Guardian Caps making a difference for Bark River-Harris football
HARRIS — The game of football is an ever evolving sport.
The once powerful power sweep executed by Vince Lombardi’s legendary Green Bay Packers teams has given way to play action rollout passes to offensive lineman, spread offenses and an emphasis on an aerial assault.
But how has equipment changed?
Hundreds of thousands of football players across the United States are opting to try a new piece of technology in hopes of limiting brain injuries. It’s a new piece of equipment known as the Guardian Cap, and every player in Bark River-Harris’s football program is wearing one in 2024.
So, what is the Guardian Cap, and does it make a difference?
The Guardian Cap was created by Guardian Sports based out of Corners, Georgia. According to the company’s website, the cap was invented in 2010 to address the clear need to advance the standard helmet, which has changed little since the 1960’s. Erin and Lee Hanson, owners of The Hanson Group LLC, utilized their 20+ years in the material science business to engineer, patent, and manufacture the Guardian Cap. The cap itself acts like an airbag in a car. A hit to the head, whether it comes from another helmet, the ground or a body part, is absorbed by the cap to lessen the impact, similar to a NASCAR driver and the soft wall technology.
The Guardian Cap won the NFL HeadHealthTECH Challenge in 2017 and was distributed to NFL teams in 2020. After a year of data collection and lab testing, results showed a “statistically significant” improvement over helmets alone, the NFL permitted Guardian Caps in the 2021 season. In early 2022, the NFL owners announced that the league would mandate the use of Guardian Caps during the early part of training camp for all offensive and defensive linemen, tight ends and linebackers. In 2023, the NFL expanded the mandate of Guardian Caps to include all preseason, regular season, and postseason contact practices, while adding all ball carriers to the list of mandated positions. For the 2024 season, the NFL has once again expanded their mandate by adding receiver and defensive backs to the list of positions mandated to wear Guardian Caps. As of this season, any NFL player can wear a Guardian Cap during a game if they choose to.
Then there’s Bark River-Harris, a Division 8 football team with an enrollment of 228 students. The Broncos are in the postseason for the eighth time in 11 seasons after a 5-4 finish. First year head coach Caleb Adams saw the technology and made it part of the program, regardless of what the players thought.
“I made them be on board,” Adam said of the decision to use Guardian Caps in 2024. “Anything you do to protect player health is what you want to do.”
Adams said he bought 60 Guardian Caps for around $3,500 before the start of the season. He also said that the junior varsity program had two diagnosed concussions in 2024. The varsity program reported zero concussions.
“When you play 11 player football at the size school we are, we need every kid,” Adams said. “We can’t be losing kids to concussions. They’re dangerous. It was a god move.”
Senior offensive lineman Lucas Hall has no problem wearing the cap.
“It doesn’t look the best, but for somebody like me that likes to maybe use their head a little more than they should, I’ve grown to like them,” Hall said. There is a weight difference, but it’s not noticeable after the first week of wearing them.
Senior running back Christian Spear shared Hall’s thoughts, noting that no one made fun of the helmet’s appearance during the season.
“I noticed an immediate difference when wearing it. It keeps us cooler,” Spear said. “When you’re wearing it there’s really no weight difference. I forget it’s there half the time. Like, when I’m back watching film I see (the caps) on our heads I’m like ‘oh yeah, we’re wearing these.'”