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The softball coach was working with another player and had his back turned to his daughter. She played on the team and warmed up throwing with teammates while the coach worked with hitters. The coach heard "Allison's been hit." He didn't see her fall or the throw that hit her in the head. He saw the welt above the eye but, hey, that's softball. It's a bump on the head. You gotta be tough. "Do you want to try to play?" Allison's dad asked.
People with a lot more common sense than the coach overrode him. The coach's wife took Allison to the hospital, where doctors said she suffered a mild concussion. She did not play another softball game for two weeks.
The idiot head coach was me. My daughter got concussed and I had no clue how to handle it. Seven months later, I still feel ashamed, embarrassed and frighteningly uninformed. The point? This would not have happened if every organization had the foresight of Carm Roda and the Westport Police Athletic League.
Roda has instituted mandatory concussion training for all Westport PAL coaches. It is costly, but worth it. "The most important thing is to protect the children we're coaching,'' Roda says. "They're our greatest assets."
The Westport PAL is far ahead of the curve on this one. The organization was the second one in the nation to mandate concussion training for football coaches. Roda expanded it to all sports in the Westport PAL program because concussions can happen any time, anywhere. It's nice to know PAL coaches know the appropriate response.
Another softball player on Allison's team suffered a concussion last weekend. Her parents tried to let her play through it. She couldn't, of course, and will be inactive for a while. I let her parents and their daughter know that concussions are serious business. Stop, rest, don't rush back to the field, I told them. Hey, I'm learning.
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