September brings backpacks, bus schedules, and the start of fall sports. Football, soccer, and cross-country all get underway within a few weeks of the first day of school, and more practices and games mean more chances for a hit to the head or body.
Most of those hits amount to nothing. But some do, and the tricky part is that a concussion doesn’t always announce itself right away. Delayed concussion symptoms can surface hours, days, or longer after a child seemed fine walking off the field.
Washington has some of the strongest youth concussion protections in the country, and Adler Giersch helped write the law that created them. This guide covers how common concussions are in youth sports, whether symptoms can show up late, what state law requires of coaches and schools, and what to do if that law isn’t followed.
How Common Are Concussions in Youth Sports?
Concussions are among the most commonly reported injuries in children and teens who take part in sports and recreational activities. That finding comes from the Washington Legislature itself, written into the opening section of RCW 28A.600.190 when the state passed its youth concussion law.
Fall sports carry different kinds of risk. Football involves repeated collisions by design. Soccer adds contact from headers and from players. Lacrosse can result in head trauma, as can cheerleading. Cross-country may seem lower risk, but runners can fall on uneven trails and collide with one another in tight packs at the start of a race.
Concussions aren’t just an issue in contact sports. A concussion can happen any time – any blow to the head or body can be enough to cause one.
Can Concussion Symptoms Be Delayed?
Yes. The CDC is direct about this: concussion signs and symptoms may not show up right away. They can take hours, days, or longer to appear or be noticed.
That’s what makes delayed concussion symptoms so easy to miss. A child can walk off the field, finish the game, and get through dinner with nothing seeming wrong, then develop a headache that evening or struggle to focus in class the next morning.
The CDC also points out that a parent often notices the change before the child does, partly because a child may not realize anything is off until they try to do something familiar.
It helps to know that most concussions happen without any loss of consciousness. A child who was never knocked out can still have a concussion.
This is part of why Washington law requires removal from play the moment a concussion is suspected, rather than once symptoms become obvious.
What Delayed Symptoms Look Like
Late concussion symptoms can be overlooked on their own and can be easy to explain away as tiredness or a rough day at school. Still, any of these symptoms can arise well after the impact happened:
- Physical: Headache, nausea, or dizziness.
- Thinking and memory: Trouble concentrating, forgetfulness, or taking longer than usual on familiar schoolwork.
- Mood, sleep, and behavior: Irritability, sleeping more or less than usual, or seeming “off”.
A parent who did not see the hit has little reason to connect a headache that evening to something that happened hours earlier. That gap matters, because a child who seems fine may be sent back to practice while the brain is still healing.
Keep watching for several days after any blow to the head or body. If symptoms show up at any point, that is reason enough to have your child medically evaluated before a return to play.
What Washington’s Youth Concussion Law Requires
Washington law requires removal of a youth athlete suspected of sustaining a concussion from play immediately. It bars any return until a licensed health care provider gives written clearance.
Those requirements come from RCW 28A.600.190, known as the Zackery Lystedt Law, which passed in 2009.
The statute sets out three core obligations:
- Immediate removal. An athlete suspected of sustaining a concussion or head injury in a practice or game must be removed from competition at that time. Suspicion is the trigger, not a diagnosis.
- Written clearance before returning. A removed athlete may not return until a licensed health care provider trained in evaluating and managing concussions has evaluated and cleared them.
- An annual information sheet. The athlete and their parent or guardian must sign and return a head injury information sheet each year before practice or competition begins.
The law is named for Zackery Lystedt, a Washington middle school football player who returned to the field after sustaining concussions during a game. He collapsed, underwent emergency brain surgery at Harborview Medical Center, and was left with a severe, lasting brain injury.
Adler Giersch helped write this law. The firm represented Zackery and his family, and founding attorney Richard Adler led the coalition of medical, sports, and community partners that brought the legislation to the Washington Legislature in 2009. It was the first law of its kind in the country.
