We’ve Got This Right
March 1, 2013
This year's Super Bowl was an occasion for an unusual amount of commentary on the state of football safety, especially concussions.
One group called on state high school associations and football coaches associations to eliminate contact outside the defined interscholastic season. That would mean spring football practice, and during summer leagues and camps, and at all-star games.
Michigan is one of a large majority of states where schools do not allow spring football practice. Michigan is one of a minority of states where schools do not allow contact at summer camps, for which we are often criticized by out-of-state camp promoters. And Michigan is one of a smaller minority of states where schools prohibit students, coaches, officials and administrators from being involved in all-star games involving undergraduates.
While we are well ahead of the curve on out-of-season contact policies, we are in the mainstream of state high school associations studying what the appropriate limits should be on contact during early season football practice and throughout the remainder of the season. We have a task force that appears headed toward recommending that the Representative Council prescribe only one contact session per day during early season practice and only two contact practices per week after games begin.
There will be other ideas percolating and then simmering with these before any are proposed to the MHSAA Football Committee and Representative Council.
Early Results
May 17, 2016
On May 3 we released a preliminary summation of results of winter season concussions reported by Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools. It was reported that 48 percent of the concussions reported were to female athletes, who make up only 38 percent of all winter season participants.
We will be digging deeper into the reports and providing a more comprehensive summary for all three seasons – fall, winter and spring; but we already see one suspected theme is being confirmed: more concussions reported for girls than for boys.
Even though girls’ participation in basketball is 36 percent lower than boys in MHSAA member high schools, there were 88 percent more concussions reported for girls than boys in that sport this past season.
We hope that researchers will step forward to inquire into the physiological, psychological, social and other reasons for the significant disparity in concussions reported by males and females; and perhaps they will be able to suggest what administrators, coaches, rule-makers and others might do in response to that research.
We expect that other themes suggested by the data from this first-year reporting requirement and then year-over-year comparisons will create interest in other research, all of which will help make school sports an even healthier experience for boys and girls than it already is.