Football safety

[hurricane 09]

Just been reading on the 5A bulletin board posts about football and other sports being year round now and that everybody specializes because of that. I moved here from Texas a few years back to play my senior year of football. The fact that summer practices were supervised and pretty much mandatory was a real culture shock. In Texas you're allowed to workout in the school weight room but nothing can be structured. Another post on the 5A bulletin board was about practicing for 3 hours in 100+ degree heat in the summer. We were not allowed to start practice until 4 weeks prior to the first game. Yes it was hot, but we weren't out there all summer. But the thing that really concerns me the most is the pad camps that go on all summer long. The pad camps are for shoulder pads and helmets only and tacklers are supposed to "wrap up" and not take anyone to the ground. If you've ever seen a pad camp, the ball carrier, at the very least, is on the ground on almost every play. CTE is in the news all the time now. What most people don't understand about CTE is that it is not caused by the knockout hit but by long term contact to the head (www.bu.edu/cte/about). With two months of chronic hits to the head in pad camp, leading straight into a four month season, this could, by definition, lead to CTE. The problem with that? There are numerous famous examples of suicides, not to mention cases in athletes that never played past college or even high school of early dementia, depression, or spontaneous aggression just to name a few. In Texas pad camps are not allowed. Even in 7 on 7 competition, coaches can't coach, they can only watch and these can't be required. Despite all these restrictions, Texas seems to produce pretty good high school football. No coach is allowed to practice football during the summer which allows athletes to get away from the sport and be a kid in the summer and avoids June and July practices in 100+ degree heat. But most importantly, it gets kids away from constant, repetitive hits during those same two months. Texas high school kids are not allowed to start bumping heads until three weeks to the day before the first game. Too bad the AAA doesn't have the backbone of its Texas counterpart, the UIL. If it did, it would put an end to all this and protect the Arkansas coaches from themselves. More importantly, it would protect the brains of Arkansas high school football players.

[Coach DePriest, Sheridan]

I hear your concerns and I think you bring up some very important points.  As football coaches, we need to be proactive in finding ways to protect our kids and make the game safer.  I think the validity of your point could be confirmed or refuted  with some concussion studies comparing high school football players from states with rules like Arkansas and ones with rules like Texas. 

I'm not sure if you know it or not since you've been out a few years, but I believe it was two years ago that the AAA enacted some pretty strict rules abolishing consecutive full contact days.  I think concussion statistics before that rule vs after that rule would also be interesting.

[ricepig]

I hear your concerns and I think you bring up some very important points.  As football coaches, we need to be proactive in finding ways to protect our kids and make the game safer.  I think the validity of your point could be confirmed or refuted  with some concussion studies comparing high school football players from states with rules like Arkansas and ones with rules like Texas. 

I'm not sure if you know it or not since you've been out a few years, but I believe it was two years ago that the AAA enacted some pretty strict rules abolishing consecutive full contact days.  I think concussion statistics before that rule vs after that rule would also be interesting.

Yeah, no doubt. I know they are allowed only a couple of days a week for full pads, and then the game day. Most schools have full contact one day a week these days. Monday is film/JV games, Tuesday full pads, Wednesday shells, and Thursday shorts. The kids playing JV get more pad work than the varsity. If there's not a JV game, then it's usually just film and at most, a walk through on that weeks opponent.

The work in the summer basically makes fall practice just a continuation of practice, no "whipping them into shape" camp.

[Coach DePriest, Sheridan]

Actually, Monday counts as a full contact day because of the JV game, so Wednesday is your only possible full contact day.

[hurricane 09]

I hear your concerns and I think you bring up some very important points.  As football coaches, we need to be proactive in finding ways to protect our kids and make the game safer.  I think the validity of your point could be confirmed or refuted  with some concussion studies comparing high school football players from states with rules like Arkansas and ones with rules like Texas. 

I'm not sure if you know it or not since you've been out a few years, but I believe it was two years ago that the AAA enacted some pretty strict rules abolishing consecutive full contact days.  I think concussion statistics before that rule vs after that rule would also be interesting.

I'm really glad to get a reply from a coach. In Arkansas it will really be up to you and your colleagues that share your concern, and mine as well, to pressure the AAA to continue to make the game safer for the kids in our state. One thing people don't realize about CTE is that it can develop without the victim ever suffering a concussion. A study by Boston University confirmed that CTE can be caused by "subconcussive hits to the head that do not cause symptoms." Mike Webster, center for the Pittsburgh Steelers, is the poster boy for CTE. I'm sure he suffered some concussions, but his tragic life was cut short by the constant snap BAM, snap BAM, (chronic), blows to the head (traumatic) that causes brain disease (encephalopathy). I'm not sure there is any data in Texas or Arkansas that takes into account how many times a player bumps his head physically into another player or has his own head thumped by another player. The fewer times that is allowed to happen, the safer the game becomes. I applaud the AAA for the recent rules they have enacted concerning practice in full pads. However, as we all know, those practices in shells still result in the thump of headgear. My real hope is that you, and like-minded people in your position, start to lead the discussion that head injuries can be and are caused by hits to the head that DO NOT cause concussions. In my opinion, eliminating pad camps and all those hits to the head all summer long would be the best place to start to make the game safer for kids in Arkansas and other states that allow that kind of activity.