Every state has since adopted a version of it. The firm continues board-level involvement with Brain Northwest, formerly the Brain Injury Alliance of Washington.
Is a Concussion a Traumatic Brain Injury?
Yes. A concussion is a traumatic brain injury, specifically a mild one, which is why providers sometimes call it an mTBI.
The word “mild” is the source of most of the confusion in the concussion vs TBI question. It describes how the injury is medically classified at the outset, not how much it will disrupt a child’s health, sleep, schoolwork, mood, or ability to play the sport they love.
The bigger concern is what happens next. Repeated concussions, or a return to play before the brain has fully healed, raise the risk of a more serious and longer-lasting injury.
This concern is written into the law itself: continuing to play with a concussion leaves a young athlete especially vulnerable to greater injury. That is the risk the Lystedt Law was built to prevent.
What Should Parents Do If They Suspect a Concussion?
Take your child out of the game or practice right away, even if they insist they feel fine. Then have them evaluated by a licensed health care provider before any return to play and keep watching for symptoms over the days that follow.
A few things worth knowing:
- Get evaluated even if symptoms fade. Washington law requires written clearance before returning to practice or games, so this step is not optional if your child plays school sports.
- Keep watching for symptoms. Signs of a concussion can show immediately or begin in the days following a blow to the head or body.
- Write down what happened. Note the date, how the injury occurred, who was present, and what the coach or trainer did in response. Memories blur quickly, and these details are hard to reconstruct weeks later.
That last step is not about preparing for a legal claim. It is about having an accurate record if symptoms turn out to be more persistent than anyone expected, which matters as much to a treating provider as it does to anyone else.
When a School or Coach Doesn’t Follow the Law
Washington’s youth concussion law creates obligations, not suggestions. Schools, coaches, and leagues are required to follow it, and in 2017 the Washington Supreme Court confirmed that a failure to meet those requirements can support a legal claim.
The requirements are specific and observable.
A child was either removed from play when a concussion was suspected or was not.
Written clearance either existed before the return to play or it did not.
When a coach sends a player back in after a hit that raised concern, or a school skips the protocol entirely, that can be more than just a bad judgment call.
None of this means every youth sports head injury involves a failure by an adult. Most don’t. Concussions happen in well-run programs that follow every step correctly.
Still, it is a fair question for a parent to ask: was the protocol followed? If the answer is unclear, or if it seems to be no and a child’s symptoms are lingering, that is a reasonable point to ask a head injury lawyer whether a head injury claim is worth exploring.
How Adler Giersch Supports Families After a Youth Sports Head Injury
Parents searching for a child injury lawyer after a sports head injury are usually looking for something more specific: someone who understands brain injuries in particular.
Adler Giersch worked on youth concussion safety before Washington had a law addressing it. The firm helped write RCW 28A.600.190 and continues board-level involvement with Brain Northwest.
The firm also has deep connections across Washington’s medical and rehabilitation community, including providers affiliated with UW Medicine and Harborview Medical Center and the Seattle Sports Concussion Program. That matters in concussion cases, where symptoms can be subtle and where documentation depends on clinicians who understand how brain injuries present in children.
Adler Giersch takes a boutique, case-by-case approach rather than carrying high-volume caseloads. A traumatic brain injury lawyer at the firm serves families throughout Washington from offices in Seattle, Everett, Issaquah, and Kent.
Parents who want to understand more before contacting anyone are welcome to start with the firm’s free guide, Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury.
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Fall sports are meant to be fun. Most of what a season produces is bruises, sore muscles, and stories. Most of the time, they pass without anyone needing to think twice.
Head injuries are the exception worth treating differently. They can hide for a period of time, they can be missed by everyone watching, and the cost of ‘waiting to see’ can be high.
If your child’s coach or school didn’t follow the concussion protocol, or if symptoms are lingering longer than anyone expected, Adler Giersch can talk it through with you. You’re welcome to request a private, confidential consultation whenever it feels like the right time.
