Concussions are a common occurrence in football, and not just at the college and professional levels.
In an effort to better identify impacts to the head that could cause concussions, The Sherwood Foundation has supplied every Omaha Public School District high school with new football helmets.
The helmets are equipped with head impact monitoring technology that Omaha South High coach Chris Fant says will alert coaches and trainers to hits that could be potentially dangerous. "If a kid has sustained a blow to the head, it send us an alert that he probably needs to be looked at."
Fant says that the helmets will help him and his staff to have a better idea about what is going on at the bottom of a scrum. "You only have so many sets of eyes on a football field and what this is allowing us to do is have eyes on every single kid without having our physical eyes on them. You can't see eleven kids at a time."
The helmets' sensor system monitors the front, top, back and both sides of the head. Fant says having these helmets will help them better identify who could have sustained an injury, even when the payer says they are fine. "It allows us to not just go up and say, 'Hey are you okay?' Now we can say, 'Hey you need to go see the trainer and make sure you're alright."
Fant says he is incredibly thankful for the new equipment. "Some kids in other areas of our city, they may not feel like they always get as nice of things as some other kids do. You're not getting a better helmet than this and now showing up with the same amount of equipment no matter whether you're South, North, Benson, any OPS school. We are equipped just as good as the rest. That shows the coaches, the players, the parents, the community that people are invested in what we're doing.They want to see our kids have the opportunity to do big things, I think that's great."