OT - Football Head Injury Claims NAIA Football Player's Life

The debate continues on if the helmets and padding provided football players is enough to keep them safe. Due to an injury from a spring practice, a NAIA player in Oregon has lost his life playing the game he loved.

A football player from Missoula, Mont., has died of a head injury suffered during Eastern Oregon's spring football game, school officials said.

Dylan Steigers, 21, took a blow to the head late in Saturday's scrimmage, and died Sunday at a Boise hospital, spokesman Tim Seydel said.

"It's hard to describe the emotions we all feel about losing Dylan," said Eastern Oregon president Bob Davies. "I sat with Dylan's family during the scrimmage, had a chance to connect with them. Dylan is an exceptional young man who loved to play football, and he had a bright future ahead of him. This is a loss we will feel for a very long time."

Steigers walked off the field after the collision, but later vomited on the sidelines, a sign of a concussion.

The trainer called 911 and Steigers was taken to Grand Ronde Hospital and later flown to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, school officials said. Doctors said he suffered an acute subdural hematoma as a result of the head injury.

It's a difficult topic to speculate upon as each full contact sport will have its risk for injuries such as this but it's a tragedy all the same. Helmet technology has a long way to go but it's been shown in reports time and again that as players continue to grow 2x bigger (speculating) than they used to due to training, diet regiments, etc., these injuries may become more and more common.

One could hope innovations and rules will emerge from this tragedy.