Damon Janes, 16, died after a helmet-to-helmet hit
The team decided to cancel the rest of the season because playing without him 'didn't feel right'
About 12 high schools players die annually from helmet-to-helmet hits
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 21:20 EST, 26 October 2013 | UPDATED: 21:20 EST, 26 October 2013
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A father who lost his son after he died in a tackle mid game for his upstate New York football team is demanding answers as to what went wrong and wants safety issues addressed.
Damon Janes, 16, a running back for the Westfield-Brocton Wolverines, died only days after an illegal helmet-to-helmet tackle during the team's second game of the season.
His father Dean, a 45-year-old logger, knows that nothing is ever going to bring him back but he is determined to make sure no other parent has to go through what he is going through and get to the bottom of how and why his son died.
'Any minute I still expect him to walk through that door over there,' he said.
'Damon was a great kid, and he was going to be an awesome man. That’s what makes this so hard.'
Father: Dean Janes, left, has become an impassioned advocate for safety in football after his son Damon, right, died after a helmet-to-helmet tackle in September in upstate New York
A life ended too soon: Damon Janes, a 16-year-old junior running back, died after losing consciousness from a helmet-to-helmet hit in a game
Damon Janes, running back for Brocton-Westfield, died in Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, three days after suffering an apparent brain seizure and losing consciousness in the third quarter of a game at Portville HS.
The teen's tragic death on September 13, has thrown football and the dangers surrounding it back into the spotlight.
Just yesterday, NFL legend Brett Favre revealed he has forgotten memories of his daughter growing up because of the damage caused to his brain by big hits while playing football.
He said he fears he has been damaged by his time in the game and that for the first time in his life it ‘put a little fear in me'.
‘I think after 20 years [in the NFL], God only knows the toll’, he said.
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Dean Janes, a self-confessed hillbilly, has found himself as an advocate for football safety and anything that might lessen the horrific fallout of traumatic brain injury.
'I don’t want anybody to ever go through what I went through in Portville,' he told the New York Daily News. 'That was the worst nightmare of my life.
'It doesn’t get worse than that. Literally, I am holding my own son’s head, praying that somebody will come and help.
'Nobody should have to go through that. I want to make changes to what is going on out there. I want to look at everything.
'I’m not playing at the local level. We want to go big with this. We’re talking about the safety of our children, and we are not going stop.'
A town shaken: Signs for Damon Janes hang in the window of Studio 64 in Brocton, N.Y.
Earlier this month, he was in the office of State Senator Catharine Young sharing thoughts and ideas about ways to reduce the risk of serious head injury.
Young, a member of the Senate Health Committee, promised to explore research and initiatives in place in other states that might provide more protection.
'It’s wonderful that (Mr Janes) is so caring and wants to make a difference,' she said. 'We’re at the beginning of the process, but I want to do everything I can to help.'
But Mr Janes has not been met without opposition.
Gary Swetland, the Portville coach, said he does not think Damon died from the helmet-to-helmet tackle.
'It’s a terrible thing when something this tragic transpires, (but) I keep hearing about late hits and spears and helmet-to-helmet collision and it just wasn’t the case.
'I’ve reviewed that film many times, and it was an ordinary play. Nobody did anything wrong. Nobody did anything with malicious intent.
'Nobody did anything that was any different from what happened on football fields across America that night.'
Just a young boy: Mr Janes was only 16 when his life was cut tragically short
Doing what he loved: Mr Janes (far left) died after a vicious helmet-to-helmet tackle during a game
The coach says he 'absolutely' believes that there must’ve been a pre-existing condition, maybe even a prior head trauma, that triggered Damon's loss of consciousness and ultimately his death.
Speaking about the coach's comments, Mr Janes said: 'I can’t say anything to the guy. That’s just ignorance. Out of respect to me and his mother, shut your mouth.
'How can you say anything? We have nothing to prove here. We already know. He has to lay down with this every night. I don’t. He does.
'I go through everything every day. Is it the ref’s fault for not protecting the kid? Is it the school’s fault? Is it my fault? I push that kid to no end. Is it my fault for pushing him to do what he did?'
Damon took what hospital officials would later describe as a 'helmet-to-helmet' hit during the third quarter of Westfield-Brocton's Sept. 13 game against Portville, a 32-6 loss. He was able to get on his feet but lost consciousness on the sidelines.
He died three days later at Women & Children's Hospital in Buffalo.
In his obituary, his family wrote that Damon liked fishing, hunting and just about every kind of sport — soccer, basketball, ice skating, motocross and snowboarding. 'He put 110 percent into everything he did,' it said. 'His motto was, 'Giving up is simply not an option.'
For some parents, the dangers were obvious even before Damon's death. As their sadness began to mix with anger, they complained that poor officiating, with no penalty calls on late hits, made it only a matter of time before ball carriers like Damon got hurt.
The grief surrounding Damon's death has spread through the close-knit villages of Brocton and Westfield, tucked amid grape farms about an hour's drive south of Buffalo, where the once-rival high schools were forced to combine their teams three seasons ago because of budget cuts.
Townspeople held vigils, lit candles and released balloons. They stayed up nights making ribbons and cookies as fundraisers for the Janes family.
Only 16-years-old: Mr janes had barely earned his driver's license when he died
Concern about increasingly hard hits among the 1 million boys who play high school football has brought renewed attention to concussion management and a national initiative to teach the 'Heads Up' tackling technique.
An average of 12 high school and college players die annually, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Damon's was at least the fifth high school football death this season, but his was the only team to cancel the season because of it.
As iridescent ribbons sparkle from light poles in Brocton, the players say they are moving on without football after making a decision that's drawn both support and criticism — from those who believe Damon would have wanted the season to go on.
'Honestly, none of us can really say what Damon would have wanted,' Villafrank said. 'The only person who could have said that was Damon. And unfortunately, he's not here anymore.'
Read more:
A father and a western New York town look for answers after a son is lost to football
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2477753/Damon-Janes-Grieving-father-catapulted-center-football-safety-tragic-death-son-16-upstate-New-York.html#ixzz2ixc2DXeU
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