Jaquan Waller's Responsibility In High School Sports

Responsibility is a toss up between people not wanting to take control of one’s actions. A current ethical and cultural debate is the issue of who should be held primarily responsible for reducing concussions in high school sports, the parents, coaches, equipment manufacturers or with the school administration. In the video, Big Hits Broken Dreams by CNN, the superintendent of the school system in Pitts county said she felt some responsibility for Jaquan Waller’s death in the fact that the school system could have implemented programs to protect the players. At the same time, the coach of the team felt as though he was responsible, because he let Waller continue to play on the field even though a certified athletic trainer had not checked him

Previously stated in the paragraph before, it can be noted that both the coach and school administration feel responsible, and even the parent of Jaquan Waller stated, “I feel as the mother that I could have done something different (CNN, 2012).” Due to the fact that the blame is not placed with a certain group of individuals, everyone feels as though they cab help reduce concussions. Not one group should be responsible, keeping in mind that the parents may tell their children to tackle with the head first, while the coach is telling the players to tackle with their hands, making it impossible for the blame to be solely on the coach. When all groups work together for a common issue, concussions, the results will be greater than if just one group was, i.e. the coaches. In NC, as well as some other states, a certified athletic trainer and EMS must be on the field at all times, this shows that all groups are working together to reduce concussions. The helmets can only protect so much, “helmets can slow down the impact (CNN, 2012),” therefore all parties are responsible in making the players aware of the dangers of concussions and having people that are professionals in sports medicine be on the field as a precautionary measure. As for the cons of this debate, parents won’t be able to get closure for lost lives or permanent damage done to players, due to the responsibility not being placed on one group, also if there were faulty helmets made, the responsibility would not be placed with the equipment manufacturers because of this debate. As far as closure goes, placing the blame on someone or something often allows a person to feel as though they have some sort of closure from the results of a concussion, whereas placing no