"I spend more time on health and safety than any other issue."
~~ Roger Goodell, National Football League Commissioner
Last week I attended a luncheon in New York City hosted by the National Football League and its youth football partner, USA Football. In Part Two of my "Summer of Football" blog series, I will focus on some of the important information I took away from the luncheon.
Much of what the speakers told the gathering of thirty or so journalists, bloggers, and experts, including a lot of what they said parents needed to know about concussions and football safety, is advice that MomsTEAM has been giving parents for years, including:
So what really stuck with me more than anything was the statement by Roger Goodell that he spent more time on health and safety than any other issue. While I shouldn't have been surprised at his admission, given the lawsuits that have been filed against the league by former players, and the efforts by N.F.L. to protect the safety of current players, what impressed me the most was what the league and USA Football have done and were doing to improve health and safety of all who play football, from the pros down to the youth level, which fall into 6 general categories:
- NFL Play It Safe! (educational books and posters about strength conditioning, first aid, nutrition, and psychological health which were distributed to 15,000 high school football programs and more than 10,000 youth football organizations across the country, and available on the USA Football Website;
- ATLAS and ATHENA: $2.6 million to Oregon Health & Science University's nationally-acclaimed Athletes Training & Learning to Avoid Steroids (ATLAS [13]) and Athletes Targeting Healthy Exercise & Nutrition Alternatives (ATHENA [14]) programs to promote healthy living and reduce the use of steroids, human growth hormone and other drugs among high school athletes, which have reached more than 30,000 high school students and 800 coaches;
- Gatorade and Heat and Hydration Safety: N.F.L. support for Gatorade's development of a heat safety kit and Beat the Heat Campaign to educate athletes, parents and coaches about proper hydration in sports;
- NFL PLAY 60: launched by the N.F.L. in 2007, the program tackles childhood obesity by encouraging kids to be physically active for at least 60 minutes a day. The league has since joined forces with partners such as the American Heart Association, KaBOOM!, National Dairy Council and United Way to create school programs and build new places for kids to be active, and is collaborating with First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move Campaign.
Clearly, no matter what you may think about what the league has done, or not done, in the past about health and safety, these initiatives deserve praise.
In Part Three, I will focus on where we have come on football safety, where we are, and where we are headed, discuss the results of MomsTEAM's poll of football parents (over 264 responses so far!), the N.F.L.'s responses to a series of questions that I had hoped to but was unable to ask last week at the luncheon in New York City, and suggest some new safety initiatives the league might consider for the future.
For Part One in this blog series, click here [15].
Links:
[1] https://momsteam.com/node/149
[2] https://momsteam.com/node/2987
[3] https://momsteam.com/node/4427
[4] https://momsteam.com/node/5151
[5] https://momsteam.com/node/3929
[6] https://momsteam.com/node/3924
[7] https://momsteam.com/node/2941
[8] https://momsteam.com/node/1452
[9] https://momsteam.com/node/432
[10] https://momsteam.com/node/1251
[11] https://momsteam.com/node/3015
[12] https://momsteam.com/node/4839
[13] http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/departments/clinical-departments/medicine/divisions/hpsm/research/atlas.cfm?WT_rank=1
[14] http://www.ohsu.edu/xd/education/schools/school-of-medicine/departments/clinical-departments/medicine/divisions/hpsm/research/athena.cfm?WT_rank=1
[15] https://momsteam.com/node/5166