Health & Safety: A Look Back, Gallop Ahead

By John E. (Jack) Roberts
MHSAA Executive Director, 1986-2018

August 7, 2015

By Jack Roberts
MHSAA executive director

We are just completing year six of eight during which we have been addressing the four important health and safety issues that, for ease of conversation, we call the “Four Hs.”

During the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years, our focus was on Health Histories. We made enhancements in the pre-participation physical examination form, stressing the student’s health history, which we believe was and is the essential first step to participant health and safety.

During the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years, our focus was on Heads. We were an early adopter of removal-from-play and return-to-play protocols, and our preseason rules/risk management meetings for coaches included information on concussion prevention, recognition and aftercare.

Without leaving that behind, during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 school years, our focus was on Heat – acclimatization. We adopted a policy to manage heat and humidity – it is recommended for regular season and it’s a requirement for MHSAA tournaments. The rules/risk management meetings for coaches during these years focused on heat and humidity management.

At the mid-point of this two-year period, the MHSAA adopted policies to enhance acclimatization at early season practices and to reduce head contact at football practices all season long.

Without leaving any of the three previous health and safety “H’s” behind, during the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, our focus will be on Hearts – sudden cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death.

Coinciding with this emphasis is the requirement that all high school level, varsity level head coaches be CPR certified starting this fall. Our emphasis will be on AEDs and emergency action plans – having them and rehearsing them.

On Feb. 10, bills were introduced into both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, together called the “Safe Play Act (see below),” which addressed three of the four health and safety “H’s” just described: Heat, Hearts and Heads.

For each of these topics, the federal legislation would mandate that the director of the Centers for Disease Control develop educational material and that each state disseminate that material.

For the heat and humidity management topic, the legislation states that schools will be required to adopt policies very much like the “MHSAA Model Policy to Manage Heat and Humidity” which the MHSAA adopted in March of 2013.

For both the heart and heat topics, schools will be required to have and to practice emergency action plans like we have been promoting in the past and distributed to schools this summer.

For the head section, the legislation would amend Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments and eliminate federal funding to states and schools which fail to educate their constituents or fail to support students who are recovering from concussions. This support would require multi-disciplinary concussion management teams that would include medical personnel, parents and others to provide academic accommodations for students recovering from concussions that are similar to the accommodations that are already required of schools for students with disabilities or handicaps.

This legislation would require return-to-play protocols similar to what we have in Michigan, and the legislation would also require reporting and recordkeeping that is beyond what occurs in most places.

This proposed federal legislation demonstrates two things. First, that we have been on target in Michigan with our four Hs – it’s like they read our playbook of priorities before drafting this federal legislation.

This proposed federal legislation also demonstrates that we still have some work to do.

And what will the following two years – 2017-18 and 2018-19 – bring? Here are some aspirations – some predictions, but not quite promises – of where we will be.

First, we will have circled back to the first “H” – Health Histories – and be well on our way to universal use of paperless pre-participation physical examination forms and records.

Second, we will have made the immediate reporting and permanent recordkeeping of all head injury events routine business in Michigan school sports, for both practices and contests, in all sports and at all levels.

Third, we will have added objectivity and backbone to removal from play decisions for suspected concussions at both practices and events where medical personnel are not present; and we could be a part of pioneering “telemedicine” technology to make trained medical personnel available at every venue for every sport where it is missing today.

Fourth, we will have provided a safety net for families who are unable to afford no-deductible, no exclusion concussion care insurance that insists upon and pays for complete recovery from head injury symptoms before return to activity is permitted.

We should be able to do this, and more, without judicial threat or legislative mandate. We won’t wait for others to set the standards or appropriate the funds, but be there to welcome the requirements and resources when they finally arrive.

Safe Play Act — H.R.829
114th Congress (2015-2016) Introduced in House (02/10/2015)

Supporting Athletes, Families and Educators to Protect the Lives of Athletic Youth Act or the SAFE PLAY Act

Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop public education and awareness materials and resources concerning cardiac health, including:

  • information to increase education and awareness of high risk cardiac conditions and genetic heart rhythm abnormalities that may cause sudden cardiac arrest in children, adolescents, and young adults;
  • sudden cardiac arrest and cardiomyopathy risk assessment worksheets to increase awareness of warning signs of, and increase the likelihood of early detection and treatment of, life-threatening cardiac conditions;
  • training materials for emergency interventions and use of life-saving emergency equipment; and
  • recommendations for how schools, childcare centers, and local youth athletic organizations can develop and implement cardiac emergency response plans.

Requires the CDC to: (1) provide for dissemination of such information to school personnel, coaches, and families; and (2) develop data collection methods to determine the degree to which such persons have an understanding of cardiac issues.

Directs the Department of Health and Human Services to award grants to enable eligible local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools served by such LEAs to purchase AEDs and implement nationally recognized CPR and AED training courses.

Amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to require a state, as a condition of receiving funds under such Act, to certify that it requires: (1) LEAs to implement a standard plan for concussion safety and management for public schools; (2) public schools to post information on the symptoms of, the risks posed by, and the actions a student should take in response to, a concussion; (3) public school personnel who suspect a student has sustained a concussion in a school-sponsored activity to notify the parents and prohibit the student from participating in such activity until they receive a written release from a health care professional; and (4) a public school's concussion management team to ensure that a student who has sustained a concussion is receiving appropriate academic supports.

Directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop public education and awareness materials and resources to be disseminated to schools regarding risks from exposure to excessive heat and humidity and recommendations for how to avoid heat-related illness. Requires public schools to develop excessive heat action plans for school-sponsored athletic activities.

Requires the CDC to develop guidelines for the development of emergency action plans for youth athletics.

Authorizes the Food and Drug Administration to develop information about the ingredients used in energy drinks and their potential side effects, and recommend guidelines for the safe use of such drinks by youth, for dissemination to public schools.

Requires the CDC to: (1) expand, intensify, and coordinate its activities regarding cardiac conditions, concussions, and heat-related illnesses among youth athletes; and (2) report on fatalities and catastrophic injuries among youths participating in athletic activities.

SMCC's Windhams Agree to Coach Together - 'Us or Nothing' - Then Win It All

By Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com

November 26, 2024

When Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central was down to needing just one point to clinch the Division 3 volleyball championship Saturday, assistant coach Randy Windham was fighting back tears.

Southeast & Border“Just because I’m crying doesn’t mean this match is over,” Randy said in the huddle.

A few seconds later, it was over. SMCC had clinched the championship, and Randy had a front row seat to watch his wife, head coach Kim Windham, accept the  trophy.

“I always call her the best coach in the family,” Randy said.

The Windhams are a coaching couple. They have been married since 1992, operate a business in Monroe together and this fall, for the first time, coached together.

It clearly was a winning combination.

When Kim was approached about coaching SMCC prior to the season, she said Randy – who has been the head boys basketball coach at SMCC since 2009 – talked her into taking the job.

“I said, ‘I’ll take it if you’ll coach,’” she said. “’If you want me to coach, then obviously you are going to coach along with me. It’s us or nothing.’ He was all in from the get-go.’”

Randy, she thought, would bring an extra element to the bench that the Kestrels needed.

“He’s so good with the mental side of things with kids,” Kim said. “I knew how much he could contribute with that. All I wanted to do was coach. I wanted to do the Xs and Os, the practice plans and teaching and let him do the rest. He’s been absolutely fabulous.”

She said having Randy near helped her, too.

“Before every match, he’s my calming force. I lean on him a lot.”

During matches, Kim said Randy was often the person talking during the huddles.

“With volleyball you only have only three minutes between sets,” she said. “You have to figure out the rotations, who is going to start, what we are going to do … so as I’m at the table figuring that out, he’s talking to the group about what just happened or what we are going to do next.

The Windhams exchange a fun glance during Saturday’s Final. “It’s good to know he’s there taking care of things, saying the things the way I know I would want them to be said.”

While SMCC has had several deep MHSAA Tournament runs in recent years and an outstanding volleyball tradition, this year’s team did lack experience coming into the season. Windham was named head coach in May.

“We only really had three returning starters coming back,” she said. “When we started the season, the question was how we were going to get everyone else up to speed. We knew we had our work cut out for us. We had to figure out how we were going to make the puzzle pieces fit.”

Randy said he was confident Kim could get the job done.

“She’s been known to build programs,” Randy said. “It really isn’t about how good the players are, but what they will buy into. She’ll get them there. We had some good players, but she took them to the next level with her coaching.”

Kim set out to change the culture around an ultra-successful volleyball program. Early in the season, for example, the team focused on the fundamentals.

“We went back to basic fundamentals,” Kim said. “We knew if we wanted to be good, we had to be fundamentally sound first.”

Kim graduated from SMCC in 1990 after an outstanding volleyball career and went on to play two years at the college level. She launched her coaching career in 1996, only a few months after their son Bryce was born.

“I would take him with me to practice in his car seat, set him on the mat and coach,” she said.

Sports have been a common denominator for the Windham family for years.

Randy opened Monroe Sports Varsity Athletic, a screen printing and embroidery business, in 1991, a year before he and Kim were married. An assistant coach at SMCC since the 1990s, he also played professional slow-pitch softball for years. Bailey, a college volleyball player herself after playing at SMCC, lives in Indiana where she is a nurse. Bryce, who was drafted by the Chicago Cubs and played several seasons of Minor League Baseball, is working at the family business and is an assistant basketball coach at SMCC for his dad.

Kim started working full-time at the business in 2003. The day after winning the Kestrels’ most recent championship, the Windhams were back at the shop, working on filling orders.

The family bond is special.

“Randy and I just love spending time together,” Kim said. “Sometimes during basketball season Randy will be gone late or watching film. We almost get more upset when we are not together.”

Doug DonnellyDoug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central head volleyball coach Kim Windham, right, and assistant coach/husband Randy hold the program’s latest championship trophy. (Middle) The Windhams exchange a glance on the court at Kellogg Arena. (Top photo courtesy of the Windham family. Middle photo by Stephanie Hawkins.)