Out of the corner of your eye you see it happening. A lean mass is falling at a rapid speed and it’s getting ready to drive you, along with itself, into the ground.

No, this isn’t the image a quarterback sees before a linebacker delivers a sack; it’s what a motorcyclists witness as they’re about to crash.

A motorcycle’s lack of protection can cause the rider to be flung from the bike and soar across the open air during a crash. While drifting through the sky normal objects like trees, light poles and road sings turn into objects of death.

Even if the rider flies in a control path during a collision, they face colliding with pavement, another vehicle, or some other surface to bring their body to rest.

For comparison sake, for every 100 million miles a car travels, 1.48 people will die. In that same amount of distance, 38.93 motorcyclists will meet the same fate.

Yet many continue to ride and proclaim the life style of a biker, a lifestyle that is focused on personal freedom, excitement, and rejection of social norms; a lifestyle very similar to sports.

To the Northern Star’s knowledge, not one NIU athlete owns a motorcycle, but a few football players do own scooters, a smaller cousin of a motorcycle.

“I know a few have scooters because I’ve see them in the lot,” said NIU football coach Joe Novak. “But I don’t know who owns them.”

And while Novak doesn’t like his players riding scooters, he knows that he cannot tell his them to abandon their grown-up toys.

“I get nervous, but I’m not going to sit around and tell them they can’t do it,” Novak said. “I just worry about it.”

But much like when on the field, Novak doesn’t let them out with no helmet. He strongly urges his players to wear head protection whenever on a motorized bike, despite the fact that Illinois has no law requiring users of motorized bikes to wear helmets.

The 11th year coach knows that some players do not heed his warning though, and continue to ride their bikes without helmets.

Unlike professional sports, colleges do not have contracts that dictate what players can and cannot do. Thus, colleges cannot dictate the actions of players through scholarships, as those requirements are based only on NCAA regulations and academic requirements.

“I’m not aware of anything that restricts athletes,” said compliance director Bobbie Cesarek. “Each coach will set up their particular requirements.”

And Novak said he can’t set up a requirement preventing his players to ride motorized scooters or bikes.

The NCAA also states, “Institutional financial aid based in any degree on athletics ability may not be reduced, canceled or increased during the period of award because an injury prevents the student-athlete from participating.”

Even if an athlete was to get injured from an accident their scholarship could not be cancelled, which is unlike the contracts in professional sports.

During the weeks after Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s near fatal motorcycle accident, many focused on the lack of safety these machines posses and called for more regulations.

There is hope for worried coaches across the country such as Novak, however. In 2005 Honda revealed to the world the first air bag on a motorcycle.

The 2006 Honda 1800 GoldWing airbag works with by utilizing four crash sensors. When these sensors are trigged, an air bag inflates and surrounds the rider’s torso and lower head.