Jeter revealed that he "tricked" himself when he was in pain.

You were watching college football?????

As for the topic at hand, isn't that why they have team doctors? Shouldn't he/she be making that decision and not the player?

Great topic :)

As someone who has dealt with this directly, my answer is two-fold. First, in this case, the answer is as obvious as it sounds like it should be. He should have been taken out immediately. Second, it is very possible that the coach may not have seen what we all got to see with the help of 4000 different camera angles. Things happen fast and the coaches are responsible for 70+ players, calling the next play under the pressure of a ticking 30 second clock and making sure that the next "package" of players being sent on the field match the play that they are calling. I can't imagine a more furious pace.

It is engrained in most players to continue playing at almost all costs. I have never been paid a dime to play, nor even played in college, yet I have never been taken out of a hockey or baseball game due to injury which includes a broken arm (at age 12), multiple instances of broken fingers, at least one broken nose, cuts that would later require stitches, at least more than one concussion (most athletes can not tell you how many concussions they've actually received) and even to just a couple of weeks ago when I filled in for a friend in goal in a roller hockey game played indoors in probably 95 degrees where I thought I might literally pass out towards the end of the game. It is just in the culture of most sports (particularly hockey and football) and in the DNA of most athletes.

Thus I am sure that the player who was staggering off the field had his best face on by the time anyone else asked him if he was OK? Probably, his teammate on the field who was holding him up should have told a referee in order to stop the play, but again, that is not what we're designed to do. I could be mistaken because I didn't see it live, but I believe he was only left in for two more plays, which probably means someone either on the field or up in the coaches box said something and they figured out that he was in danger.

I was once coaching a JV hockey playoff game when one of my larger defenseman had a nasty collision mid-ice. He was the bigger player and didn't even go down, but he shakily came right off as it was the end of the shift. As he came to the bench I went right over to him and grilled him to make sure he was ok after such a hit. He looked me dead in the eye and swore up and down he was fine and that there was no problem. I absolutely believed him, but I still was just slightly concerned, I'm not even sure why, maybe just instinct. I sent him back out for the next shift and watched him carefully. After about 10-15 seconds, I could see he wasn't "right" on his skates, and immediately started screaming for him to change. He came off the ice, respectfully protesting and I patted him on the back and sent him to the end of the bench to sit with one of the other coaches for "a little while" until we could be sure he was ok. After the period ended, he came up to me and said in a slightly concerned manner that he couldn't remember anything that had happened. I sent him to the locker room with his mom and after a trip to the doctor he sat the rest of the season (only a couple weeks). He did come back and was fine the next season.

Point of my story is absolutely not to pat myself on the back for catching it, it is how scared I was that I almost didn't. I was this close to missing it, or even just having him take another serious hit on that one shift, and I really, really care about the kids that I coach. Not all coaches are that committed to such priorities.

It is a very difficult thing to catch perfectly. It is important to be diligent and thorough, but we should be careful about judging coaches excessively.

Times changed from when I grew up. And even from when I stopped coaching. During that period I coached the thinking changed. Generally things moved towards caution. Either my coaches/ co-manager (when applicable) or I maintained a view of the field. Which coaches in the booth "upstairs" someone always keeps an eye on the field. No excuse exists not to protect a young player's health. As we have more information, we act accordingly. What happened I find a real shame.