Life Saving
January 22, 2013
Just prior to last month’s holidays, all MHSAA staff completed a refresher course in CPR and use of AEDs.
Next month – Feb. 4-8 – a consortium of governmental and non-governmental groups is planning and promoting “Michigan Schools CPR/AED Drill Week.”
Early intervention by calling 9-1-1 and the use of the most up-to-date CPR procedures and an AED are the critical factors to increase the chance of surviving cardiac arrest.
Plan now to use Feb. 4-8, 2013, as a focal point for extra attention to the simple steps that can help save the lives of our students, colleagues, friends and neighbors. A helpful website is http://www.aeddrill.com.
Hopefully, this one week will be used to increase expectations that AED drills will occur with regularity – perhaps every semester – at every MHSAA member school.
Hat Trick
July 31, 2017
When asked recently to identify the most important work of the Michigan High School Athletic Association at this particular time in the history of school sports in Michigan, I paused only briefly, because there is one initiative that scores a hat trick. It’s the MHSAA Task Force on Multi-Sport Participation.
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It is a forum for helping us define and defend educational athletics.
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It is helping us focus on the future of school sports – on the junior high/middle school level, and even younger athletes and their parents, where attitudes are being formed and decisions are being made.
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It is helping us focus on THE most serious health and safety issue in all of youth sports, which is specialization in one sport that is too early, too intense and too prolonged, leading to overuse injuries that tend to cause a lifetime of chronic injuries and related health problems.
The Task Force has convened five times over 15 months. It is moving now from the phase of identifying issues and challenges to developing tools for administrators and coaches to promote the multi-sport experience for young people.