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Liability claims have forced football helmet manufacturers to
make their products even safer, according to Sports Illustrated.
The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research reported
that for the first time in 60 years no high school or college
football player died from a head or spinal injury in 1990. The
number of young athletes killed while playing football has remained
low in succeeding years. There were three deaths in 1991, two
in 1992, and four in 1993, according to Professor Frederick Mueller
of the injury research center.
These death totals, while nevertheless still too high, stand
in stark contrast to the 36 deaths as recently as the 1968 season.
Mueller attributed the decrease in football-related deaths to
the improved safety and design of football helmets and a rule
change that prohibits head-first contact. He noted that high schools
and colleges adopted football helmet safety standards in 1980
and 1978, respectively.
Two other points bear mentioning. Mueller acknowledged that it
was somewhat ironic that the number of football-related deaths
is decreasing at the same time that high school and college players
are stronger and faster than ever before. It also is noteworthy
that President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 considered banning football
because of the number of players killed. It is not known precisely
how many players were killed in the early part of this century
since records were not kept, said Mueller.
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