Information on athletes' injuries should be reported

To the Editor:

I suggest that the Reporter make a policy of reporting, with some medical precision, about the injuries suffered by or inflicted upon the student-athletes.

The student-athletes have an energetic and difficult time competing every week, and there may be some sort of accidental or unintentional conspiracy of silence.

When valued, experienced athletes or earnest, beginning athletes become injured, they usually just drop out of the local news coverage. It would be more human and humane to publish information about the seriousness of the injury, the diagnosis, the progress and, I hope, the cures. The policy should include pre-season tryouts.

The number of severe sprains, breaks, ligament tears, joint damage and spinal-cord injuries should be recognized and respected. For the university to become anything like a genuine community, we must learn the names of the student-athletes who become either short- or long-term casualties.

Certainly, the conventional wisdom would say that even major injuries are "just part of the game," or that "the young heal quickly," but within a university, some sensible or experienced people should insist that the human costs be registered.