The concussion protocol remains a priority at Southwest Licking Schools

POTASCALA, Ohio — The injury to the Miami Dolphins quarterback on Thursday, Tua Tagavailoa, does not start a conversation. It continues alone.

“I think it’s something we should talk about every day,” Southwest Licking Schoolsaid assistant athletic director Jeff Severino.

Severino was a former head football coach for 36 years.

“In high school, they changed it a little bit,” he said. “When I first started coaching … if you had a head injury, you’d come out, put it down, and then we’d bring you back in.”

Now he’s grateful that safety has become a top priority.

Heather Mansell, an athletic trainer at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, is the district’s first line of defense. Mansell has been the district’s athletic trainer for the past two years.

Her work, she knows, is not always popular, but it is necessary.

“Sure,” she said. “I think part of the job is that kids get mad at me sometimes, and that’s okay,” she said. “They want to play.”

Over the course of two years, she estimates she has disqualified more than a dozen students from the competition because of possible concussions. She lends Ohio Return to Play Law it was enacted in 2013, allowing coaches to suspend players from practice or play if they suspect a concussion.

“I know kids who have had concussions and they’ve been depressed [and] other mental issues,” Severino said. “If you don’t take care of it, or if you put them back before they get healthy [or they] get that secondary concussion that just makes things a little worse.

Mansell said she knows high school sports are a big deal because many players are scouted or have college scholarship opportunities, but she hopes athletes from pee-wee to the pros take these situations seriously.

“I think it’s also important for the players to realize that they have so many kids looking up to them and they have to follow that protocol just like my high school kids have to follow that protocol to get back into the game.” , she said.