Haunted by deadly hit, coach walks away
Incident when high school defensive tackle died after hit tormented instructor
HOMER, N.Y. — Jeff Charles, a former high school football coach, had tried to come to the football field here twice in recent years but could not bring himself to go farther than the parking lot. One day last week he made his way down the winding ramp from the parking lot and onto the turf.
He stopped just short of the 10-yard line: “It happened down here,” Charles said, pointing toward midfield at the 5-yard line. Then he burst into tears.
Charles, 49, the former head varsity football coach at John C. Birdlebough High School in Phoenix, N.Y., was on the sideline here at Homer High School, about 30 miles south of Syracuse, on a Friday night in October 2011 when one of his players suffered a fatal brain injury. The death of Ridge Barden, a 16-yearold defensive tackle, hit both schools hard; eight busloads of Homer students attended Barden’s wake and funeral.
Charles had been coaching football for 21 years, but he said at the time that he was not sure he would coach football again. Five and a half years later, Charles is, in fact, adrift from the sport.
The toll of brain trauma in football most commonly in the form of the disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, linked to repeated blows to the heas — has crippled many players and their families. In the 2011 John C. Birdlebough vs. Homer game, a head coach was collateral damage.
During the last four years, 19 players have died from brain-related injuires in
high school football, according to Terry O’Neil, the founder of Practice Like Pros, a group that advocates reducing collisions in youth football.
In the days and months after the game at Homer High, Charles went from rising at 6 a.m. to waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning after having bad dreams and restless nights. He went from cheering on his daughters while they played softball to being nervous that they would hit their head sliding into second base.
“I didn’t want to sound like a quitter, but after my first year back I knew,” Charles said. “I coached 10 ballgames and I struggled every 10 weeks. It wasn’t fun. There was more anxiety every week.” Charles lasted one more season. “It affected us because I knew the problems that he was having and I couldn’t help him,” Charles’ wife, Missy, said. “He needed somebody to talk to. I didn’t know what to say to help him.”
To the naked eye, there was nothing unusual about the play six minutes into the third quarter. The hit was not especially violent. Charles, a doctor and two medical technicians were by Barden’s side in seconds. The ambulance was there within minutes.
Charles said he has watched the video countless times searching for answers. One minute, the 235-pound defensive tackle was up and playing and minutes later he was face down and moaning that he thought he hit his head. Two hours later he had died from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Charles put a small container with some of Barden’s ashes on his mantel under a framed No. 70 jersey, got a tattoo on his bicep that memorialized Barden and spent several months lobbying to have the school pay tribute to him. Charles said his proposal to have the school name the field after Barden was rejected, as was a request to name the weight room after him.
Instead, Charles said, the school opted to place outside the coaches’ offices what Charles called, “a puny plaque that makes me mad every time I see it.”
Charles had been the guy who attended a high school game every Friday night and spent all day Saturday watching college football and Sunday watching NFL games with a pack of Miller Lite. In 2013, it was, “If I saw it, I saw it,” he said. He recalled watched half of a game all year.
As time went on, things got a little bit easier. There were reminders of Barden at Birdlebough and Homer high schools, but Barden’s death faded from the forefront of most people’s minds. There is a small orange plate with “70” on it that hangs in Homer’s weight room, but some students don’t know what it represents.
In July 2016, Charles moved to Houston — where he lived from 2000-09 with his wife and three children — and became a high school softball coach. Barden’s ashes were put in storage in a box along with 20 letters that Missy laminated from coaches and players expressing sympathy. The “70” jersey that once hung above the mantel is in a pile of photos in Charles’ parents’ house in Liverpool, New York.
Charles said he can now watch hours of football again. His opinion of the sport hasn’t changed, he said, and he’ll be happy to watch his grandchildren play one day. His 24-year-old son, DJ, who was at the game in 2011, coaches football about 12 miles from Homer, in Tully, N.Y.
He still exchanges texts with Barden’s father around birthdays and Christmas, and talks about Barden’s death with Missy on the anniversary every fall, but it is no longer front and center.
Lately, Charles has been toying with the thought of returning to football. He said that it was always been a dream of his to coach football alongside DJ, but for now, he is happy with his softball team in Texas.
“I probably could’ve gone back emotionally to coach football this year, but I wasn’t really willing to sacrifice that time for something I didn’t love as much as I used to,” Charles said. “I still love it. Maybe I am starting to think about it. And then I’m like, maybe I’ll go back and do seventh- and eighth-grade varsity and really have an impact on those kids. I think it would have to be the right time and the right fit.”