August 26, 2024
A high school quarterback in Selma, Ala., died after sustaining a critical brain injury during his team’s first game of the season on Friday night, school officials said.
The quarterback, Caden Tellier, 16, was tackled in the third quarter of Morgan Academy’s home opener against Southern Academy and was airlifted to the U.A.B. hospital in Birmingham, where he died on Saturday, Bryan Oliver, the school’s headmaster, said in an email to The New York Times.
The Black Belt News Network reported that Caden collapsed after walking to the sidelines, when he was transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital before being transported to Birmingham.
Caden “was a shining light every day he graced the halls of Morgan Academy,” Oliver, the headmaster, wrote. Caden, who had just started his junior year at the private school, was also a member of the school’s baseball team and was selected last year to participate in a leadership academy at the University of Alabama, according to The Selma Times-Journal.
Relatives of Caden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Friday’s game was the first for Jacob Webb, the new football coach and athletic director who was hired in May. In an interview with the Black Belt News Network ahead of the game, Webb said he expected Caden to be a leader on the team in the upcoming season. “Our goals this year are to get better every day,” he said. Morgan Academy finished the 2023 season 1-9.
Officials paused the game while Caden was treated and resumed play after he was taken to the hospital by ambulance from the field, The Selma Times-Journal reported. Morgan Academy went on to win the game, 30-22.
The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research reported 16 deaths of football players in 2023 across college, high school, middle school and youth leagues, three of which were traumatic brain injuries, including two in high school football and one in a youth league. All three of those deaths happened during games. The others were attributed to other medical conditions including heat stroke, cardiac arrest or a pulmonary embolism.
Two studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2021 found that tackle football athletes sustained more head impacts than flag football athletes.