A question for any of you who played High School football: Would a broken nose be enough of an injury to keep a starter on the sidelines?
Thanks,
LCA
A question for any of you who played High School football: Would a broken nose be enough of an injury to keep a starter on the sidelines?
Thanks,
LCA
During the game when it broke or the next game?
No for the next game.
During game, depends on bleeding, breathing, pain, vision, concussion, etc.
The injury would have happened several days before the first game of the season. The big question was would it keep him out for more than one game, so you've answered it.
Thanks!
LCA
The old rule of thumb was, were you sensible (i.e. could you walk in a straight line, more or less). Since the recent discoveries about concussions have begun to come to light (last 10 years), it's now, how likely is the student to have suffered potential brain damage, which is a much lower, and hard to determine bar.
The use to tell you "walk it off" and if you couldn't, you were sidelined. Nowadays, it's more 'will we be sued in another 10 years for a bad decision now?', since no one's quite sure at what stage damage occurs. This is countered by athletes who want to take the field and who'll argue with the team's doctors/coaches. Essentially, mixing my metaphors freely, the goalposts keep moving on the subject.
From what I understand, at the moment it's a combination of the force of the injury, where the injury occurred (i.e. whether the head was snapped back or directly hit) and their current mental functioning. For something like bleeding, it also includes 'will he continue bleeding on the field', but that's a separate issue.
Anecdotally, in High School I broke my nose during a game and sat out the remainder of the game. I played the following week.
Same kind of thing happened with me but it was in the middle of the first quarter of first district start in varsity my junior year. My helmet came off in a pile and running back tried to run right over me when he saw the helmet fly. Top of his helmet me my nose and it broke nicely.
But my dad was a doctor and he came down out of the stands to check on me. He asked me if it hurt and I said yeah but the problem was I couldn't breathe very well. So he set it right there on the sidelines while I was biting down on a towel. He did the old "Okay we do it on three. One." Then snap I heard the crunch and I grunted into the towel but I could immediately breathe better and the blood had also stopped.
Start of second quarter, I went back in the game with a new chinstrap because the one I started with had broken snaps. The team manager had completely reset the snaps and pulled out a brand new chinstrap and had it almost perfectly adjusted by the time I was ready to go back in the game.
What I actually remember the most was the look on my dad's face when he looked me in the eyes after finishing and asked me if I wanted to go back in. I smiled grabbed the helmet from the manager and did final adjustments. He smiled took a couple of steps backs and told the team doctor I was cleared to play.
I don't remember how I did that game but I do remember his grin of half smile and half pride when I told him I wanted back in the game.