High school sports can be dangerous – especially high school football, which accounts for nearly half of severe sport injuries for teenagers.
Knees, shoulders, and hands are the body parts adolescents most often injure on the gridiron, with fractures and ligament sprains being the most common types of injury. Head injuries are less often but can be more severe.
Nose tackle Caleb McDonald tore the ACL in his left knee during a pass-rushing/blocking drill on the second day of practice with the Logan High School varsity football team last August and had to sit out the whole season in his senior year.
It's easy to sympathize with McDonald for the pain he endured from the injury and the disappointment he suffered at being sidelined, but the lawsuit he filed in Logan Circuit Court last month against the Logan County Board of Education doesn't seem like the best way to assuage his grief.
McDonald claims he suffered severe and permanent injuries, sustained medical bills and other expenses, suffered a loss of enjoyment of life, and will endure future pain and suffering, physically and mentally. He seeks compensatory damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, and other relief.
Selfies on his Facebook page, however, seem to indicate that McDonald's injuries were neither severe nor permanent, and the prospect of future pain and suffering in doubt.
Why the lawsuit, then? McDonald's FB page offers a possible explanation.
“Maybe I'll get to go to college for free now,” McDonald replied on October 29, 2016, to a friend who chided him about his support for Hillary Clinton just days before last year's presidential election.
Needless to say, that opportunity did not materialize. Despite offering free college and other assorted goodies at taxpayer expense to secure support from her natural constituency of voters, Clinton lost the election.
But maybe Caleb McDonald has discovered a new way to “get to go to college for free,” by filing an injury lawsuit and perhaps having the Logan County Board of Education pay his tuition.