Brooke de Lench's blog

Add North Carolina to the growing list of states that is getting serious about high school sports safety.

During the past school year, five North Carolina student-athletes died, including football players Matt Gfeller, Atlas Fraley, and Jaquan Waller (the last from second impact syndrome), and two basketball players.

In the wake of the deaths, the state is taking four important steps to improve the safety of high school sports.

The tragic death last week of actress Natasha Richardson after hitting her head during a ski lesson at a resort in Canada has been widely - and my opinion, correctly - viewed as a cautionary tale about the risks of participating in winter sports, the need for participants to wear helmets and to take even the most seemingly minor head injuries seriously.

Every once in a while a news item comes across my desk that deserves a special shout-out.  Such was the case today. 

My first-born son, Taylor (granted, he is only older than his two triplet brothers by a minute!), has taken up a new sport: Ice climbing. He loves it, but I have to say I am less than thrilled. Should I worry?

I am often asked by safety-conscious parents for advice on how to be less nervous watching their children play sports. The questions come from first-time sports dads watching their children play sports against bigger kids to moms who admit to biting their nails during their sons' wrestling matches and football games.

The admission by New York Yankee superstar Alex Rodriguez that he used performance enhancing drugs from 2001 to 2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers is just the latest in a sorry stream of admissions about the use of steroids by current and former Major League Baseball players.  President Obama said Rodriquez's confession to ESPN's Peter Gammons "tarnishes an entire era to some degree."  He re-stated the obvious when he said  that drugs use by sports stars "sent the wrong message to the nation's youth."