After more than 35 years of recording history in the newspaper business, stories have a way of taking on a kind of déjà vu quality.
A family loses a loved one and it becomes their mission in life to see to it no one else has to face the same tragedy. The details change but the end result is always the same, always just as life changing and every bit as heartbreaking.
I felt that way as I listened early this week to Kathy Haugen relive the night she watched her son Taylor, a junior varsity football player for the Niceville (Fla.) High School eagles, take a hit to his torso as he jumped to catch the ball in a game against rival Fort Walton Beach.
Taylor managed to make it to the sideline that night but it didn’t take Kathy long to figure out something was terribly wrong. She could see it in her boy’s eyes.
As he was being whisked away in an ambulance, she called her husband Brian, a National Guard lieutenant colonel who was deployed to Mobile, Ala., with the news.
“I’m on my way,” he told her.
Doctors operated all night trying to fix Taylor’s crushed liver but it didn’t do any good. Patching Taylor’s liver was like trying to sew Jello.
The next day the Haugens made the hard decision to take Taylor off life support. He was just 15 years old.
It was August 2008, the beginning of the Niceville, Fla., football season, the end of Taylor’s life, and the start of what would become Brian and Kathy Haugen’s life mission: educating and equipping high school football players to protect themselves from abdominal injuries.
No one knows for sure just how many high school football players suffer serious abdominal injuries because reporting has been inconsistent. But injuries to the liver, spleen and kidneys do occur, and they can have devastating results.
The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North Carolina reported seven high school football injuries between July 1 and Oct. 5 this year, two from abdominal injuries.
A few years after Taylor’s death, his parents discovered that while the NFL and many college players were wearing rib protectors, back plates and other extra padding, but high school players didn’t have that option. Players who might warm the bench on game night but take hits during practice runs were particularly vulnerable.
The Haugens wanted to change that. They formed the Taylor Haugen Foundation and the Youth Equipment for Sports Safety (YESS) program, the only nonprofit organization in the United States that focuses exclusively on protecting middle school and high school athletes from internal injuries. So far they have outfitted more than 3,000 players in seven states and more than 50 schools across the country.
That includes Johns Creek High School, where more than a 100 players were recently outfitted with EvoShield's Protective Rib Shirt, a compression garment with custom-molding rib pads formed specifically to each individual player's body and is proven to reduce injury.
Based in Athens, EvoShield was founded in 2006 by four University of Georgia alums who played sports at UGA and professionally. They created the gear because they realized players today were bigger, faster and stronger, and they didn't see anything available on the market to guard against the hard hits players were taking.
"EvoShield is now changing how football is played," said Jason Holcombe, athletic director at Johns Creek High School. "Instead of worrying about their equipment, our players can focus more on playing. EvoShield's protective gear adapts to the athletes, instead of the athletes having to adjust their game to the gear. Our players now feel like they are safer to take to the field."
Terry Rogers, executive director of the Marietta-based non-profit Georgia Athletic Coaches Association, said he occasionally hears about a Georgia player getting a spleen injury, but for the most part, abdominal injuries have not been on his radar as a safety concern.
But in just the last two months, abdominal injuries have been blamed in the deaths of two high school football players. Evan Murray, a star quarterback at Warren Hills Regional High School in New Jersey collapsed and died in late September after taking a hit on the playing field. The medical examiner's office ruled the player died from massive internal bleeding caused by a lacerated spleen.
Last week, Thomas Jakelich, a 16-year-old sophomore at Loyola High School in New York, died just hours after an on-field collision during a varsity soccer match.
For years, the risk of concussions and heat stroke have haunted parents of athletes, young and old. The Haugens believe abdominal risks should be added to the list.
“If we can help better protect just one more student,” said Brian Haugen, “we will have accomplished our objective.”
