[oneijoe]

To be more clear, it isn't -overall- head contact which is the problem. It's striking a blow on another player using the crown (top) of the helmet which causes the majority of serious neck injuries.

A classmate of mine spent the final 35 years of his life in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic (he passed away just this year, having only recovered gross arm movement). In his case, he suffered a compression C-spine injury because he didn't continue to keep his head up when stopping a ball carrier coming at him who also had his head down. It wasn't correct technique for the tackler as he's supposed to keep his head up, but the fullback who supplied most of the destructive force did exactly what was/is taught when power running inside - pick the hole then put the head down and run over tacklers.

One of the biggest problems is (in this particular incident) simple reflex. If a hit is seen coming head-on at the last second, the automatic reaction is to turn the face away (usually down).

It's a tough problem... 80 years ago when the helmets were little more than layered leather serious neck injuries were extremely uncommon. IMO, the reason is you then force the sense of survival to work -against- injury. After all who would intentionally hit someone head-on with nothing more than leather strapped to his head ?!? Of course, nowadays with larger players, weightlifting, and advanced training the speed and gross force of the game is so much greater, even at the high school level, ratcheting down the helmet quality is unlikely to be an effective answer to the problem.