Player Safety - Part 3

This is the third in a multi-part series of blogs I am writing about player safety in youth sports, specifically football.  With the recent increase in awareness of concussions, parents seem to be more concerned – some to the point of being paranoid - than ever about player safety. 

As has been stated before, there is risk of injury in any sport and if there are ways to reduce the risks, then we owe it to our kids to do so.  In this blog, I will focus on coaching education. 

Most youth coaches are volunteers and as such, have jobs, families, and lives.  They simply do not have a lot of spare time on their hands.  They mean well, are trying to teach the kids how to play a sport, and most do very well at teaching.  There is a small portion who try to excel at coaching youth sports and invest time and money into their own personal development in each off-season.  These are the guys who go to youth clinics to better learn how to break the game down to the youth level and who focus on teaching good, sound fundamentals.  Then there is a portion of youth coaches who, to put it bluntly, do not need to be trying to teach kids.  These are the guys who either do not know good fundamentals or do not care, only care about winning, and who create unsafe players.

I have been to youth clinics the past couple of years and have learned something new each time I’ve gone.  I also have invested in coaching materials to study and have someone I consider a mentor in youth coaching.  That’s going overboard, you say?  Consider this:  If a youth coach coaches the same player each year (and that does happen), they will spend more time coaching that player than any other coach that player will have (barring going professional) in their life.  They have the opportunity to have more of an influence on that player than any other coach they will have.  They are coaching them during the formative years of their lives and are either teaching them sound fundamentals or bad habits.  Many Junior High coaches have lamented about having to unteach bad habits that their players have developed from playing youth football.  Other Junior High coaches have raved about how their kids have such good fundamentals that they developed from playing youth football.  What do you think made the difference in the kids these two Junior High coaches are talking about?

I believe that coaching youth sports is a privilege and if we’re going to sign up for it, then we need to do everything we can to do it the right way.  The mechanics of pitching a baseball, when taught incorrectly, can result in a teenager having Tommy John surgery or rotator cuff surgery.  Proper fundamentals translates into more safety.  It doesn’t guarantee that a kid will go injury-free, but it does guarantee that his or her risk of injury will be much lower because they have been taught the right way to do things.   

My belief is that at the very least, the head coach from any team should have gone through a youth coaching clinic for their sport.  They need to be a continuous student of how to teach the game to kids.  One of the most important things I’ve learned from clinics and study materials is that youth need to be taught step-by-step.  It is important to think of them as a toddler learning to walk.  They were not born playing the sport of choice and must be taught a step at a time until they master it. 

Many well-intentioned youth coaches understand their sport, but cannot teach it to youth.  They teach too advanced and the information often is too complicated for youth to understand.  When the same information is taught step-by-miniscule step, the youth not only understand it more, but they understand WHY they need to know it.  And I think we call can attest to the fact that if we understand why we need to know something, we are much more likely to learn.

Player Safety - Part 2

This is the second in a multi-part series of blogs I am writing about player safety in youth sports, specifically football.  With the recent increase in awareness of concussions, parents seem to be more concerned – some to the point of being paranoid - than ever about player safety.  However, there are injuries other than concussions that can also be quite serious.

Understand:  There is risk of injury in any sport and if there are ways to reduce the risks, then we owe it to our kids to do so.  What do I fear more than a hard hit in youth football?  A line drive to the head in baseball or a head-to-head collision in basketball.  In football, the participants are wearing as much protective gear as possible.  Defenders in baseball are wearing baseball caps and gloves.  Players are wearing only their jerseys and shorts in basketball.  What if all infielders were required to wear helmets with protective facemasks in baseball?  The helmets wouldn’t need to be the same style or weight as football helmets and I can’t see that it would really impair the game.  Same for basketball – what about bicycle style helmets for hoops?

In 2007, the Mayo Clinic did a study on the risk of injury in youth activities and found that injuries are uncommon in youth football.  Highlights of the study note that:

* Organized football among 5 – 15 year-olds has 12 percent fewer injuries per capita than organized soccer in the same age range.

* Organized football among 5 – 15 year-olds has 50 percent fewer injuries per capita than bicycle riding in the same age range.

