You should know by now that the typical attempts at evasion don't work with me. However, since you're so intent on discussing head injury avoidance, fine, because it further illustrates the main point that GDA is such a crappy product.
In 2015-16, USSF made an exception to its stupid no re-entry and limited sub rules for head injuries to provide more time for staff to evaluate players and conduct concussion protocol. Prior to making the exception, evaluation of head injuries were often rushed and inaccurate due to the pressures placed on coaches to make quick decisions while unnecessarily having to play down a player. USSF made the change after carefully evaluating 5 years of DA data and proactively researching the issue extensively with experts, right? Wrong. It was essentially forced to do so after getting sued in a class action lawsuit by people who actually cared about the safety of the kids affected by USSF's stupid rules (and often lack of them). Let it soak in for a second. It took a freakin' lawsuit for USSF to protect kids from the possibility of, well, dying unnecessarily.
If it took a major highly publicized lawsuit for USSF to protect children from a risk of death, what makes you think it cares about your kid's knees, or their health at all? Do you know what other change USSF made after the class action was filed BTW? Adding mandatory arbitration to its waiver to prevent future class actions that might seek to further protect the safety of children. Yes, USSF certainly learned its lesson.
And if exceptions to the GDA's no re-entry and limited substitution rules are needed to properly evaluate head injuries without putting undue pressure on coaches and trainers to hurriedly diagnose the injury, why only head injuries? Why should coaches and trainers continue to be rushed to evaluate any potential medical emergency, including heat stroke, asthma, knee or ankle injuries, or anything? Is it because most other injuries realistically only present a risk of major surgery or allow USSF to point the finger at someone else for things like asthma (the parents knew she had it) and heat stroke (the club should have given her more water or a heat break)? Is it because USSF just hasn't gotten sued yet for other stuff? With respect to asthma BTW, you should look out at the CO showcase since it can easily be confused with altitude sickness. The good news though is it will be a non-issue for those who follow a certain someone's advice to miss a couple extra school days to get acclimated. Hopefully it will snow, also making heat stroke a non-issue.
Seriously, why are you defending rules that have no legitimate basis to exist? Why are people defending CO as the ideal location to play soccer in April, when it's more likely to snow there than MN? Why are people arguing that the week before finals is a great time to fly across the country and miss 3 days of school? Why are people defending the HS ban when it was inevitable to result in virtually all the best clubs in the country to fleeing GDA?
But, in answer to your question, its great that USSF took some action on headers and head injuries, even if it only did so because it got sued. But the exact same reasoning for making an exception to the no re-entry and limited substitution rules to evaluate potential head injuries applies equally for all types of injuries, and it shouldn't take another lawsuit to make that happen. The GDA no re-entry and limited substitution rules just shouldn't exist.
