Our view: We hope for Scott Eveland's recovery, and greater awareness of brain injury

Scotty, we're pulling for you, too.

Ever since Scott Eveland, a popular senior linebacker for San Marcos' Mission Hills High School, inexplicably collapsed on the football field last Friday night, the ranks of those who know and love Scott have been joined by the thousands of us who have come to know of him only in this hour of need.

Calamities like this leave us all asking not only, "Why Scotty?" but also, "Why did it happen at all?" Answers to the former question are the realm of physicians and theologians. We can't answer the latter question either because we still know too little about what happened to even begin assigning causes and effects -- much less blame, which may never be appropriate.

Medical sources say the strapping young man suffered a brain injury, but many questions remain unanswered. We have, however, a teachable moment, with young athletes usually prone to thoughts of invincibility paying attention. We're happy to hear that many school administrators, coaches and parents are taking advantage of these unfortunate circumstances to discuss and review safety procedures and training for preventing serious head injuries.

We must convince our young athletes, especially the "hard hitters" so prized in football, that "getting dinged," or having your "bell rung," or feeling "foggy" after a collision could actually be the sign of a mild concussion. It's not just football: Athletes participating in boxing, hockey, wrestling, gymnastics, lacrosse, soccer and basketball -- not to mention action sports such as skateboarding, surfing and the like -- are all at risk of head injury.

Sustaining one concussion makes someone as much as four to six times more likely to suffer a second concussion. And medical evidence is mounting that a second concussion isn't twice as bad for the brain, but much worse. As the director of UCLA's Brain Injury Research Center told The New York Times earlier this year, "Repeated concussions -- it doesn't matter the severity -- have effects that are more than additive, and that last longer."

Our reporter Matt Null's informal survey of 10 North County high schools revealed that Vista High School alone had a policy in place requiring a player to sit out 10 days after suffering any kind of concussion. Officials from other schools said they usually require the player to sit out at least one game, sometimes two. But our local high schools should formalize what is an encouraging trend. We must not abide unhealthy ideas about "toughness" that expose our children to danger.

Veterans of the National Football League have long suffered, and lately spoken up about, the lingering, debilitating effects of multiple concussions. The list of athletes whose careers were shortened and retirement years ruined by the lingering effects of head injuries is long and full of storied names.

Ted Johnson, a Carlsbad High alum and former linebacker for the New England Patriots, spoke out this year about his own struggles, which he and doctors believe stem from playing through brain injuries. This year, the NFL started requiring players to receive the team doctor's OK before they return to the game after suffering a concussion.

Besides football, brain injuries have been in the news this year primarily because of the war wounds suffered by our troops in Iraq. Both sports and war have a history of rewarding those who "shake off" head trauma to either get back in the game or get back to their unit. While the stakes couldn't be more different in the two contexts, the dynamic at play is similar. We hope the unprecedented attention on the potentially lifelong effects of even minor brain injuries convinces athletes, warriors and the rest of us to take them seriously.

And though the cause and nature of his injury is still a mystery, we wish Scott Eveland the best of luck in recovery. By all accounts, Scott is a much-liked, promising young man. His moving e-mail to his parents, sent weeks before this incident, painted a picture of teenage innocence that many of us had forgotten. The evident enjoyment he got from his car, hanging out with friends and soda pop was refreshing.

We can still pray for a miracle. Perhaps Scott will recover just as unexpectedly as he collapsed. If that happens, we all hope that he'll be able to return to his car, and his friends and, if he wants to, maybe even football.

But if he does return to the field, we hope he is surrounded by people chastened by this reminder of the fragility of our health and the importance of resting after concussions.