Unfortunately there was a real ugly hit this weekend at the Aloha tournament at Blandair park. Kid on Clippers took a terrible hit to the head, was down for a fairly long time and did finally walk off on his own. Hopefully he is alright now. There have been a few ugly hits like this that have popped up over the spring / summer and now into fall. I thought this incident was handled well by the tournament trainers, coaches, etc. Referees also made the correct call to eject the player who laid the hit. For me the question becomes is there a way to deter these hits anymore than they already are? I am not sure what that would look like in terms of suspending players or what? Or is this just an unavoidable reality?
Just par for the course with the current age windows and enforcement.
It's a bogey with the over-agressive coaching. Perhaps there should be more pre-game warnings on this stuff but ejection and 3 minute non-releasable with a coach warning and coach ejection on the next one would put an end to it right away.
I think it's unavoidable, unfortunately. Even NFL refs with decades of experience often need slow motion replay to figure out if elite athletes who have been playing their sport for decades committed targeting vs making hard but legal contact.
I don't think it's realistic to expect youth lax refs making $75 a game and two to an entire field and a bunch of 15-year-olds to somehow perform to a higher standard.
Youth football places a lot more emphasis on concussion awareness and safe tackling so it would probably be possible to improve things somewhat, but I don't think you'll ever eliminate the risk entirely.
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