By Lauren Silverman, KERA NEWS
NORTH TEXAS– Softball is one of the safest high school sports in Texas. But serious injuries do happen — especially at positions like third base or pitcher, where screaming line drives can do major damage. At least one North Texas school district, Richardson, is requiring all girls who play third to wear face masks in the field. It’s state softball playoff season, and KERA’s Lauren Silverman reports that some fielders are voluntarily wearing the gear.
Last December, Ferris senior Didi Duran took a softball to the forehead.
So, like anyone playing 3rd base, Duran crept up to be ready for small ball.
DIDI DURAN: “I guess I got too close and it came off the bat and it hit me in the head.”
An ambulance rushed Didi to a hospital. She didn’t remember anything, but had a knot on her forehead that showed the seams of the ball that hit her. Her mom, Lisa says for months Didi had trouble making her way down the stairs.
LISA DURAN: “She fell a couple of times just from being dizzy, the school had to watch her and we watched her, but she was down for a good three months with a concussion.”
In today’s Ferris -Celina game, the Ferris pitcher and girl on third are both wearing a mask. It looks like a stripped down catcher’s mask.
LEAH YARBOROUGH: “I wear it every time I go out on the field, just ‘cause you never know what can happen.”
Leah Yarborough has been pitching since she was nine.
LEAH YARBOROUGH: “The facemasks aren’t that bad. People say that it distracts you and it’s just going to block your vision, but the one I have is over your eyes just a bar over your cheekbone. Nothing that distracts you.”
Every year, more than two million girls between 12 and 18 play fast pitch softball. Like any sport, there are standard injuries, pulled muscles, ankle sprains…then there’s what happens when a ball going fifty miles an hour hits a nose ear or eye. Nearly twenty percent of all softball injuries last school year were to the head or face.
That’s why Ferris coach Jock Eusay encourages all his infielders to wear a face mask
Eusay: “And when you’re playing a team like we’re fixing to play that hits the ball really hard, they’re getting line drives hit at them and their reaction time isn’t what it needs to be, it can be dangerous.”
Since 2006, high school players have been required to wear a batting helmet with a face mask, but there are no state or national rules for infielders. That means some girls won’t put them on. Including Didi Duran — the player who was out for months after a ball slammed into her forehead.
DIDI DURAN: “I just don’t like it, it gets in my way. It looks pretty stupid if you ask me.”
Besides, she says from the bleachers the ”
If Didi played 3rd in Richardson ISD, some 30 miles away, a face mask would be mandatory.
BOB DUBEY: “We’ve been doing that for a long time and as it’s evolved, one of our teams requires the coach requires that every infielder wear a mask.”
Richardson athletic director Bob Dubey
BOB DUBEY: “We take that decision out of their hands so they aren’t made fun of, we eliminate that problem so that the girl doesn’t have to make a decision it’s made for her.”
Before the rule, Richardson players had suffered broken noses, one girl even had an ear partially torn off. Dubey says since the face mask rule, his district hasn’t had a significant head injury.
The state follows rules set by the National Federation of State High School Associations – which won’t require masks for at least the next school year.
DAWN COMSTOCK: “I run the national high school sports related injury study.”
For nearly a decade, Dr Dawn Comstock of the University of Colorado Denver has gathered data on injuries for two dozen high school sports. If you want to know how many girls got a concussion playing softball last year – close to eight thousand – she can tell you.
DAWN COMSTOCK: “Pitchers and third baseman do sustain injuries such as concussions, broken noses, knocked out teeth. A helmet with a full face shield would prevent the vast majority of those injuries. Now do they sustain those injuries at high enough rate to justify making that a mandated piece of protection equipment? That’s not for me to decide.”
None of the North Texas teams left in the state playoffs require facemasks – so for the title game in two weeks at least, strapping on a face mask will remain a personal decision.
Lauren Silverman, KERA News.
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