Dad urges parents to stand by decisions that protect young athletes

— -- Ted Bishop is Senior Director of Revenue Partnerships at ESPN.

As the father of three young boys who are begging to play football, the recent deaths of high school players Cam'ron Matthews, Evan Murray and Kenney Bui have hit me hard. These three young men were taken way too soon from their families simply playing a game they loved. The news also got me thinking that, while the deaths grab headlines, the safety issue in sports cuts much deeper. I learned that firsthand on May 30, when I suffered a life-threatening injury under extremely fluky circumstances while coaching my son's baseball team.

For a guy who prided himself on teaching the mental preparation side of the game, the accident was ironic. I never saw it coming. It was the third inning of my son's youth game in Seattle and I was walking back into our first-base dugout while reading our scorebook. While the opposing pitcher warmed up, the infielders took grounders from the first baseman. And then it happened. My life became a game of inches, and those inches were not in my favor.

The shortstop, one of the top players in the league, gunned to first and went wide with the throw. I was walking into our dugout and the ball hit me on the right side of the head, cracking my skull and knocking me out cold. I fell to my left where the left side of my head smacked into the very small patch of concrete near the entrance to our dugout. My son, on his way back from the restroom, said he didn't see me fall but heard "this disgusting noise." I'm told the sound was enough to cause one woman to scream and several parents to dial 911. I was soon in the emergency room at Harborview Medical Center with a breathing tube and a surgeon looking at my CT scan.

The season started innocently enough when my friend Dan Branley reached out to tell me the North Seattle Pony 11-12 Bronco league had such a good turnout that the league would be adding two teams. He asked whether I might be interested in coaching one of the expansion teams. I jumped at the opportunity and had a great time drafting my "Mariners" squad after watching all the kids try out. We got off to a rough 1-7 start, but soon turned things around and we got to .500 after we took a page from "Major League" and added a concrete statue, which we nicknamed "Jobu," with some burning incense to the dugout. Most of the team would rub his head before going to bat or taking the field.

On the day of my accident, I had picked up tickets to take my family to watch the Seattle Mariners play because it was bat night. It is a family tradition dating to when my father took me to the games, which included an incredible ninth inning game-winning home run by Tom "Wimpy" Paciorek on bat night in 1981 against the Yankees. I thought about missing our game and putting the team in the hands of my assistant coach Dave so that I could build my own memories with my three sons, but decided that missing the first game of the playoffs wasn't an option.

My wife didn't panic when the phone call came: "Dee, listen, Ted got hit by a pitch." She asked if the caller was referring to our son, who led the team in hit-by-pitch last year. But no, it was me, it wasn't a pitch, and I wasn't moving.

I had been knocked out playing basketball a few years before and taken to Harborview Hospital in Seattle, but drove myself home later that night. She was more irritated because she had just parked downtown for the Mariners game with our two younger boys. My wife's emotional trauma began when the ER nurse brought me back from a CT scan with a tube down my throat and started talking about bleeding on the brain and saying the surgeon would be right in to perform surgery on the left side of my brain. The Traumatic Brain Injury support group information posted on the wall in the Neuro ICU was terrifying. A support group? What? I had another emergency surgery two days later on the other side of my brain after my pupils stopped responding in tandem. I emerged from anesthesia without a large chunk of skull.

I was delirious, and decidedly hostile, for three weeks. Deanna said I looked only vaguely human, as if someone had put a Ted-like face on a hugely swollen and morbid horror movie mask, complete with bloody incisions, big staples and potato-sack stitching.

She soon understood all too well why support groups are so necessary. She told me about one incident late at night when she was visiting. I wormed out of my restraints and was trying to walk out of the hospital completely naked. It might sound like a funny drunk-guy story, but consider that I had no judgment, I had poor balance, and I was swaying around the room with nothing between my brain and another potential injury but a flap of skin. As my wife cried, screamed for help, and begged me to get back in bed, I yelled at her that it was ridiculous and I needed to go home. The staff had to call security to get me back in that bed, and tied down. She sat in the car for an hour in the parking garage screaming and crying before she could drive home and pretend for the boys that everything was fine.

