Adam Massman, a high school football star from Wisconsin, died from injuries he sustained during a recent game. He was 17.
Massman was a rising senior at Alma Center Lincoln High School, where he played quarterback and defensive back for the school football team. He was expected to begin his senior year just before his death and was also listed on the school’s baseball and basketball rosters.
“Adam was injured during Thursday night’s football game,” Alma Center-Humbird-Merrillan School District superintendent Drew Semingson wrote in an open letter to the district. “He received medical support from EMT who were onsite at the game, before being transported to the hospital.”
Semingson continued, “This loss touches our Lincoln family in many ways. Adam’s family has deep connections throughout our schools, including his mother, Mrs. Brianne Massman, our elementary school counselor; a sibling at the Jr High; his uncle and aunt, Mr. Jake Prindle and Mrs. Nicki Prindle, who are teachers at Lincoln Elementary; his uncle Mr. Sam Prindle, who serves on the Lincoln School Board; along with other relatives on staff and friends and family throughout the student body.”
Semingson added that Massman was active in the school community, “making friends everywhere he went.” The school district made counselors available to all students on the first two days of school.
Details regarding the injury that Massman sustained have not been disclosed. His mother, Brianne Massman, said all the family knew was that there was “helmet-to-helmet contact” during the game, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
“I mean, no one would ever think something that severe would really happen,” she told the outlet. “We’re just completely devastated.”
“Playing sports with his friends was one of his favorite things — throwing touchdown passes, landing strikes, running in relays … you name it, he was there,” Adam’s obituary reads. “The friendships he made in all aspects of his life were incredibly important to him.”
Adam’s friends honored him at school by painting his parking space and adding the letters LLA, short for “Long Live Adam.” The tribute also paid homage to Adam’s family’s cattle business and the tire tracks from his truck, according to WEAU.
“Our home will never be the same,” the obituary continued. “Our hearts are here but they are broken. We’ll remember Adam and love him, but our hearts will ache because he’s not here. And yet, somehow, our hearts will also remain full because we did have him for 17 wonderful and perfect years.”
A lover of animals, Adam was also a cattle showman.
“To put it simply, there are no words … only a range of feelings and emotions,” the Jackson County Fair wrote in a statement via Facebook on Sunday, August 23. “There is shock; the kind that leaves you searching for an explanation when none seems possible. We extend our deepest sympathies, thoughts, and continued prayers to the family, friends, and fellow exhibitors of one hell of a cattleman and showman.”
