Column: A torn ACL, but unbroken hopes for high school quarterback

You can’t miss Marshal Cohen on the football field before Harvard-Westlake games. He’s the one wobbling around on crutches, his left leg heavily bandaged.

Twice since 2013, the senior quarterback has torn his anterior cruciate ligament, requiring surgery and forcing him to confront the issue that is becoming front and center in discussing America’s favorite high school sport.

Are the rewards worth the risks?

Last week, four high schools in Southern California announced they didn’t have enough players to finish their seasons and forfeited games. Nationally, seven players have died this season from injuries or ailments.

If you turn on any college game on television, players going down with injuries or hits to the head have become as common as commercial breaks.

And yet, the players play on, the fans cheer on and the game moves on.

“It’s been bad luck for me, but I still love the game,” Cohen said. “It hasn’t changed me. What I miss most is not necessarily playing but being part of the team, being part of that brotherhood football brings. I’m still an active captain. I still love all the guys and they love me. I see this not being my time right now. Everything happens for a reason.”

Cohen was supposed to be the Wolverines’ top player this season. Then he went down in the first quarter of the first game. The team doctor squeezed the player’s knee on the sideline, and when Cohen saw the look on his face, he started to cry. He knew his senior season was over before it even had begun. He had returned for his junior season after a year of rehabilitation for a torn ACL his sophomore season and had just begun to reach peak form.

“I really understood what it meant to work 100%,” he said. “I found it. Then, when I’m feeling the best I’ve ever felt, I go down. It was devastating. I felt I deserved to have a great senior season, because I worked hard. To have it taken from me, it sucks.”

Harvard-Westlake, in Studio City, has regrouped behind a former receiver playing quarterback, Noah Rothman, and gone 6-2 overall and 3-0 in the Angelus League. The Wolverines are following the “next man up” philosophy, though some schools have run out of “next man up” because of injuries, grades and depleted rosters.

Cohen, though, insists his days of playing football aren’t over. He said he intends to play at an NCAA Division III school even though he’s going to have to endure another year of rehabilitation. He refuses to back down from the challenges playing football can present.

“Football is a violent sport,” he said. “I’ve never played scared. I’ve never gotten a concussion, but I know if you play hard all the time . . . ACLs happen to be an injury that can happen any time. I think it’s terrible people have shied away from playing football and all this talk of unnecessary risks.

“There’s so many lessons besides playing that it teaches you — hard work, brotherhood, how to work together. It’s more than just football. It’s something bigger than that. I think that’s important, especially for parents, to know.”

eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATSondheimer