Watch Out for Those Kids

By now most of the people in the world must have seen the video clip of 4-year-old Caden Thomas being tackled along the sidelines by the massive George Hill. Thankfully all reports have come back negative for brain injuries and other forms of damage that may have otherwise occurred had it not been for the quick thinking and foresight of player George Hill. For those not familiar with the incident, Hill was running a route for an end zone touchdown at a spring football festival at Colorado State when he after catching the ball he looked down to see he was headed straight for young Thomas who had wandered away from his father. In those few seconds, Hill had the presence of mind to drop the ball and wrap his arms around the boy to soften the blow. Still, the laws of physics tell us about how when a larger mass runs into a smaller mass at greater speed, there is bound to be some dangerous results. No doubt Hill will remember this lesson for a long time to come. Still, it brings up the point about safety in and around the sports we love to watch.

All too often it appears that the lot of us, the sports fans and freaks out there, tend to check our brains at the door and then get surprised when something out of the ordinary happens. How many times have you been watching a baseball game and see a game-ending catch get blocked by an overzealous fan reaching over the wall to nab what will undoubtedly be an out? In recent days incidents like this have led to the players loosing their cool and taking it out on the spectators, or at least the pizza slice that the spectators have in front of them. Is it fair to blame the athletes for their frustrations? Well, not exactly. In many of these cases, the interference comes from younger fans who are eager to get their hands on a foul ball which in these cases are a fair ball. I remember watching the Orioles and Yankees in a playoff game a few years back and seeing them robbed of a potential game-ending out by a fan who put his glove in front of the Oriole's glove along the back wall to rob them of a crucial out. It was an incident that forever cemented my ire against the Yankees.

That kind of interference is understandable since the kid may not have as much on the line as a player. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to be playing for your paycheck and having your performance being stymied by the very fans you are coming to entertain. Similarly, George Hill had the potential to make a difference in his game by catching a touchdown. In the annals of sports history it probably wouldn't have been remembered by very many people after this week but due to the 'interference' of little Caden, Hill will probably enjoy a bit more noteriety. Still, this incident does bring to light the necessity of having some rules and regulations be more strictly enforced with regard to spectators at sporting events. There are some sports that are inherently dangerous; chief among them is auto racing. In cases like this it is obvious that during the race, you don't want kids to go wandering about the track without keeping them under constant supervision. And even then it's rather dangerous to have them down in the pits or garages in the first place.

The same logic should apply to parents who bring their kids to events like a football game. While the sidelines can be relatively safe places, and while it may be even safer if your team is one that never makes a catch let alone run into the end zone, but it's definitely not a place for you to bring a kid and then leave them standing on their own. There are some out there who are blaming this incident on the sport itself for being so rough and out of control; there are others who are blaming the security guards for allowing the kid onto the field into the first place and there are still others who are blaming the father (and rightfully so) for bringing the kid there and then allowing him to walk around. Thankfully it turned out that Caden is all right and that he hasn't seemed to have suffered any major injuries but supposing he had been killed.

Had something that tragic occured then we would be hearing calls from all over the country for football to be banned. We would be hearing calls to have George Hill arrested and charged with murder and Caden's father being charged with accessory. We would be hearing endless debates on how sports safety needs to be increased. We would hear all these things where the only thing we should be hearing is the most obvious. When you're taking responsibility for a kid in a dangerous place like a football field, you take care of the kid. Whether you have to carry him in your arms or hold his or her hand, you don't let the kid go wandering off. If anyone is to be blamed for the incident it's Caden's father. I'm sure he's going to be dealing with this for a long time and I'm sure he won't ever let Caden out of his sight again for a long long time, but still, it shouldn't have happened in the first place. As it stands, Caden is all right and, as he relates, 'got bonked in the head with the football.' It's better to hear that he merely got 'hurted' rather than something more serious.