 

* Organized football among 5 – 15 year-olds has 74 percent fewer injuries per capita than skateboarding in the same age group.

* Injuries in youth football are normally mild, and older players have a higher injury rate than younger players.

* The Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma in New York completed an injury survey in 71 towns covering over 5,000 players in 1998. The injury experience of 5,128 boys (8 to 15 years of age, weight 22.5 to 67.5 kg [50 to 150 lb]) participating in youth football revealed an overall rate of significant injury of 5%, with 61% classified as moderate and 38.9% as major injuries. That's about 1.33 per team per year. No catastrophic injuries occurred, and it was rare for a permanent disability to result from any injury.

 

You can read the entire article here:  http://www.cgbfl.org/pdfs/Mayo_Clinic_Study_Summary.pdf

The stigma that football has for being a sport with high injury rates has to do with the fact that there are collisions on every play.  While it is true that these collisions increase the risk of injury, what often gets overlooked is the amount of protective equipment the players are wearing.  They do not have this amount of protective equipment in other sports.  Football is the most popular sport in America and as such, gets the most negativity when it comes to youth player safety.  

I’ve heard numerous parents state that their child will not play football, but instead will play soccer because it is safer.  However, recent articles indicate otherwise.  Soccer has a concussion crisis of its own brewing.  http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/cost-header 

http://consumer.healthday.com/cognitive-health-information-26/brain-health-news-80/heading-soccer-ball-can-damage-brain-study-says-684615.html

Other serious injuries can also occur in this “safer” sport.  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2014/article-2666924/Thomas-Muller-ready-guide-Germany-Group-G-receiving-five-stitches-following-head-injury-Ghana-draw.html    

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/dcunited/at-2014-world-cup-injuries-to-stars-are-getting-painful/2014/06/10/1b55eaaa-f0e7-11e3-85d2-cda8aebfefe0_story.html

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2076452-germanys-best-world-cup-alternatives-to-injured-key-players

The bottom line is that anytime competitive sports are played, injuries are a risk.  They always have been and always will be.  But in my opinion, the reward is much greater than the risk.

Player Safety - Part 1

With all the articles and attention lately on whether or not football is safe, player safety has shot to the forefront of the football discussion.  Anytime you look up football in a search engine, you are almost guaranteed to find an article on concussions in the results.  In football at every level, up to the NFL, new rules have been implemented to help protect players as much as possible in a collision sport.  Defenseless player penalties are called on almost a weekly basis in college and pro football.  Targeting is called less frequently, but does occur.

At the youth level, player safety has gotten even more attention, as it should.  Concussion protocols have been implemented in nearly every league and organization.  Organizations such as Pop Warner and AYF have strict weight classifications to be followed.  USA Football has partnered with the NFL for a “better, safer game” and has a Heads-Up Coaching Certification.  USAF discounts the cost of the coaching certification courses to leagues and organizations and has a national database parents can use to find Heads-Up certified leagues, organizations, and coaches. 

Having safety protocols in place are good, but enforcement is critical.  If leagues do not enforce safety standards and rules, then player safety becomes hot air.  Beware the league or organization that touts player safety, but doesn’t enforce league weight restrictions, allows older kids to play in younger divisions, and doesn’t enforce unnecessary roughness penalties such as targeting, defenseless player, or facemask because the kids are “just learning.”

Most leagues require birth certificates with photographs of the players.  Some leagues even require a logged weigh-in.  It is best if this information is kept on file by the league and is available for review at any time by anyone.  Some leagues require each team to keep up with their own information and have it readily available for inspection if requested.  This method typically puts the coaches in a difficult situation – do you ask to see birth certificates and weights and risk offending your counterpart by insinuating that he is cheating?  My recommendation is for leagues to keep the information on file, then do periodic checks at random during the season.  With league officials conducting the checks, it takes the coaches completely out of the equation.

Player safety is the top priority for our youth football organization.  It is critical to us that we put our kids in the safest situation possible.  There are different aspects to player safety that I will look at in future blogs, including coach training, player training, equipment, and league rules.