Schools accept blame

Player's death brings new rules

GREENVILLE -- Hundreds of hours of interviews with coaches, school staff members, students, parents and medical professionals led the Pitt County school system to the inescapable conclusion that Jaquan Waller should not have been allowed to play football the day before he died.

Dr. Beverly Reep, the school superintendent, acknowledged the district's responsibility while refusing to blame any one person at a news conference Wednesday. Reep announced immediate steps taken and recommendations to improve safety, vowed that the district would try to hire a licensed athletic trainer for each of Pitt County's six public high schools and expressed hope that the state would help.

"It is our intent to accept responsibility for the decisions that were made during the course of Jaquan's care in our district," Reep said. "That responsibility lies with all of us at some level."

Waller, a 16-year-old running back for J.H. Rose High School in Greenville, collapsed after being tackled during a game Sept. 19 and suffered severe brain swelling. By the next day, he was brain-dead and was removed from life support.

The medical examiner determined that Waller had died as a result of "second impact syndrome," a rare condition that can occur when two relatively minor head injuries occur within a short period. Two days before the game, Waller had suffered a head injury that was enough to get him sent home from practice.

At the time, he was examined by what the district termed an "injury management specialist" -- an assistant teacher named Bill Grimm who was not a licensed athletic trainer. Most concussion guidelines used by licensed athletic trainers call for an athlete to be symptom-free for at least a week before being allowed, with a physician's consent, to practice or play again.

But Reep had said, regarding Waller's practice injury, that the district wasn't aware he had suffered a concussion in practice until the medical examiner's report came out.

In her news conference Wednesday, Reep said that although Waller may not have needed immediate medical attention after being hurt in practice, he showed at least two signs of a possible concussion -- a headache and "what Jaquan defined as feeling woozy."

Reep added that Waller needed help getting to his mother's vehicle when she came to school to pick him up that day.

Reep said she had spoken with members of Waller's family Tuesday to inform them of the findings. She said she wasn't aware of any legal action by the family and, when asked about the possibility of a financial settlement, added, "We aren't there at this point."

Grimm has been suspended from his role as a "first responder" for athletic teams, and Reep declined comment when asked whether he would return in that role for J.H. Rose. The state does not require local schools to hire licensed athletic trainers, and Grimm was one of five first responders working for Pitt County Schools, which has dropped the "injury management specialist" label. Only one Pitt County high school has a licensed athletic trainer.

About half of North Carolina's public high schools employ licensed athletic trainers, compared with first responders, who have been trained primarily in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and first aid. In Wake County, 20 of 21 high schools use licensed trainers.

Reep said she has already had discussions with East Carolina University's athletic training program about a partnership that would bring graduate assistants who are licensed athletic trainers into the school district -- an idea ECU says it has been pushing for years without much more than a lukewarm response from Pitt County. It would be a much cheaper alternative to hiring licensed athletic trainers who are already in the workforce.

"That's one of the areas I would like us to be more aggressive," Reep said.

Beyond Pitt County, Reep said, momentum is building for a new state law requiring licensed athletic trainers at every high school -- and the funding to accomplish that, even with help from the N.C. High School Athletic Association.

"I anticipate something coming up, I really do," said State Rep. Douglas Yongue, a Democrat representing Hoke, Robeson and Scotland counties.

Yongue, chairman of the appropriations committee and a member of the education committee, said the issue "is worth taking a look at" but that coming up with the money would be tough.

"We've got to start ranking priorities, and to me, this would be one," he added.

The News & Observer reported in June that the NCHSAA is worth at least $18 million, including an $11.5 million endowment that it isn't allowed to spend, executive director Charlie Adams reiterated Wednesday.

"It is not the responsibility of the association to fund athletic trainers or other people in the schools," said Adams, whose organization runs conferences and state championships. "Everybody thinks we have a pot of gold here, and we're getting many, many suggestions about how to spend funds that we don't have."

"That's peachy," Reep said, "but we're out here trying to make it every day."

Late last month, Adams said the NCHSAA board of directors would look for ways to distribute interest revenue from the endowment and to find money in the operating budget to give to schools.