Dangerous Plays
February 26, 2013
The MHSAA’s fourth health and safety thrust for the next four years focuses on competition rules. It intends to locate the most dangerous plays in each sport and to try to reduce their frequency. For example:
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We know that kickoff returns, punt returns and interception returns – plays in the open field with a change in direction – are the most dangerous football game situations.
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We know that heading the ball in soccer is injurious, especially to younger athletes, and especially to females.
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We know that checking from behind is a cause of serious injury in ice hockey.
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We wonder if protective headgear has a place in soccer, or if protective head and face protection has a future role in softball.
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We know that ACL injuries in female basketball players and volleyball players is near epidemic and wonder if there is equipment or conditioning that can be mandated or recommended to save our players from what are serious and sometimes career-ending injuries.
We can make changes ourselves – through MHSAA sport committees – for the subvarsity level, but our committees can only make recommendations to national rules committees for varsity level play. Over the next four years, we will be asking our sport committees to give more time to the most dangerous plays in their sport – identifying what they are and proposing how to reduce that danger.
Head Trauma and Learning
November 23, 2012
Researchers at my alma mater have joined their voices to the growing chorus of concerns about the effects of repeated blows to the head.
A study of the cognitive effects of head impacts on members of Dartmouth College football, hockey, track, crew and Nordic ski teams compared before and after season results on learning and memory skills. Participating athletes also came from Brown and Virginia Tech.
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22 percent of athletes in contact sports had lower results on learning and memory skills tests after their season.
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Only 4 percent of athletes in non-contact sports posted lower test results.
The researchers caution that it is unknown at this point how long these negative effects may last, but they also note there is some correlation between test results and how hard the athletes were hitting heads.
This adds to the mounting evidence that rules writers, program sponsors, coaches and officials must look for and implement a variety of measures to reduce the frequency and severity of head impacts in both practice and competition in all sports.