Safety Comes First

Wake up Oregon high schools! Your track and field athletes are using potentially lethal weapons that could be made much safer without any effort.

Of course, track and field involves a lot of activities that are risky, such as pole vaulting, discus, shot and hurdles. But few, if any, of those are as easily changed to avoid injury and few, if any, are as fast and as sharp as the "weapon" in question here: the javelin.

On Friday, Cardinal Kayla Huxoll was hit in the leg by an unprotected, steel-tipped sports spear, a type that has been banned in Washington state for years but is still legal in Or...