Early Results
May 17, 2016
On May 3 we released a preliminary summation of results of winter season concussions reported by Michigan High School Athletic Association member schools. It was reported that 48 percent of the concussions reported were to female athletes, who make up only 38 percent of all winter season participants.
We will be digging deeper into the reports and providing a more comprehensive summary for all three seasons – fall, winter and spring; but we already see one suspected theme is being confirmed: more concussions reported for girls than for boys.
Even though girls’ participation in basketball is 36 percent lower than boys in MHSAA member high schools, there were 88 percent more concussions reported for girls than boys in that sport this past season.
We hope that researchers will step forward to inquire into the physiological, psychological, social and other reasons for the significant disparity in concussions reported by males and females; and perhaps they will be able to suggest what administrators, coaches, rule-makers and others might do in response to that research.
We expect that other themes suggested by the data from this first-year reporting requirement and then year-over-year comparisons will create interest in other research, all of which will help make school sports an even healthier experience for boys and girls than it already is.
Our Own Worst Enemies
September 26, 2017
The early history of school sports was in four phases. It began as activities that students alone would organize. Then schools saw the need to supervise. Then schools created statewide high school athletic associations to standardize. Then a national federation of those state associations brought an end to corporate and college efforts to nationalize school sports. All of this between the U.S. Civil War and World War II.
The entire history of school sports has had one overriding narrative. Inherent in the struggles that defined each phase of the early history, and every decade since, has been the struggle between those who believe competitive athletics is an asset for schools intent on educating students in body, mind and spirit, versus those who believe interscholastic athletic programs are a distraction at best and, at worst, damaging to the character development of students. There is much evidence to support both sides of this long debate.
Sometimes, the advocates for school-sponsored sports have been, and are, their own worst enemies. What the advocates of school sports must realize is that the more they do to enlarge the scope of school sports ... more games, longer seasons, further travel, escalating hype ... the more they prove that the opponents of school sports have been correct.
As they encourage the chasm between athletics and academics and between school sports' haves and have-nots to widen; as sports teams are outfitted in uniforms that are fancier and funded for travel that is further, while classroom resources are fewer; as sportsmanship declines and athletic transfers increase; the so-called “progressive” thinkers help make the case that competitive athletics is bad for students, schools and society.
Opposition to escalation in school sports is not old fashioned; it's the only way to assure the future of sports in schools ... the only way to save school sports from itself.