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Concussion Concerns

May 29, 2012

The MHSAA has been concerned for many years with the need for heightened awareness of concussions.  For example:  

  • In 2000 the laminated card “Head Injury Guide for Trainers and Coaches,” provided by St. Johns Health Systems, was distributed in quantities to every MHSAA member school.
  • The following fall, 20,000 laminated “Management of Concussions in Sports” cards, a joint project of the American Academy of Neurology and the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, were distributed to schools.
  • In the summer of 2005 the video “Concussions and Second Impact Syndrome” was provided at no cost to every MHSAA member high school.
  • In the fall of 2007 the DVD “Sports Head Injury,” a project of Henry Ford Health Systems, was provided to every MHSAA member junior high/middle school and high school.

All of this and many other efforts have been provided at no cost to our member schools, and continue to be provided at no cost to these cash-strapped institutions.

In 2010, the MHSAA adopted strong return-to-play protocols for students with concussions and suspected of being concussed.  Under our rule, any athlete who exhibits signs, symptoms or behaviors consistent with a concussion must be removed from competition.  Furthermore, our rule clearly states that if a student is removed from play due to a suspected concussion, that student cannot return to play that day and must be cleared in writing by an MD or DO prior to returning on any later day.  And the rule has a strong enforcement mechanism:  if a school allows a concussed student to return to play without the written authorization of an MD or DO, that is the same as playing an ineligible athlete and results in forfeiture of the contest.    

The MHSAA’s website posts training tools for athletes, parents and coaches, including those of the Centers for Disease Control, and three free online courses – one from CDC, one from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the third from Michigan NeuroSport at the University of Michigan.  The “Parent’s Guide to Concussion in Sports” has been widely distributed to school administrators, coaches, students and parents.

During this school year alone, nearly 20,000 high school coaches and officials will complete a rules meeting requirement that, beyond basic playing rules, is dominated by information regarding head trauma prevention, recognition and after care.  

We welcome help in this effort from professional sports organizations.  However, if professional sport leagues want to make a meaningful contribution to this topic in this state and other states, they must do more to change the culture of their programs.  All of our collective efforts on this topic are undermined when a professional player gets his “bell rung” in a nationally-televised game and returns later to that game, or is carried off the field or court one day and returns to play the next.  These nationally-televised tragedies-in-waiting may send the message to our youngest athletes and their parents and coaches that concussions are not serious.

This is not merely a football issue.  For us, it’s also an issue for soccer, ice hockey, wrestling, lacrosse and almost every sport we serve.  Furthermore, this issue is but one of several compelling health and safety issues in school sports that deserve our attention and must receive it every year to help local schools whose resources have been so severely reduced in recent years.  

Tasks Before Us

May 20, 2014

A year ago the MHSAA convened the first of several task forces that are tackling the kind of complicated topics on which our annual committee meeting process seemed incapable of making sufficient progress.

We assembled a 16-member task force that met four times over six months during 2013 to develop policy proposals to enhance acclimatization and reduce head-to-head contact in football practices. Meeting multiple times, the group could delve more deeply into data and explore emerging trends in both school-based and non-school football. The task force would develop ideas at one meeting, test them with constituents for a few weeks and then tweak the ideas at the next meetings. Task force members had the time to be both philosophical and practical, to think about what would be ideal and then trim that idea to be workable in all sorts and sizes of schools across Michigan.

As a result of this focused, multi-session approach, the Football Practice Proposals sailed smoothly through a vetting process during the winter months, earned the MHSAA Representative Council’s approval in March and will be controlling MHSAA member school football practices this fall.

Meanwhile, we began 2014 with the appointment of another task force to tackle many thorny issues related to junior high/middle schools. Some of the issues are so fundamental that changes in the MHSAA Constitution could be required to change what the MHSAA should be doing with respect to school sports prior to the 9th grade. There is equal chance that the task force could propose some very large changes, or very little change. We don’t prescribe the result, we just provide the forum and facilitation – create focus that has been lacking for too long.

Later this year and during 2015 we see the likelihood that additional task forces will address other tough topics, like out-of-season coaching, redefining what subvarsity means, and possibly address more risk management issues, perhaps in ice hockey and soccer first and then other sports where health and safety questions are raised.