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West Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee recommends Craddock helmet bill

Ryan Craddock holds a photo of his three children, from left Shawn Craddock, 18; Kendall Craddock, 17, and Cohen Craddock, 13, at his home in Hewett, W. Va., on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. Cohen died Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024, a day after he received a head injury while making a tackle during his middle school's football practice. (AP Photo/John Raby)

CHARLESTON — A bill named for a middle school football player who died after taking an extreme blow to the head during practice requiring impact-reducing helmet covers for practices is heading toward its next step.

The state Senate Judiciary Committee recommended Senate Bill 585, the Cohen Craddock Student Athlete Safety Act, for passage Wednesday evening, sending the bill to the Senate Finance Committee for further review though a request to waive the second committee reference will be made since the bill has no fiscal cost.

SB 585 mandates the use of impact-reducing soft-shell helmet covers – called guardian caps – during football practices for middle and high school students beginning July 1, 2026. An amendment approved by the committee would allow teams to continue to play should funding not be available for the covers by the deadline.

The bill also provides protections to the purchasers of football helmets, ensuring that warranties and certifications cannot be voided or revoked so long as the cover attaches properly and is certified by at least one helmet manufacturer.

The bill creates the Cohen Craddock Memorial Grant Program, a special revenue fund that would be administered by the State Treasurer’s Office – to assist schools in procuring safety equipment. The program would be funded through private donations and potential appropriations approved by the Legislature, though the bill includes no recommended appropriations for the fiscal year 2026 general revenue budget.

The bill is named for 13-year-old Cohen Craddock, an eighth-grade student at Madison Middle School in Boone County. Craddock died in 2024 following a head injury during football practice. Ryan Craddock, the father of Cohen Craddock, said he believes Cohen would be alive today had he used a guardian cap.

“Me and Cohen’s mother lost the most precious thing you could possibly lose,” Ryan Craddock said. “You can imagine my frustration when I figured out that the NFL and colleges were mandating these. We were taking care of grown men, professional athletes, and college people as opposed to taking care of our children in the developmental stages of their brain growth.

“I agree with this bill, and I’d really like to see it passed…because not only will it help kids for not only West Virginia, hopefully we can set a mandate and standard for the nation to follow,” Ryan Craddock continued. “We are doing nothing but trying to protect our kids with this added layer of protection.”

In Boone County, more than 750 guardian caps were obtained through monetary donations from community members and the help of Boone Memorial Health through the Caps for Cohen initiative.

“Our foundation purchased 600 Guardian Caps to ensure that every middle and high school football player in Boone, Logan, and Lincoln counties had access to this vital protective equipment,” said Raymond Lee Harrell, Jr., the general counsel and chief external affairs officer for Boone Memorial Health.

SB 585 would also create the Student Athlete Safety Advisory Committee: The bill establishes a nine-member committee to evaluate safety rules, protocols, and equipment standards for interscholastic athletics.

The committee would include the state superintendent of schools as chair, the cabinet secretary for the Department of Health, the director of the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, the dean of the West Virginia University School of Medicine, the dean of the Marshall University College of Health Professions, and four members appointed by the governor with expertise in athletic safety.

Dr. Javier Cardenas, the director of the Concussion & Brain Injury Center at WVU’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, said there is some data out there that shows that the use of guardian caps does not reduce the number of concussions, but they can reduce the severity of head impacts.

“There’s…publications looking at laboratory testing, including that at Virginia Tech, that continues to show a decrease in that magnitude of impact and a decrease in concussion risk,” Cardenas said. “The original intent was not just to reduce concussions, but to reduce the repetitive head impact, which is an issue for all of our youth at all levels and very important, regardless of the device that’s used. If we can reduce the exposure to these head impacts, which this bill includes, then that is a positive thing from my perspective.”

The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission does not oppose SB 585, but the quasi-public-private organization already has its own Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, comprised of health professionals from across the state that provides guidance to the WVSSAC on issues regarding the health and safety of the student-athletes.

“I want to be very clear as we move through this: we’re not opposed to the bill,” said David Price, executive director of the WVSSAC. “We want to do anything we can to enhance the bill, to make it something that will keep our kids safe and reduce the risk of injury in West Virginia for our student athletes.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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