheldon’s resonates because he was an IndyCar champ, but death and injury happens in the sport at all levels. Even at the smallest of tracks, medical personnel are present, but sometimes the crashes are so severe that there’s nothing that can be done.
Would I want my child (or brother or nephew or friend) racing cars with such risks?
Perhaps the biggest difference between football and auto racing is that injuries in football are more frequent but injuries in auto racing are oftentimes deadly.
Frankly, both sports are scary. There are risks that everyone who plays football or races cars accepts as part of their sport, but as Gina pointed out when we were talking, there are risks in every day life that we have to accept. Any of us could step outside today and get hit by a bus.
Risk is part of living.
So, my answer to our original question of which sport I’d be more likely to allow my child to participate in is both. You can never eliminate the risks in anything that you do. You can only manage them. And as long as that was done as well as humanly possible with proper safety equipment and medical personnel on hand, I would approve of either sport.
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