The Lethal Weapon: How the Plastic Football Helmet Transformed the Game of Football, 1939-1994

Abstract

Under the Friday night lights of October 23, 1971, Senn High School battled Kennedy High for football victory. In the third period, to avoid a rush from the Kennedy tacklers, the Senn quarterback scrambled and threw to his halfback, Marco Cervates. Cervates caught the ball, turned and put his head down to run for extra yardage as his teammates and fans cheered. A two hundred-pound linebacker abruptly stopped Cervates' run. Cervates fell to the turf, unconscious. On November 3, 1971, at the age of seventeen, Marco Cervates died.(1)