13-year-old dies of soccer injury, 7th young player to die this month – National
A 13-year-old West Virginia football player died Saturday after suffering a head injury during football practice, making him the seventh youth football player to die in the United States this month alone.
Cohen Craddock was an eighth-grader and defensive player for the Madison Middle School football team. During a practice on Friday, Cohen hit his head while making a tackle.
After colliding with other players, Cohen got up, walked a few steps and then lost consciousness. He was taken to hospital with brain bleeding and swelling. His oxygen levels were low while he was in the ambulance, his father said.
The next day, Cohen died, just three days after the first day of school.
“You wish it was a bad dream that you could wake up from,” said Ryan Craddock, Cohen’s father.
In an interview with NBC News, Craddock remembered his son as “Mr. Personality” with a “heart of gold.”
“He was very, very smart. He excelled in math, loved technical stuff and was very good with electronics and computers,” Ryan said, adding that his son hoped to become a computer engineer. “As a father, I couldn’t have been prouder.”
The Boone County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a Facebook post: “Losing someone at such a young age is heartbreaking and our entire community feels the weight of this loss.”
“Today we are all Madison Middle School Redhawks,” the post said.
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School district superintendent Matthew Riggs said counseling and other mental health support would be available to Madison Middle School students, staff and faculty as the community mourns Cohen’s loss.
The 13-year-old’s father plans to work with the school to teach young players to wear soft-shell helmet covers, called Guardian Caps, as part of their regular equipment.
“I’m willing to accept the loss of my boy to protect the other boys,” he said. “I don’t want anyone else to have to go through what we’re going through.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up in Cohen’s memory to raise money for Guardian Caps, and has raised over $3,000 so far.
Cohen’s death comes amid a troubling wave of deaths among young football players. In August alone, at least seven students died from football-related injuries.
On the same day as Cohen, a 16-year-old Alabama high school quarterback also died. Caden Tellier is believed to have suffered a brain hematoma after being tackled to the ground during a Friday night game.
A week earlier, on August 14, two high school football players died: Ovet Gomez-Regalado, a 15-year-old from Kansas City who collapsed during practice, and Junior Leslie Noble, a 16-year-old lineman from Baltimore who also collapsed during practice due to heat stroke.
Two other students died on August 13. Semaj Wilkins, 14, was hospitalized after collapsing during football practice. The cause of death is not yet known, but when he passed out, temperatures in Alabama were above 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Robert James Gillon III, 15, died at his Florida home one day after football practice, complaining of chest pains.
On August 5, a 15-year-old from Virginia died after collapsing from heat stroke during a training session. Coaches poured water and ice on Javion Taylor’s body to cool him down, but the 15-year-old died in the hospital shortly afterward.
California lawmakers recently proposed banning tackle football for children under 12 to prevent brain injuries, as advocates call for stricter regulations on contact sports. The Concussion Legacy Foundation strongly recommends that parents do not enroll their children in tackle football until they are 14 years old.
“Research shows us again and again that the long-term effects of repeated brain trauma from tackle football can be catastrophic,” the organization states.
A 2021 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that young tackle football players suffered 23 times more severe head impacts during games and practices than flag football players. Tackle players suffered an average of 378 head impacts during football season, while flag football players suffered only eight head impacts.
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