A 17-year-old Wisconsin quarterback is dead after a helmet-to-helmet hit in a high school football game, and the only thing the system can offer his family is a painted parking spot and a funeral at the school where it happened.
Adam Massman, a senior at Lincoln Junior/Senior High School in Alma Center, took the blow during a Thursday night game against Turtle Lake. On-site EMTs treated him before rushing him to the hospital. He died Saturday. His mother, Brianne, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the injury came from a helmet-to-helmet collision. School district superintendent Drew Semingson confirmed the death in a message to the community but released no specifics on the injury itself.
"No one would ever think something that severe would really happen," Brianne told the outlet. "We're just completely devastated."
The New York Post covered the tragedy with thorough detail on Massman's life — his cattle show winnings at the Wisconsin State Fair, his multi-sport athleticism, his quiet nature — and that matters. This was a real kid. Not a statistic. He threw for 858 yards and 10 touchdowns last season, rushed for 280 more, and still had time to win academic all-state honors in basketball. His obituary described him as someone who could "take the most mundane of moments and fill them with laughter."
What the Post didn't press on is the question that matters: who is accountable when a child dies playing a school-sanctioned sport? The specific details of Massman's injury have not been released. No coach, no administrator, no state athletic association official has been quoted addressing what happened on that field or whether anything could have prevented it. The silence is the story.
This is the bargain American high school football strikes with teenage boys and their families every fall. Schools and athletic associations promote the game — the pageantry, the community, the scholarships — while the risks are minimized or buried. Helmet technology improves, protocols are announced, and still a 17-year-old can take a helmet-to-helmet hit on a Thursday night in rural Wisconsin and be dead by Saturday.
Massman's teammates painted his parking spot with "LLA" — Long Live Adam — alongside images of his family's cattle operation and tire tracks from his vehicle. It's a moving tribute. It is not accountability.
A funeral will be held Saturday at the high school. The family said they've been touched by the community's support. Nobody questions their grief. The question is whether anyone with authority will question the system that put Massman in harm's way — or whether this will just be another name on a list nobody in charge wants to read.
