Super sad: Ohio HS xc runner dies after finishing 10th in race when tree falls on him

This happened in my hometown and although I personally haven't lived there in 20 years, my parents still do and I'm still connected to many there.

The entire town, the coaches, administration, athletes, and parents are all absolutely devastated by this freak accident.

High school boys do dumb things sometimes. Some of the implications here are just flat out insensitive to that fact. Also the implication that if you some of you were the coach you'd have done better is a bit silly. You're telling me you keep track of your runners every moment they are doing anything involved with your team? You go on every cool down run with them to make sure they are being safe? Nonsense.

Also, just because something is a called a "tradition" doesn't mean that its coach sponsored or the coaches are even aware it's going on.

Your point is very important. People will thumbs down but the time to call these things out is now.

About 6-7 years ago at our sectional meet, a girls team qualified and after the race they were all excited and fooling around, a boy was chasing their top girl, she fell, hit her head, didn't say anything, went home.

In the middle of night she was getting very sick- went to the ER, she had a concussion.

Couldn't run states, the effects lasted months. That was the last race she ran.

My best friend from childhood’s dad died in a similar accident. He was in the backyard cutting down a tree, fell the wrong way and landed on him, and he eventually died from his injuries. My friend was essentially an orphan at 14, as his biological mother was a drug addict who lived hundreds of miles away and had zero involvement in his life.

Condolences to all involved.

It's sad that in the year 2022 I can't read the story and wonder, "Will there be a lawsuit?" I guess it could be negligence but is kids going into a forest and throwing a log into a stream really something so crazy bad? Seems harmless. I'd think the odds of death are much higher just running on a cooldown run on a city street.

I'd have to know the specifics of the situation I guess to have a real judgement one way or the other. But as a parent again, I just feel for his parents.

I can't imagine coaches are expected to be with athletes at all times when they are on runs are they? What if they are warming up running the course, or cooling down? Especially if you have a boys' and girls' team, there is no way the coach could be with them both simultaneously. And when kids in practice go out on long runs, is the coach expected to be there too? It seems to me this is a terrible tragedy, but really no one's fault. Kids do goofy stuff like this all the time and never get hurt. My college team had the tradition of lifting a big rock together and throwing it off a bridge into a creek the day before every meet. It was a fun, pointless, team-building challenge. I can't fault the kids for doing it, nor can I fault the adults supervising them. It is just a sad, freak occurrence.

the truth is we all have done stuff like this. Stuff where 99.99999% of the time nobody gets hurt. I suspect just tragic coincidence. Easy on the rest of the kids. Im calling BS on you that you never did anything risky in your life?

I agree with all of this. The article indicated that the school has only one coach for both the boys and girls team. We don't really know what was going on at the meet at that time. Maybe the girls were running, or some other thing was happening. Often, coaches aren't just dealing with athletes, They're talking to parents, interacting with race officials, packing up the canopy and other equipment... whatever.

Moreover, these kids who were involved in this accident were likely considered worthy of trust. Clearly, they didn't have any bad or violent intentions. They just couldn't find a log in a forest to carry out their little "tradition," and got stupid. Now they are going to have to carry this with them for the rest of their lives. Very sad.