Update: As of Oct. 30, there are 12 injured Sammamish football players
The ongoing injuries to football players at Sammamish High School continue to cause game cancellations with school officials now re-evaluating the rest of the team’s season.
Between 19 and 22 Sammamish football players have been injured this season, more than halving the team’s roster.
“Although the team started the season with 36 players, the current roster has 14 to 17 players,” said district spokesperson Christina Madden. “This small team size impacts the team’s ability to compete when injuries are incurred, leading to the team being unable to field an appropriate number of athletes for safe competition.”
She added that she could not go into specifics on what types of injuries students had received due to student privacy.
“That is actually a crazy number of injuries,” said Don Bartel, head coach for Eastlake High School football in Sammamish. Out of the more than 70 JV and varsity football players on his team, four are currently out for the year. Two of them started the season with injuries from other sports or seasons, he said.
“Of those four guys, three are sophomores and we are chalking that up to physical development/maturity issues,” Bartell said. “Other than that, our guys are just dealing with the everyday bumps, bruises, and soreness of a KingCo football season.”
On the other hand, Redmond High School Athletics Director John Applegate said that the number appears larger due to the small starting size of the team.
“To say that at any one time that we haven’t had 20 kids out with injuries isn’t implausible, but we also have 90-some kids out for football,” he said.
Mercer Island coach Brett Ogata said his team was also experiencing more injuries this year.
“We had 30 kids play against Bothell. Of our 22 seniors, only six have not missed any time. Usually, that number is only one or two seniors by this time [of the season]. This year, it’s 16,” he said.
Earlier this month Sammamish cancelled the Oct. 9 game against Liberty, the Oct. 16 game against Interlake and the Oct. 23 game against Lake Washington.
Administrators told the Reporter on Oct. 28 that the Oct. 30 game were cancelled, but that the Nov. 6 game — the last of the season — will still be played. Their opponent will be determined by the outcome of the Seattle Prep and Chief Sealth game on Oct. 30, and team not advancing to the post-season will play Sammamish on Nov. 6.
Although the district previously cited both injuries and illness as the cause of the cancellations, Madden said the health issues are injury related.
Nationally, injuries, mainly to the head, have been linked to the deaths of seven high school football players this year, including Kenney Bui of Evergreen High School near Seattle.
“To an extent, I think everybody’s dealing with more injuries because we’re cautious than we used to be with head injuries,” said Applegate.
When asked what types of preventative measures the district is taking regarding football injuries, Madden said the district has policies and procedures like annual reevaluation of the system for evaluating concussions and training to recognize the signs and symptoms.
The school is researching scheduling options for next year, administrators said in a letter to the Sammamish High School community.
