Injecting Sports Medicine
May 13, 2014
We are receiving the proper dosage of sports medicine advice in Michigan.
The Sports Medicine Advisory Committee of the National Federation of State High School Associations advises the NFHS and its member associations on medical and safety issues and conditions as they relate to interscholastic athletics. With nationwide expertise representing a broad range of sports medicine disciplines, the SMAC meets over three days, two times each year. It issues advisories and position statements and publishes a comprehensive manual which is provided without charge to each member high school in Michigan.
The MHSAA has had direct representation on the SMAC for two separate four-year terms; and we depend on the SMAC to monitor, evaluate, filter and disseminate current sports medicine information that is of practical use at the interscholastic level.
The SMAC and the Michigan Department of Community Health are the voices the MHSAA listens to most in the often over-hyped cacophony of sports medicine opinion. What makes the SMAC even more unique than its prestigious panel of experts is that it has direct input into the rules-making process of the NFHS which dominates the publishing of high school playing rules. The MHSAA adopts those rules in every MHSAA sport for which rules are prepared by the NFHS.
The MHSAA has sometimes been criticized for not having its own sports medicine committee. However, we believe there is no need to create another committee to duplicate the work of the NFHS Sports Medicine Committee. And when we have needed extra attention to a unique in-state topic, we have found the Michigan Department of Community Health to be a willing and able partner.
Corporate Care
March 10, 2015
One of the MHSAA’s newest corporate sponsors is arguably one of its most important ever because it will assist the MHSAA’s aspirations to go further beyond the ordinary in promoting student-athlete health and safety.
That new sponsor is Sparrow Health System, and you can read about our new relationship by clicking here.
During the many discussions with Sparrow’s leadership leading up to our partnership, we learned of its membership in the prestigious Mayo Clinic Care Network; and during our review of some of Mayo’s work we reviewed an April 2012 Mayo Clinic article about the risks of concussion in high school football.
The article presented the results of a carefully controlled study of individuals who played high school football in Rochester, Minnesota, during the decade 1946 to 1956.
The conclusion was that those participants did not have an increased risk of later developing dementia, Parkinson’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared to non-football-playing high school males. The study notes that this was the case even though, compared to today, “there was poorer equipment and less regard for concussions and no rules prohibiting head-first tackling (spearing).”
There is no small supply of data that sheds better light on the head trauma hysteria in sports in general and football in particular. We cite such data as a counter-balance, not as a reason to slow the search for safer ways to conduct school sports. Our new sponsorship is evidence that we are increasing our capacity to do much more.