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Attitude Adjustment

June 3, 2014

One of the privileges of my job is the opportunity to speak at uplifting season-ending or year-ending events of MHSAA member schools. No matter how busy or burdensome the day has been, these evening assignments always improve my attitude. They sharpen my vision of the core values of school sports and deepen my commitment to the cause of educational athletics.

This was the case when I accepted a last-minute invitation to address senior athletes, parents and staff on a Monday evening in May at a Class A school near Lake Michigan. I was there to address this audience; but the best part of the evening for me was to hear administrators, coaches and boosters talk about student-athletes and observe parents soaking up the moments and messages.

This school gave special recognition to three seniors who participated in all 12 seasons of their high school experience. The school honored 49 students who had earned four or more high school letters, including 22 who had earned six or more. Clearly, there is an important place for the multi-sport student at this school, and this school places a high value on the multi-sport experience.

Twelve students (ten girls and two boys) will be receiving some type of financial aid to college with the expectation that they will play intercollegiate athletics, but only one of those is to a Division I university; and that’s for women’s track & field. She’s the school’s record holder in both the shot put and discus, but she looks more like a ballerina.

That’s part of the joy of these events . . . seeing the different ways our high school student-athletes are packaged. I always smile when, for example, the 112-pound wrestler, six-foot volleyball player and rail-thin golfer are called up to receive the same award; and I’m always charmed when a coach calls his petite softball player a “bulldog.”

My commitment to providing a diverse, values-driven athletic program in a school setting – with opportunities for the tall, short, slender and stout – has never been greater, encouraged once again by sharing an evening with those who are the heart and soul of school sports.

Girls, Boys and Concussions

September 13, 2016

On Monday the Michigan High School Athletic Association announced the major findings from the first year that member high schools were required to report all suspected concussions in the practices and competitions conducted in the 28 sports served by the MHSAA.

It surprises no one that 11-player and 8-player football ranked first and third, with 49 and 34 head injuries per thousand participants, respectively.

And while I’m told it’s not surprising to the experts that girls report more head injuries than boys, it is stunning to me how very many more head injuries are reported for girls than boys.

In sports with identical playing rules, girls reported head injuries with approximately twice the frequency that boys did.

In soccer, girls reported 30 head injuries per 1,000 participants, compared to 18 per 1,000 for boys.

In basketball, girls reported 29 head injuries per 1,000 participants, compared to only 11 per 1,000 for boys.

Girls reported concussions at the rate of 11 per 1,000 participants in softball, while boys reported just 4 per 1,000 in baseball.

Only a small percentage of either girls or boys were cleared by licensed medical personnel to return to activity in less than six days, and more than half were withheld between six and 15 days in soccer and basketball. The data suggests that clearance for girls to be returned to activity was slightly more gradual than it was for boys.

Researchers and reporters may find dozens of other observations and curiosities from the summary of 4,452 confirmed head injury reports submitted by the MHSAA’s 755 member high schools for MHSAA-supported sports in 2015-16; but what has the MHSAA’s attention is this giant gender difference.

Is this gender difference accurate, and if so, what are the physiological factors involved that make it so?

Is there a tendency for over-reporting by females, or under-reporting by males, and if so, what are the social and/or psychological factors that may cause this?

Regardless, what does this mean for how coaches work with boys and girls; and what does that mean for how we prepare coaches through the MHSAA Coaches Advancement Program?

The MHSAA will take to an even deeper level its nearly 30-year partnership with the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University to explore the issues related to coaches education that have emerged as a result of the first year of mandated concussion reporting for Michigan high schools.

The 2015-16 school year was only a start; it identified some initial themes. The more important value will be realized after the 2016-17 school year, and subsequent school years, when year-over-year comparisons will be made and trends will become apparent that will demand action to further promote the welfare of participants in school-sponsored sports.