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Dangerous Plays

February 26, 2013

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The MHSAA’s fourth health and safety thrust for the next four years focuses on competition rules.  It intends to locate the most dangerous plays in each sport and to try to reduce their frequency.  For example:

  • We know that kickoff returns, punt returns and interception returns – plays in the open field with a change in direction – are the most dangerous football game situations.

  • We know that heading the ball in soccer is injurious, especially to younger athletes, and especially to females.

  •  We know that checking from behind is a cause of serious injury in ice hockey.

  • We wonder if protective headgear has a place in soccer, or if protective head and face protection has a future role in softball.

  • We know that ACL injuries in female basketball players and volleyball players is near epidemic and wonder if there is equipment or conditioning that can be mandated or recommended to save our players from what are serious and sometimes career-ending injuries.

We can make changes ourselves – through MHSAA sport committees – for the subvarsity level, but our committees can only make recommendations to national rules committees for varsity level play.  Over the next four years, we will be asking our sport committees to give more time to the most dangerous plays in their sport – identifying what they are and proposing how to reduce that danger.

Reunion Reflections

July 23, 2015

Summer is a popular time for high school reunions, and those reunions are a popular time for reliving the accomplishments of high school sports teams of many years ago. Because I played on a winless football team during my junior year of high school, I don’t always take pleasure in such conversations.
However, I have the greatest discomfort when I sense that those reveling in past glory may have peaked in high school. There can be nothing worse, for them or for society.
While on-the-field or court exploits may become exaggerated over time, we may underestimate the intangible benefits that high school sports participation has provided.
Last month the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies published new research that links varsity high school athletic participation to future leadership. It suggests that such participation may (it’s not certain) nurture adults who have more self-confidence and self-respect, which are (certainly) linked to leadership.
The research also suggests a link to improved work habits as an employee and to greater philanthropy.
The researcher is Kevin Kniffin of Cornell University who continues to contribute plain talk and practical ideas to the role of extracurricular activities in secondary school education.
This type of research, and the tsunami of F-1 and J-1 visa students from Asian countries for the well-rounded “western” style education, should add to the dissuasion of those who suggest we jettison these “distractions” from junior high/middle schools and high schools.
While some “high school heroes” never were as great as they now think they were, the programs they engaged in may be even greater.