For the first time in the 60 years records have been kept, there were apparently no deaths attributed to football injuries during the 1990 season, an annual study by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found.
But the study found that three high-school and three college football players died during the 1990 season. Two of the high-school deaths resulted from heart failure, and the third player died after an asthma attack, the study found. The study also found 12 cases of paralysis.
Frederick Mueller, a professor of physical education at unc and the author of the study, noted that the number of football-related fatalities has dropped since 1976, when a rules change prohibited head-on tackles.
In 1968, 36 students died from playing football, Mr. Mueller said.
The annual study, which began at Yale University in 1931, is based on news reports, information from the school-athletic associations that sponsor the study, and accounts from volunteers who monitor sports in their states.
Three-fifths of all National Merit Scholarships awarded this spring will go to males, an advocacy group has found.
Analyzing the names of the 15,535 high-school seniors eligible for the awards, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, or FairTest, found that 59 percent of the 1990-91 National Merit Semifinalists are male, and another 37 percent are female. The sex of the remainder could not be determined by their names.
In analyzing each state’s winners, the group found that in two states--Delaware and Montana--girls outnumbered boys as semifinalists.
The smallest proportion of female winners was in North Dakota, where 32.1 percent of the 56 semifinalists were girls.
A summer camp for budding lawyers-to-be, which opened last summer, is expanding this year.
National LawCamp, which opened last year at Barry University in Miami Shores, Fla., is opening a second branch in 1991 at Georgetown University in Washington. The camp for the first time also will provide separate programs for high-school and college students.
The two-week program is aimed at introducing young people to law school and the legal profession. It exposes students to the Socratic method, enables them to participate in mock trials and appellate arguments, and offers field trips to jails, crime laboratories, and the U.S. Supreme Court, in addition to the usual summer-camp fare of volleyball, swimming, and softball.--rr
