What’s the world coming to when a coach isn’t even allowed to lick his own players’ blood?
According to this report on KGW.com, Coach Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes* of Central Linn High School in Halsey, Oregon, is being investigated for licking the blood off the knee of one of his high school football players. Then, at the insistence of the other players, and with permission, he then licked the blood off of a scab on another player’s knee.
The authorities from the Linn County Sheriff’s Office didn’t know what to make of the case, because…
“Sometimes there are actions that are socially unacceptable or bizarre that aren’t necessarily criminal,” Sheriff Dave Burright said. “If he had done it against a student’s wishes, at the very least we might have had harassment. But this contact wasn’t forced or necessarily unwanted.”
A doctor from the Department of the Painfully Obvious weighed in with her opinion:
Saliva-to-blood contact poses a slim but possible risk of disease transmission, said Dr. Sarah Hendrickson, public health officer at Lane County Public Health.
“Depending on the dental health of the licking person — whether there are open sores in the month, for instance — there’s a theoretical risk of several baddies: HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C,” she said.
The greater risk in this case would be the coach contracting an illness from the child, she said.
“We do know that animals lick their own wounds,” she said. “And it may be that saliva has some healing properties. But my very strong recommendation is that you confine yourself to licking your own wounds.”
Unless, of course, that wound is on your own elbow, in which case, call Coach Tepes.
*Coach’s real name has been changed to protect the innocent… and to facilitate my use of a bad vampire pun.
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