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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Bigger and Better but at what cost?

We are told that football is more than what we know it here in New England down in the Southern states. After watching this video, it certainly shed some light on that fact for me even more. As the video states, many high school football programs are run just like a collegiate program. They are super stars and the pressure is immense. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/football-high/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid

Although this specifically is about football, we all know youth sports has exploded and it is certainly not what it was years ago. And that pertains to all sports- both female and male sports. I know it is long but anyone in sports- coach, parent, athlete, athletic director, support staff, athletic trainer, EMT, the list goes on and on- should watch this. We live in a state where athletic trainers are in many if not most schools in some sort of manner.  We are lucky as many states and rural towns don’t and student athletes suffer the consequences- in fact Arkansas has athletic trainers in only 15% of it's high schools. 

I can remember doing a field hockey camp- it was between 5 and 7 pm and it was high school girls. We were in day 2 of a heat streak and the temperature was still approximately 95 degrees at 6pm and very humid and I made the decision that goalies were not to wear pads and that they had to alter the game to field play only with open net. This was a JV league and it was only 1/2 field. I had a parent who became irrate at my decision and told me that my decision was foolish and that her daughter had to learn how to play in those conditions. To this day, I certainly do not regret that decision. I only hope Mom looked back and realized what the consequences could have been.

I unfortunately have had to experience an athlete with heat stroke here at BSU, a very scary condition, one I will never forget.

I was also lucky enough to work in two very successful high school football programs with outstanding coaches- Mansfield High School and Foxboro High School- both having a lot of respect for me and taking into consideration my recommendations. As a matter of fact- at Foxboro the team would not practice unless an athletic trainer or medical staff such as an EMT was present at the school.

Like I said, it is long. Take a few  minutes and watch bits of it over the next few days- and more importantly- pass it along to those who need to know!

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