A former high school football player in Orange County will receive $31 million from the Newport-Mesa Unified School District after he suffered a traumatic brain injury in practice.
Emanuel Garcia was hurt on March 9, 2021, when the then-15-year-old at Corona del Mar High School caught a pass, “got entangled with some other players and came crashing down hard on a natural grass field,” as reported by the Orange County Register.
As a result, Garcia suffered what his attorney, Jesse Creed, told the Daily Pilot was “a very scary injury”: a brain bleed resulting in him being placed in a coma and leaving him with cognitive and emotional issues.
Football players are no stranger to injuries, some of them serious, but what differentiated Garcia’s incident was the condition of the field on which he and his teammates were practicing.
Parents and coaches had warned the school district that the playing surface was too hard and, thus, dangerous for years, and those warnings came from more than just the football program; soccer and lacrosse coaches and parents were also concerned, the O.C. Register found.
“The warnings came from every nook and cranny of the district,” Creed said. “They came from coaches in football, soccer and lacrosse. They came every year, they were in writing, they were verbal. Warnings were communicated to the principal — they were credible, they were consistent, and they were clear.”
Freshman football coach John Griffin even “specifically warned the district’s superintendent and another top official about the risk head injuries due to the hardness of the field Garcia was eventually injured on” back in May 2016, an email shows.
A school district spokesperson declined to comment to the Daily Pilot on the district’s $31 million settlement with Garcia, though she noted that “over the years, we have made substantial improvements to our fields and athletic facilities, and we remain dedicated to their ongoing maintenance.”
“Additionally, we have completed numerous projects to enhance the quality of our athletic spaces and will continue these efforts to ensure the success and safety of our student athletes,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Garcia and his attorneys, however, disagreed. In a statement, Garcia praised his coaches and the football program for “standing by me” as he fought for change.
“Every school district should make sure the football fields are safe to play on so that this terrible thing never happens again,” he said.