Hall of Fame Heritage
April 29, 2014
Here are two little known facts. The chair of the first-ever high school level swimming & diving rules committee was Allen W. Bush, the MHSAA’s second full-time executive director. And yours truly, the MHSAA’s fourth full-time executive director, was the editor of the committee’s first rule book published by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
This connection to the sport of swimming & diving early in my career has caused me to keep track of some of the sport’s key personnel, including Dave Robertson (IL), Dennis McGinly (PA), Dick Hannula (WA) and Glenn Kaye (FL) who all served on the first NFHS committee and are now in the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association (NISCA) Hall of Fame.
Last month in Austin, Texas, NISCA inducted Ann Arbor-Pioneer’s legendary coach Dennis Hill into its Hall of Fame. Dennis coached boys swimming & diving for 45 years and girls swimming & diving for 38 years at Pioneer. He did so with both grace and great success, and it saddens me to learn that this gentleman has announced his well-deserved retirement.
Dennis was preceded into NISCA’s Hall of Fame by Michigan coaches G. Robert Mowerson (1975-Battle Creek), Willard Cooley (1980-Jackson), C. William Brandell (1984-Battle Creek-Lakeview), William Reaume (1988-Detroit-Denby), William Laury (1989-Detroit-Cody), Michael Lane (1998-Bloomfield Hills-Andover), and Richard Edwards (2010-Lansing-Eastern).
It’s people like these who have made and maintained Michigan’s excellent reputation among school-based swimming & diving programs across the US, overcoming the early efforts of the first wet-behind-the-ears rule book editor.
Girls, Boys and Concussions
September 13, 2016
On Monday the Michigan High School Athletic Association announced the major findings from the first year that member high schools were required to report all suspected concussions in the practices and competitions conducted in the 28 sports served by the MHSAA.
It surprises no one that 11-player and 8-player football ranked first and third, with 49 and 34 head injuries per thousand participants, respectively.
And while I’m told it’s not surprising to the experts that girls report more head injuries than boys, it is stunning to me how very many more head injuries are reported for girls than boys.
In sports with identical playing rules, girls reported head injuries with approximately twice the frequency that boys did.
In soccer, girls reported 30 head injuries per 1,000 participants, compared to 18 per 1,000 for boys.
In basketball, girls reported 29 head injuries per 1,000 participants, compared to only 11 per 1,000 for boys.
Girls reported concussions at the rate of 11 per 1,000 participants in softball, while boys reported just 4 per 1,000 in baseball.
Only a small percentage of either girls or boys were cleared by licensed medical personnel to return to activity in less than six days, and more than half were withheld between six and 15 days in soccer and basketball. The data suggests that clearance for girls to be returned to activity was slightly more gradual than it was for boys.
Researchers and reporters may find dozens of other observations and curiosities from the summary of 4,452 confirmed head injury reports submitted by the MHSAA’s 755 member high schools for MHSAA-supported sports in 2015-16; but what has the MHSAA’s attention is this giant gender difference.
Is this gender difference accurate, and if so, what are the physiological factors involved that make it so?
Is there a tendency for over-reporting by females, or under-reporting by males, and if so, what are the social and/or psychological factors that may cause this?
Regardless, what does this mean for how coaches work with boys and girls; and what does that mean for how we prepare coaches through the MHSAA Coaches Advancement Program?
The MHSAA will take to an even deeper level its nearly 30-year partnership with the Institute for the Study of Youth Sports at Michigan State University to explore the issues related to coaches education that have emerged as a result of the first year of mandated concussion reporting for Michigan high schools.
The 2015-16 school year was only a start; it identified some initial themes. The more important value will be realized after the 2016-17 school year, and subsequent school years, when year-over-year comparisons will be made and trends will become apparent that will demand action to further promote the welfare of participants in school-sponsored sports.