She told the kids only that my head was sore and I needed to stay at the hospital. She spent every minute between the hospital and their activities, making sure one parent was present for every baseball playoff game, the end of school picnics, and elementary school graduation. I missed all those things. Didn't even know they were happening. After two weeks, my oldest son insisted on seeing me. He lasted 60 seconds in the room before he took off down the hall in tears. And my wife said it went as well as it could have because I was drugged out. But he shook his head savagely and said, "That didn't look like my dad."

As the picture of the dugout illustrates, life is a game of inches. Had I been one step further, I would have been behind the fence. Had I been one step short, I would have been off the concrete. The odds were definitely not in my favor. Instead of creating "bat night" memories with my kids, we were all now facing months of pain and heartbreak.

My family and friends have had to endure months of my tears, depression, lethargy, chronic pain, insomnia and anger.

I am easily overwhelmed. I cry when someone shows us even a small kindness. I cry when I'm too tired to pass a football with one of my sons. My oldest son lost patience with my sadness and started telling me I was fine. How do you explain to an 11-year-old how it feels to wonder whether you'll ever be the same person on the inside, or if you'll ever wake up again without immediately thinking about physical or emotional pain? He's already anxious enough, now that he has seen what can happen. And that it can happen to us. Early on, I often thought my wife and boys would be better off without me.

I'm grateful to the neurosurgeons that I'm here to watch my sons grow up, and to grow old with my wife, but I'm angry that we lost time we can never get back. Things that can't be made up. I wasn't at that graduation. I missed the first all-star season for our younger boys, as well as their 8-year-old birthday party. Our summer vacation was canceled. Our 15th anniversary passed without celebration.

It has been five months since the incident. I have changed dramatically and wonder whether I have any shot of getting back to the "old Ted." In the 20 years I've known my wife, she can recall me crying only at my grandma's funeral before the accident. Now it's a weekly occurrence. The way I view serious brain injuries has completely changed, as well. I now can understand what might have been going on in a former NFL player's mind on the day he took his life. For a man who could accomplish anything physically, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to negotiate with a brain that is not fully functioning. For a brief time, I lost the use of my left hand. Sending commands to it and getting no response was a completely terrifying experience.

My message and purpose of this column is to tell parents that they shouldn't be afraid to protect their kids with gear or decisions about the sports they play. We cringe seeing kids at the skate park or on bikes without helmets. I'm not trying to convince parents to have their kids do less. I think youth sports are great for building character, making friends and learning how to deal with setbacks.

But if you believe your kids should stay in flag football an extra year, stand by that. Want the face guard for your kid's baseball helmet even though no one else wears one? Get it. Nervous about seeing your soccer player launch like a missile for a midfield header into another player? Tell them to not do it, and be good with it. We have a friend who pays her kid to NOT head the ball. And to the football coaches out there, please don't teach the proper tackling form as if you're only checking off a requirement on a list. Enforce it in practices and games every time you see it -- even if it is a game-saving tackle.

As fans, think twice before you boo the refs for flagging those targeting fouls in college football. Remember, the rule was put in place to protect players and ensure they aren't lowering their heads when they tackle.

Had I been the "crazy coach" who wore a helmet in the dugout, my summer would have been totally different. I might have had a headache one night and then moved on to all the planned family summer fun. You can bet next year that I will be that crazy helmet coach. My first choice would be to don a sweet Army helmet like Eddie Vedder wore in 1992 at some Pearl Jam shows. If it's built to withstand shrapnel, it should be good enough for a baseball.

The bottom line is that life is a game of inches, and those inches won't always be in your favor. Anything any league (pro or amateur) can do to reduce the risks should not be ignored. As painful as this ordeal has been, I shudder to think what would have happened if it had been one of my players who had been hit. They walk those same steps every game.

The boys ended up finishing second in the playoffs without me, and tears come to my eyes every time I see the photo of how they remembered me while I was in the hospital. They borrowed a page from my favorite Mariners prospect Braden Bishop and wrote "4 Ted" on their arms. I am proud to coach that great group of boys.

Youth sports are awesome, but be safe out there. The deaths get headlines, but I can tell you from firsthand experience that safety issues go much deeper. Today marks the five-month anniversary of the accident, and I still have a long road ahead. I can't even imagine if it were my son in these shoes.