Giannotto

game.

What are trainer rules in Mississippi, Tennessee?

Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association executive director Bernard Childress told The USA TODAY Network - Tennessee that the TSSAA recommends a trainer and emergency medical services be at every high school football game.

But, Childress added, that’s not possible in some rural communities, so it’s not a requirement.

MHSAA executive director Don Hinton echoed that sentiment and noted coaches are required to have first-responder training.

My response: If a school can’t afford or procure the necessary medical resources to play football — or any contact sport for that matter — they shouldn’t be allowed to sponsor that sport.

You would never participate in a football practice, or play a football game, without a helmet.

Having at least a certified athletic trainer on hand should be considered just as necessary.

“The lack of a health care professional on the sideline is simply inexcusable given what we know in terms of how qualified they are to help athletes," said Dr. Samantha Scarneo, the Vice President of Sport Safety at the Korey Stringer Institute.

But this is happening all over the country.

A 2017 study released by the Korey Stringer Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing sudden death in sports and named after the former Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman who died from heat stroke at training camp in 2001, found that only 58 percent of the more than 2,000 high schools surveyed offered athletic training services of some kind.

According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, 42 football players at all levels died of direct and indirect causes between 2015 and 2017. Of that total, 30 involved high school players.

Family, coroner disagree about what happened

Were any, or all of those, preventable? I don’t know.

But it sure seems like Mitchell’s unfortunate passing may have been. According to Mitchell's grandmother, Mitchell "got sick" after suffering the initial injury, a sign any medical trainer would know is cause for concern.

According to Coahoma County coroner Scotty Meredith, Mitchell had just come off the field when he "had seizurelike activity."

If it's proven Mitchell showed symptoms of a concussion and was knowingly allowed to return to the game, the school's coaches may have violated Mississippi state law.

According to the Mississippi Youth Concussion Law adopted in 2014, "an athlete who reports or displays any symptoms or signs of a concussion in a practice or game setting shall be removed immediately from the practice or game" and "shall not be allowed to return to the practice or game for the remainder of the day regardless of whether the athlete appears or states that he or she is normal."

So it shouldn’t have mattered whether Mitchell told his coaches he wanted to go back into the game.

That’s not how it works in college athletics, or in professional sports. Coaches are never supposed to make medical decisions concerning whether a player returns or leaves a game due to injury.

So why is it OK for that to occur on the high school level?

Because there is no excuse for what occurred at Coahoma County High School.

A 16-year-old from Byhalia, Miss. died on a football field Friday night, and it might have been preventable.

Tom Kreager of the USA TODAY Network - Tennessee contributed to this story