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Two-A-Days: Are You Ready For Some Football?


Mid-August in Texas can only mean one thing: it is time for football season, finally!

Before we can start school and focus on the upcoming schedule, we tune up with "two-a-days."  In its purest form, that means teams practice in the early morning, take a break, and come back in the evening for a second practice, thus avoiding practice during the hottest part of the day. Football player hydrating

A Texas mom of two teenagers - a son in his first year of middle school football and a daughter on the high school drill team - slogs through an  endless series of two-a-days in preparation for another year of school and sports.

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This week's announcement that USA Swimming has commissioned an "independent review" of its safe sport program is just the latest in a series of chess moves by this U.S. Olympic Committee national governing body in the run-up to a meeting next week with the staff of Congressman George Miller, the California Democrat and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce who is investigating how the organization responds to sexual abuse allegations.

Middle School Headgear Mandate For Soccer, Lacrosse, and Field Hockey Came As Surprise

The recent move by the Princeton (NJ) school district to require headgear for all middle-school soccer, field hockey and lacrosse players has generated controversy. MomsTEAM's sports concussion neuropsychologists has concerns about the effectiveness of such headgear and says the focus needs to be on education, training, rules enforcement, and hiring more athletic trainers.

Changes in Substitution Procedures, Blindside Hit Penalties Highlight High School Boys Lacrosse Rules Changes

Major changes in substitution procedures in high school boys lacrosse will take effect with the 2014 season. Along with clarifying definition of illegal blindside hits, 19 rules changes were approved by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Boys Lacrosse Rules Committee at its July 16-18 meeting in Indianapolis.

NOCSAE and Helmet Sensors: An Ounce Of Prevention

There is still confusion about the recent position, or should I say positions, taken by NOCSAE over the past month, first deciding that the certification of any helmet with a third-party add-on would be viewed as automatically void, then, this past week, making a 180-degree U-turn and leaving it up to the helmet manufacturers to decide whether affixing impact sensors to the inside or outside of a helmet voided the certification.  Unless you read my article on NOCSAE's original decision and Lindsay Barton's this past week on its clarification, and perhaps even if you did, you are probably scratching your head and wondering what the heck is going on!

Well, I am scratching my head, too.

With all the controversy surrounding NOCSAE's recent rulings on the effect of third-party add-ons on helmet certification, what Brooke de Lench and others are wondering is why NOCSAE isn't asking the helmet manufacturers to explain to them and the rest of us how a 2-ounce piece of plastic stuck to a 4+ pound football helmet has them so worried?  Whether the NOCSAE rulings were intended to put the brakes on the market for helmet sensors to give the helmet manufacturers time to catch up, it is hard to see how it won't have exactly that effect, she says.

PBS Premieres "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer" August 14th & 20th, 2013

The Brooke de Lench documentary, "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer," will have its world television broadcast premiere on the Oklahoma Educational Television Association (OETA)(PBS) on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 10:00 p.m. CDT.

Impact Sensors: Brain Sentry

Brain Sentry was founded by a team of award-winning product developers with backgrounds in aerospace, medical products and sports.The result of Brain Sentry's efforts has been the development of an innovative helmet-mounted device that alerts when an athlete suffers a potentially dangerous impact. We help coaches, parents and safety monitors identify players that should be evaluated for a concussion.

Concussions in Cheerleading Happen, Too

William P. Meehan, III, M.D., Director of the Sports Concussion Clinic and the Micheli Center for Sports Injury Prevention in the Division of Sports Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston, explains how today's cheerleaders have a higher risk of concussions during practice, which is unusual, and recommends that athletes engaged in competitive cheer undergo baseline neurocognitive testing every year.

 

NOCSAE Voiding of Certification For Sensor-Equipped Helmets: A Big Blow To Player Safety

Last week many of the technology manufacturers who have been working diligently to produce products to make helmeted sports such as football safer were dealt a severe, if not crippling, blow by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) when, out of the blue, it decided to view modification of helmets with third-party after-market add-ons as voiding its certification, which could only be regained if the helmet is retested with the add-on. Newcastle Racers wearing three different football helmets

Brooke de Lench believes that the new NOCSAE ruling voiding the certification for sensor-equipped helmets could not have come at a worse time, just as football - from the youth level to the NFL - is gearing up for the 2012 season. If not reversed or modified, de Lench fears that it will have harsh real-world consequences; not just on sensor manufacturers but on player safety and consumer choice.

Underreporting of Concussion By High School Athletes Continues Despite Increased Education

As many as four out of ten of possible concussions sustained by high school athletes are never reported to a coach or medical professional, with less than one in seven  'bell-ringers' being reported, finds an important new study.
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