Those of us who grew up with baseball consuming big chunks of time in our childhood surely remember the pain.
We all had that moment when we were hit by a pitch on the elbow or maybe fouled a ball off the foot and it hurt like crazy for a while, then later that night or the next day, we laughed about it.
We would tell our buddies to “rub some dirt on it,” and we would laugh it off because it was no big thing.
There was a time in junior high, if you were like me, that you were playing basketball, running the baseline, then cutting up to receive a pass and you turned an ankle and it hurt so bad you thought it was possible that you might die. Then you looked down and the ankle looked like it swallowed a softball with a swollen purple bruise that seemed to be telling you not to ever play this game again.
We laughed at those moments, shrugged them off and in the process, admit it, we felt a little more mature, a little toughened, in a good way, by the process.
But some of us didn’t have football growing up. As a 130-pounder who had never played before, when they put me at left guard against much bigger kids on either side and across the line from me, I knew I was in the wrong game, but it wasn’t like that for big kids, like Maui Ramos.
Starting out, the pain in football was minor. Taking a hit to the head and walking around feeling goofy for a few minutes might have been the preferred option over taking that fastball on the elbow.
Only later in life did we learn the serious nature of football injuries. Elbows and ankles heal up, brains are fragile.
A deputy sheriff in Hilo, Ramos spent much of his childhood on Oahu, some of it on the Big Island, and as result he played for both Hilo and Kailua high schools, but the experience was similar at both places.
“We didn’t know about concussions, nobody talked about it,” Ramos said last week. “It wasn’t a taboo topic or anything, it just wasn’t talked about much. You would take a hit and get a little dizzy or something and we’d say, ‘He got his bell rung,’ and you’d walk around a bit, get a drink of water and go back in and play some more.”
At no time in his football playing career through high school and at Dana College — now defunct due to financial difficulties, located northwest of Omaha, Neb. — was Ramos ever told he suffered a concussion.
Today, he knows better.
Hurricane Lane intruded on the practice sessions last week, but when everything is sufficiently dried out, Ramos will be coaching Pop Warner football again, his 14th year of coaching in all, his 10th season at the youth level, following four years at Kamehameha where he was an assistant on the staff of coach Dan Lyons.
“It’s coaches like Maui who are going to make a difference going forward,” Lyons said. “If we can get them started right, with proper tackling techniques, we have a chance to make this game a lot safer, all the way up.”
When his son attended Kamehameha and played for Lyons, Ramos assisted on defense, helping with linebackers and the linemen and went through Lyons’ practices, which feature no hitting at all in spring, and little during the season.
An Oregon native, Lyons knew former Oregon State coach Mike Riley and remembers a conversation they had in which Riley said were if it not for an annual spring game that is a revenue generator for the football program, he would not have his teams hitting in spring drills.
“That’s pretty much all I needed,” Lyons said. “I used to hear from Pop Warner coaches that I was being soft or that I was teaching the wrong way to tackle by taking the head out of it, but I thought, ‘You know, between the Pop Warner coach and the head coach at Oregon State, I think I’ll take the Mike Riley advice.’”
Lyons, Ramos and others are teaching the Heads Up approach, a kind of ruby-style tackling that keeps the head out of danger. For Ramos, the techniques are not the same he was taught as a player and that difference is important for parents and the kids who play youth football to understand.
“It has changed so much in the last 10 years, I can’t even describe it,” Ramos said. “I was a big kid, 300 pounds, defensive lineman, and we were drilled in the tough guy stuff, lots of one-on-one drills, hitting, seeing who was stronger, who was dominant guy.
“Along with that, there were lots of hits to head, and you would sometimes have to take a break, let your head clear and then go back at it.
“These coaches didn’t know we were getting concussions, we didn’t know, it was just not discussed.”
Today, especially at the youth level, concussions are the big conversation for most parents, and the football part is over there, off to the side. While it’s a good thing that the issue is out in the open, the unintended consequence is that the danger these days may be somewhat overstated.
You can make a compelling case that football has never been so safe.
With improved technology in helmets, class instruction for youth coaches on head and brain issues and how to teach the game without making head-to-head contact a necessity, it remains football, but a much safer version is being taught these days.
“The game is safer than it has ever been,” Ramos said, “and if we are doing our jobs, it will get safer and safer. Parents need to be involved, because it’s not like turning an ankle and limping around — we all see you are injured.
“With concussions, sometimes the headaches, the symptoms, don’t show up until later, at home, a headache; parents need to be involved and stay on the lookout.”
Ramos, 42, had no particular interest in being a coach until a son wanted to play at the age of 8. The connection clicked and the team Ramos coached eventually reached the age group national championship game in 2013 in Smyra, Georgia, where the Panaewa team he coached in the Midget Division lost to a team from Greensboro, N.C.
“I want to take another team to the Super Bowl,” he said. “The experience was once in a lifetime, those kids will never forget it, but more importantly, it motivated them for the future. Just about every kid who was on that team — I don’t want to say everyone because I may have missed one — is now in college, most of them are still playing football and loving it.”
There’s something about football that beats true and loud here in our state where we produce an impressive number of talented college and professional players.
Practical insights to the safe future of the game as evidenced in coaches like Lyons and Ramos might create even more of a surge for Aloha football in years to come.
Safe tackling is the new wave in football at all levels and most appropriately at the crest of it all are Hawaii coaches.
Suggestions? Whistleblower tips? Comments? Contact Bart at barttribuneherald@gmail.com