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A Healthy Future

April 24, 2015

As stated in this space a week ago, the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years complete an eight-year period during which we have addressed for two years each Health Histories, Heads, Heat and Hearts.

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 will 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 promoted more objectivity and backbone to removal from play decisions for suspected concussions at both practices and events where medical personnel are not present.

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.

All of this is for all sports on all levels, both genders.

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.

Current Events

November 3, 2017

This is the ninth year that I have been posting blogs twice a week – each Tuesday and Friday. A recent project required I go back through the postings of the eight previous years; and a sidebar of that project is this posting.

I rediscovered that in the fall of 2009, I was writing about topics that remain current today. For example,

  • August 18 – What new sports may be in the future of high school athletics?

  • August 25 – The prospects of 8-player football.

  • September 4 – Baseball pitching rules.

  • September 8 – Video streaming.

  • October 6 – Protection from head injuries.

  • November 17 – Foreign students.

  • November 20 – Football scheduling.

  • November 27 – Football Playoffs.

And on several occasions over the first six months, the topics were problems in school finance and the financial pressures on school sports, reasons for various eligibility rules, changes in playing rules to promote participant safety, tournament classification, and the need for stronger leadership on all levels of school sports.

All of these topics remain current. Proving once again, perhaps, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, that there are no genuinely new topics.